Swiftdrawer's Thoughts

Undefined Status

Welcome, readers to another edition of whatever you want to call this. It's Dark Knight Swiftdrawer again. And today, I want to talk to you about undefined status in society. We need to talk about what that is and why it's important to talk about. As I begin writing this, I'm listening to video of the music from Space Mountain's queue at Walt Disney World which is actually perfect for it inspires me to make a very important point to start off with. For a better tomorrow, we need everyone to understand this concept of what undefined status is. I will be focusing on how it's applied to a very specific group of people as that's what I learn of it being attached to. When someone is born into society, they usually end up living long enough to hit puberty and that's when their status in society gets a bit wibbly wobbly and I don't mean in a good way. What happens is they gain an undefined status in society as they age into their mid to late teens especially and by teens, I mean up to age 17. Not up to 19 because of a reason I'll talk about in a bit.

So why in the universe do kids get that status? Well, it's because they usually get treated very strangely by society in an unacceptable and destructive way. What I mean is that they are expected to act like adults as they near that age while adults talk down on them and treat them as kids. This literally makes no sense from a logical perspective. Undefined status for these kids aka adolescents is a sociological term that also applies to people ages 18 and 19 which only makes this problem that much more annoying to me personally. I have been stunned upon realizing that the undefined status is even a thing and how it has driven social behavior for such a long time. By expecting adolescents to act like adults while treating them as kids, adults are basically engaging in a form of ageism. Ageism is the discrimination, mistreatment, and/or hatred towards someone based on their age. It is usually aimed towards teenagers and the elderly. From abandoning the elderly when they're in need to informally banning teenagers from social public spaces to the point they are stuck with being indoors.

Yes. Society has driven teenagers, aka most adolescents who have undefined statuses indoors because adults think teenagers are loud, annoying, and disruptive and instead of trying to teach teenagers to behave better, they punish them and drive them from public spaces. This cannot continue. I have a suspicion that in part because of all of this, someone has been knocking on doors in my neighborhood(on Earth in my original body in our world) and running away immediately in the dark up to as late as 11 pm for the past month. They knock so loud most of the time and my dad has said that "they have nothing better to do" with a sorta resigned tone of voice. I think that clearly highlights the giant issue that can be traced back to that undefined status very well. Society insists that not just teenagers but other people as well act all responsible and formal and yet treats people like utter crap anyway.

Obviously, what's going on is far more nuanced than I'm able to describe it but that undefined status is very clearly creating problems that don't need to exist. Did adults forget the golden rule or the virtue of patience or something? Seriously, they treat adolescents like kids yet expect the, to act like adults. That doesn't work. And the fact that they treat at least some 18 and 19 year olds who are legal adults in most countries that way as well makes this situation even more alarming. They don't take adolescents seriously, that's the impression I'm getting but actually, this is the reality for a lot of them. Let's remember that not all adults treat adolescents like this but enough do, to the point that it's both a social and societal problem. Adults are so quick to anger that instead of trying to listen to and help adolescents, they yell at them or worse.

Society has an emotional control problem too or else this wouldn't be happening as often. People are quick to confront people with anger when they're angry, causing them to be inconsiderate of the feelings of the other person(s), leading to a situation of social aggression, a term I learned from reading When Violence In The Answer by Tim Larkin. Social aggression is a situation usually where the aggressor doesn't want to hurt their target but still wants to give them a piece of their mind. So what should adults do when they see an adolescent doing something they don't approve of? Well, not treating them like a child to start off with. And of course, not being angry and yelling at the adolescent. Despite their anger, they need to try to communicate calmly and if the adolescent(s) annoying them won't listen, they still need to avoid yelling. Instead, they need to put on a calm expression and tap at least one of them on the shoulder should it be appropriate in this context.