Article October 13, 1997 Issue

Standing up to teenager stereotypes

From a teenager

When I was on a bus coming back from Denver, a lady sitting in the front row said, "Oh, there's another teenager." I could hear her, so I read to myself from Science and Health what Mary Baker Eddy writes about man: "He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; the generic term for all that reflects God's image and likeness; the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from God..." (p. 475). And I sat in my seat thinking about that.

But then she came over to me and said, "You probably have low grades in school and commit crimes—and you probably killed my husband!" I was really surprised that someone would think that about me, and I said to her, "I couldn't harm a fly much less kill somebody—it is not me."

She walked back to her seat, and I prayed to myself: "I forgive those who forsake me." I also thought of the Ninth Commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour" (Ex. 20:16). It was hard not to feel treated unjustly. Yet I could see that the stereotype that all teenagers are criminals or materialistic, egotistical, or selfish is irrational. Just as irrational as the stereotype that all adults think this way about us.

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