American teens are really unhappy. They report experiencing as much or more stress than adults, while feeling less supported at home. So, where did the happy childhood go? Was it just a myth? Or is the new American Dream partially to blame for its demise?
The American Dream of more recent history looks a lot different than it does today. Teens of yore dreamed of fighting for their country, getting married, owning a home, raising a family. "Why did you marry Grandma?" I asked my grandfather once. "Because she was pretty," was his reply. They were happily married for over 50 years. Sounds a lot simpler than what teens today are being sold as happiness.
Fame, money, and the acquisition of material goods have become the new American Dream -- and harbingers of happiness -- thanks to reality TV shows like Keeping Up With The Kardashians. I'm not joining the leagues of Kardashian bashers -- I'm kind of mesmerized by them -- but where we once welcomed the Cleaver, Petrie, and Huxtable families into our living rooms, we now invite reality show families of enormous wealth, decadent lifestyles, and, perhaps most importantly, what appears to be fame for fame's sake.
And the fame's sake piece sends a skewed message to the millions of teens who drink up the lives of these reality TV celebs like, well, their ilk at an open-bar wedding. When you stop to think about it, there's nothing inherently wrong with the Kardashians' way of life -- they're just reaping and enjoying the rewards of their fame. Good on them. But "keeping up" with them is a whole other story.
While I'm sure it's not their intention, they've set the bar pretty darn high for teens and (also reportedly unhappy) young adults. They build and live in mansions. They rent waterfront homes all over the world. They spend more on weddings than many spend in a lifetime of living. They marry (and divorce) fellow celebrities with seeming ease. But, of course, viewers only get to see the good stuff, the enviable stuff, the stuff that makes us go, "Hmmmm..."
Despite the businesses they've parlayed from their exposure, the Kardashians are mostly famous for being famous. It doesn't hurt that one is more beautiful than the next. And it certainly helps to have a matriarch at their helm who is one helluva go-getter, and a dad/stepdad who was famous long before declaring his new moniker.
But, if they can seemingly have it all, why can't you, I, or anyone else bold enough to claim their stake on the worldwide stage? YouTube has helped catapult everyday folks (hello, Justin Bieber) into wild fame and fortune for having the cojones to peddle their talents there. Good on them, too.
But scant few of us will ever achieve the fame or lifestyle of families like the Kardashian-Jenners. And, as adults, we know that. But do our teens? Do they glance around at their modest homes and hardworking parents and wonder how on earth they ended up in such a regular existence when they could have been born into a kingdom à la the famous K-J's?
Do they look at the media-spun personal lives of successful musicians and professional athletes and see no reason they shouldn't have a piece of that, too? In 1985, Dire Straits released a song called "Money for Nothing." The lyrics gave voice to a working class guy's reaction to watching a rock band in a music video: That ain't workin' that's the way you do it. Money for nothin' and your chicks for free. Thirty years later, reality TV audiences have taken up that call to arms in ways Mark Knopfler could never have predicted. Either that, or he's a visionary.
Teens may drool over the glamorous life of Kylie Jenner who, at 17, has injected her lips with fillers, is featured on magazine covers, and is exhaustively interviewed by any number of media outlets. What they don't see is the privacy she's sacrificed, the pressure she's under to look picture perfect at every turn, the offering of her one and only adolescence to the Altar of Public Adoration (or Ridicule, as the case may be). But here's what could be said for any reality TV star, famous musician, movie star, or professional athlete: They. Work. Hard. And that's the part our unhappy teens might not be grasping.
Comedian Kevin Hart addresses this issue in his Twitter profile: "My name is Kevin Hart and I WORK HARD!!! That pretty much sums me up!!! Everybody Wants To Be Famous But Nobody Wants To Do The Work." Because the American Dream -- no matter how we choose to define it -- will now and forevermore require hard work. There are many concerning reasons why our younger generations are unhappy, but a little dash of reality to go along with their reality TV diet could go a long way in mitigating that.