Fan mail

Dear Chuck Brown,
In anticipation of my eighteenth birthday this coming week I stumbled upon your article about teenage satisfaction. I found the article to be quite offensive and very misinformed.
As a teenager from Ontario living on my own in New Brunswick for the summer I have many responsibilities to tend to. From working, to paying rent, to paying my phone bill as well as buying groceries and necessities I am a very active member of society.
During the school year most of the teens I know are hard-pressed juggling schoolwork, homework, a part time job, a social life and in several cases a car of their own. I'd also like to address your "FOR PARENTS.../FOR TEENS..." section of the article. In some cases parents actually don't allow their teen to get a job because they fear it will affect their focus on school and the future. For teens unemployment is no reason to party, how could one afford alcohol, or drugs or the cover charge at their favourite band's concerts with no money to do so? For teens university is also a large financial burden and no joke as most of us will be getting a student loan and aren't reliant on our parents to pay our way through. As a teen I have lots to worry about, but it is all worth is because I can take a step back and see how much I and my fellow teenagers have matured and progressed through the years on our way to adulthood.
At 11 pm when when I'm off a long night at work, I chug a Red Bull, even though it tastes like crap, so that i can stay up and finish my fifteen page essay due the next morning. When i am done that and I can finally curl up under the sheets, I recap my day and I can smile, because I have a satisfying life, and I'm loving every moment of it.

Mitch Kacprzak

And here is the offending column...


Canadian teens can get satisfaction, survey says

Chuck Brown
Out There

Canadians are a happy, satisfied people and the happiest among us, enjoying the highest quality or life and the lowest levels of stress are, according to Statistics Canada, my dogs. Really, they don’t have a care in the world. No taxes, no bills. All they really have to do is lick stuff and try very hard to remember a few basic etiquette rules, mostly surrounding when and where it is appropriate to go potty.
My dogs are followed closely on the satisfaction metre by teenagers, who have basically the same responsibilities as my dogs, except that teenagers are also asked, occasionally, to make their bed. They politely decline by saying something diplomatic like, “Yeah whatever.”
Yes in a recent survey, Canadians aged 12-to-19 reported the highest rate of life satisfaction. Ranking much lower are 35-to-54-year-old Canadians. An uninformed, cynical, cursory explanation of these results might be that the 35-to-54-year-olds are less satisfied with their lives because they work long hours in jobs they never imagined themselves doing, spending most of what should be the best years of their lives being drained of their spirit and creativity because they can’t afford to pursue a career they might actually find rewarding because they have mortgage payments to meet, bills to pay and, of course, teenagers. The 35-to-54-year-olds, an outsider with no real knowledge of the intricacies of this survey might deduce, probably come home from an average work day exhausted and find their 12-to-19-year-old kids kicked back on the couch watching TV while also texting, Facebooking or playing Nintendo DS, lifting their heads just long enough to ask, “What’s for dinner?”
The answer, no matter what it is, will be met with, “Awww. That sucks.”
Someone who hasn’t really studied this survey might think that after dinner the average 35-to-54-year-old must either chauffeur a 12-to-19-year-old or two around town for various sporting or social activities before returning home to quickly clean up the dinner mess before heading back out to collect those 12-to-19-year-olds and bring them home for the nightly fight over bed time. This fight starts at birth and ends when the teenager starts staying up later than the 35-to-54-year-old and decides on his or her own bedtime.
The average 35-to-54-year-old can’t really understand why bed time is even an issue as he loves to collapse under the sheets and turn on his favourite TV show, at least he thinks it’s his favourite but he’s not sure because he’s usually asleep before the opening credits are over while the 12-to-19-year-olds of the house stay awake well into the night chatting with friends on their laptops or playing some really cool online multi-person role playing game due to the fact they drink Monster or Amp or Red Bull or some other energy drink that the 35-to-54-year-olds avoid due to the fact they taste like carbonated anti-freeze with a hint of citrus.
Yes these are just a few totally uninformed observations as to why teens might find life more satisfying than their parents. But there are other, more scientific reasons.
FOR PARENTS… unemployment is one of the most frightening prospects imaginable.
FOR TEENS … unemployment is a great reason to party, right up there with breaking off a relationship, getting suspended from school and, “it’s Tuesday.”

FOR PARENTS… a car is expensive to buy, maintain, insure and fill with fuel.
FOR TEENS… a car is unfairly only available when mom or dad don’t have it for their stupid jobs.

FOR PARENTS… university is a major financial burden but one they are willing to tackle for the betterment of their children.
FOR TEENS… university is well worth the price because it offers a chance to experiment with many things… and we’re not just talking about broomball.

FOR PARENTS… this will all be worthwhile when they see their former teens graduate, land a job, move out and, most importantly from a revenge standpoint, have kids of their own.
FOR TEENS… Yeah. Whatever.