There are those who view this prospect with alarm for they fear that civilization， as we know it， will be swept away by juveniles - if not entirely delinquent， then at least objectionable. Others， who have a hand in the teenager，s pocket， consider the explosionexplosion n.爆发， 发出， 爆炸， ［矿］煤气爆炸 the best sort of news. It seems to me unlikely that civilization is doomed， at least not by teenagers， and I would like to suggest that if we want to know what the teenagers will do to us， we should look at ourselves.
In all the brouhaha about teenagers we are inclined to forget， it seems to me， that they are primarilyprimarily adv.首先， 起初， 主要地， 根本上 reflections of us， our foibles and fumblings and aspirations， our fears and frustrationsfrustration n.挫败， 挫折， 受挫， our hopes and our beliefs. They are， in effect， a magnifying mirror of their elders - like a shaving mirror in which our eyes seem to bulge， our pores to be extinct volcanoes， and our eyebrows thickets of thistles.
Consider their rebellious natures. Of a New York Times Youth Forum last year it was reported：“ A group of high school students said that teenagers were increasingly rebelliousrebellious adj.造反的， 反叛的， 反抗的， 难于对付的 toward authority - especially parentalparental adj.父母亲的， 做双亲的authority. And the tension behind teenagers， attitudes comes from a lack of close understanding with their parents.” The students also blamed this rebelliousness on “the terrible age we live in” and the “looseness of family ties.”
This is where we come in. These are not things the teenagers thought up for themselves； they are ideas that have been impressed on them by the rest of us. We have drummed into their heads their “need to be understood，” and they would be less than human not to use this readymade excuse as an escape hatch for their natural high spirits.
A few years ago two revealing studies of teenagers appeared， one of them something of a shocker， the other reassuring. They both throw some light on ourselves. The first was a book called The American Teenager， a summary for the general reader of the findings of a fifteenyear investigationinvestigation n.调查， 研究 of teenagers made at Purdue University under the direction of Dr. H. H. Remmers. The second was called Adolescent Girls and was a study made for the Girl Scouts by the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan.
From The American Teenager one gets superficial impression that our youngsters are monsters. （One also gets this impression from the newspaper， of course.） Teenagers believe， the book says， in wiretapping， in search without warrant， in “censorshipcensorship n.审查机构， 审查制度 of books， newspaper， magazines and other media as protection of the public against improper ideas.” Furthermore， they believe that “most people aren，t capable of deciding what，s best for themselves.” And they “see no harm in the third degree.” Not all of them， to be sure， but a good many， more than half of them.
I find this rather chilling， less because of what it says about the teenagers than what it says about their parents. But the Girl Scouts，report takes a somewhat more optimistic view.
Their study found that by the large the youngsters of this era are “conservative.” Far from being rebellious， the study exposed them as idealistic and practical， more eager than their mothers had been for advanced education， but not， in general， wanting to be highpowered executives or movie stars. Fewer than a fifth of them had a good thing to say for “going steady.” In many respects they are more independent than their mothers were at the same age. They have weekly allowances that give them more freedom to choose their fun； they have parttime jobs， and they play a larger role in making family plans. The attitude of the family has come a long way since the “children should be seen and not heard” era. No one would now say， as my wife，s grandmother used to， that there was nothing to do with children but “put them in a barrel and feed them through the bungholebunghole n.桶孔 until they，re 21.”
Somewhere along the line we stopped thinking of teenagers as just young people in transition between childhood and the state of being “grownup”， and we began to regard them as a minority pressure group in our society. We now look on them not as just “kids”， as we used to， but as a subculture with a powerful effect on the culture as a whole.
You will look in vain （or at least I have looked in vain） for references to “teenagers” in the literature of my parents，day. You will find “youngsters” and “schoolboys” and “schoolgirls”， but you will not find teenagersteenager n.十几岁的青少年 as a group， treated as though they were something between menaces and the hope of the world， a class by themselves， a threat to adult sanity.
The change came during and after the second World War， the result of the dislocation of families both physically and spirituallyspiritually adv.在精神上的. Children were asked to adjust to change rather than to continuity， to pulling up stakes rather than to putting down roots. They began to look more than ever to their contemporariescontemporary n.同时代的人 adj.当代的， 同时代的 for security， and they began to look for their own set of rules to live by. The practice of “going steady”， for example， was an attempt to establish formal relationships that promised some sort of continuity and sense of belonging to some one person.
The songs popular with youth， you may have noticed， belie the old Tin Pan Alley cliche that a hit can，t be made on the theme of married love. As Arnold Shaw has pointed out， “Honeycomb” and “Kisses Sweeter than Wine”， both songs of marriage， have been taken to the hearts of teenagers whose popular hits are “a growing literature of protest.” “Born Too Late，” they sing， and “Why Won，t They Understand？”
