By Kennedy, 16, junior
Growing up, my father wanted my younger sister and me to play a sport, so he put us in a soccer league. I loved it at first. As I got older, I found soccer to be more stressful than fun. I wanted to live up to my dad’s expectations but couldn’t always meet them. I wasn’t the fastest or the strongest. I often found myself on teams that weren’t the best. Being a perfectionist, the idea of losing wasn’t a good one.
Sometimes, I felt like I wasn’t good enough, and other times I felt that my dad was pushing me to the point that it was almost unbearable. Sports wasn’t fun for me anymore. Fitness wasn’t fun for me anymore. Eventually, my sister and I spoke up. We told dad that we weren’t enjoying ourselves and didn’t want to play soccer. It was hard for him to accept, but he seems at peace with our decision.
Now, I have found my passion in journalism. I’ve worked on multiple yearbooks and taken numerous journalism courses in middle school and high school. This summer, I’m enrolled in a journalism camp. My sister, Madison, likes to run and will compete in her first half-marathon this fall. She’s definitely making my father proud with her athletic drive.
Feeling pressure from parents is something that most kids experience, especially as a teenager. We eventually find things we like and stray from what our parents want us to do. Whether they’re pushing you to play piano, take a foreign language or dance, kids don’t always share the same passions as their elders. The solution? Take time to find your own interests.
Don’t waste time doing nothing. Speak up about what you enjoy and love. Work out some sort of compromise with your parents. Nothing will make them happier than when they realize their teenager is, indeed, filled with passion and dreams. After all, that’s probably what they’ve wanted for you since they stuck you in every extracurricular activity they could find.
This time of our life can often be very confusing, but the beauty of it is that we don’t have to be stuck doing something we don’t like. There’s plenty of time to figure out what really excites us.
We can inquire, imagine and discover. So, take lessons in photography, cooking and sailing. There’s a world of choices out there. Look at your newspaper, Google activities around you. As long as you’re doing something that you enjoy, that’s all that matters. Don’t let this summer go to waste.