What is a universal theme that all Teens through Time, all characters in YA Hisfic or YA Time Travel have in common?
“Issues” with their Parents.
That’s right. It doesn’t matter if we were born in medieval days, the Victorian era, or if we’re walking the earth today..There is something inside us all that–once we reach a certain age–makes us inherently want to rebel against the folks.
Things have changed over the years, believe it or not. Modern teens may think they have it rough. That they have little say in how they live their lives. But when we look at the kind of control parents once had over the lives of their young ones, kids today have it pretty easy.
Up until a relatively short time ago, parents made all life decisions for their children. Particularly their daughters. Sure, the sons may have been given freedom to take off on adventures. Go to University. Take fun vacations with their friends around the ‘continent.’ Boys could even decide to go to war–against the wishes of their parents–and their wasn’t much Mom and Dad could do about it.
For girls it was much different. Can you imagine? We of the X chromosome still had to OBEY. Totally and completely. From the time they we were born till the day our dads walked us down the aisle and “gave” us to another man, (sometimes against our wills) where we vowed to…you guessed it…OBEY him. (Who’s glad we removed that little clause out of modern wedding vows?)
*shudder* Can you imagine? Little to no freedom. Your entire life ruled by one man or another. It’s astonishing when you think about the fact that in the course of history, women have only gained a significant measure of freedom in the last century. And when I say ‘women,’ that freedom still didn’t apply to teenagers.
And maybe–in this day and age, and in most cases–that’s a good thing. For those of us who are “slightly” past the teenage years, we can look back on some of the decisions we wanted to make in those days and thank our lucky stars we had parents who said…. “NO WAY!”
Coming next week in Teens Through Time….BOYS.
