We all know the stereotype: the typical teenagers who will never get along with their parents because of the all-too-obvious generation gap, and the parents who will never understand their rebellious children’s need to defy everything they say. The same situation is used repeatedly in movies, television, and music. Parents and teens do not get along with each other. End of story. But where does this stereotype come from? Is it actually true, or has popular culture skewed, or perhaps even shaped, our view of the parent-teen relationship?
            It is the beginning of the school year, and students are flooding into the band hall, getting ready for the jazz band’s first rehearsal. I am getting my trumpet out of my locker; everyone else is busy getting their instruments out as well. “Hey, mom, how do you want the chairs set up today?” I ask.
            The new kids in the band are frozen in surprise. Did I say what they thought they heard me say?
            “Jenna, you just called our teacher ‘mom,’” one of them ventures, whispering sheepishly. They can’t imagine the embarrassment that I’m surely feeling, especially as a senior in high school, at calling my teacher ‘mom.’ This is the kind of mistake that the kids in middle school make, and they usually pay the social price.
            “I’m well aware of what I called her; thanks for the tip, but she IS my mother. What else should I call her?”
            It happens every year. At least once during the first week of rehearsal, an underclassman will go wide-eyed at my label for our band director. Only after I point it out to them do they realize that McKown isn’t a very common last name. Did they think it was pure coincidence that our last names were the same?
            If the stereotype of parent-teenager relationships were true, I would not be able to survive a day with my mom as my teacher. Teenage girls are supposed to roll their eyes dramatically at everything their mothers say, never really listening to their advice, warnings, or suggestions. How would it work for a mother to be one of her daughter’s teachers as well? Impossible. It would be chaotic. Or at least that’s the message we get.
            Everywhere we look, there are portrayals of teens being independent, thinking for themselves, “sticking it to the man,” and generally making their own decisions. Somehow we’ve gotten it into our heads that we need to grow up twice as fast as our parents did, and that because we are growing up faster, our parents have no clue what we’re going through or how to handle it. Therefore they can’t give us advice. Their experiences don’t count for us because times have changed—a lot. We know what we’re doing just as well as they know, so what’s the difference whether we stay out all night or come home by ten-thirty? This is exactly the kind of thinking that is typical of the stereotypical teenager. So how would this independent-thinking teenager deal with a parent as a teacher? Well, I can imagine it would not be pleasant. But then again, not every teenager conforms to the stereotype.
            Teens are not the only ones labeled or defined by popular images. Parents, too, are expected to act a certain way towards their teens. Independence is countered with overbearing, overprotective attitudes. Parents don’t understand their teens, nor do they want to. Their only request is that their teens obey them, accept their words as fact, and respect them. Basically, they want to keep their kids from growing up. However, as much as they want them to stay their little kids forever, parents also want their teens to be responsible and mature in their decision-making.
            There are many good examples of this overbearing parent syndrome in the media, especially movies. In Father of the Bride, Steve Martin plays the father of a twenty-two-year-old woman who surprises her parents with the news of an engagement to a man they’ve never met. Martin’s character is against the wedding, claiming that “his little girl” is too young to be married. In one of the early scenes in the movie, as the daughter announces her engagement, Martin’s character envisions a younger version of his daughter, perhaps when she is six or seven years old, saying that she is going to be married. Throughout the movie, the father embodies the popular depiction of the overprotective parent.
            In other movies, both parent and child are guilty of succumbing to the standards set forth by stereotypes. For example, the movie Freaky Friday, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, tells the story of a mother-daughter pair who do not understand each other. The mother, played by Curtis, is set in her own ways and disagrees with every decision, from clothes to boys, that her daughter makes. The daughter, Lohan’s character, is a typical rebelling teen, angry with her mother for remarrying. The two characters magically switch places and learn what it is like from each other’s point of view, learning to accept and understand each other a little better. Although the characters reconcile their differences in the end, the long journey to get them there is evidence of the large gap between the generations.
            It is the popular conception of how wide this gap is that makes parent-teen relationships subject to the belief that they cannot easily be constructive or positive. This gap, of course, is not only apparent in parent-teen relationships, but in all interactions between adults and teenagers. For example, the television show Campus Ladies is about two middle-aged mothers who go back to have the real “college experience.” They live in a dorm and go to parties. The element that makes this comedy so entertaining is that the older women are trying to fit in with all of the other students, but of course they are oblivious to the goings-on of college life in the present. This show sends the message that the gap cannot be bridged. Parents cannot enter the world of teenagers, and teens can’t enter the world of their parents. The images set forth by these types of media would have us believe that the two worlds can only successfully meet with the help of magic, as in Freaky Friday.
            My mom and I, however, shared our world. I loved having her at school every day.  We drove in together, which, since I went to a private school in the nearest city, meant an hour drive—each way. Now, rather than being annoyed by having to endure two grueling hours per day of forced conversation and general prying into my personal life by my mother, I actually enjoyed getting to talk to her. It sounds strange, I know. But it’s true.
            In the movies, there always seems to be a disgruntled teenager who is angry at his or her parents for some reason. Maybe they don’t “get” him. Maybe they don’t listen. Of course, by the end of the movie, all of their familial issues are resolved and the teenager loves the parents again. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that the movie is sending the message that teenagers should get along with their parents all the time. Such movies simply imply that differences must be set aside occasionally to keep the peace. The assumption is that not all problems are resolved, and that in a week or two, the teenager will have some new crisis that causes disruptions in the parent-child relationship.
            I’m not saying that it is possible for parents and teenagers to get along all the time; I’m just saying that arguments don’t necessarily have to be as dramatic as popular depictions suggest. One scene in particular that comes to mind is the ever-popular, overused instance where the teenager yells something haughty and in-the-moment, then stomps off to his or her room, slamming the door, refusing to come out. This scene, though it does actually happen occasionally, is often over-dramatized, not to mention unhelpful to the situation at hand. Disagreements aren’t easily resolved by secluding yourself in your room, and if you’re trying to get your way about something, the last thing you want to do is yell at your parents. The volume of your voice is not equivalent to the degree to which your parents listen to you.
            There is a recent television ad for a cell phone company that features a mother and daughter yelling at each other about the girl’s cell phone. The viewer at first sees it as another standard scenario where the child is upset about the parent’s overbearing control of, in this case, what type of cell phone the teenager gets. But, if you pay attention to what they are saying, the mother and daughter are yelling not insults, but compliments. The use of the stereotypical fight scene in the ad is a marker of the popular view about the relationships that teenagers have with their parents. As a marketing tool, it appeals to parents who are tired of fighting with their teens, and perhaps want to change, if only for a brief moment, their usual argument into a loving “thank you” from their child. If society’s view of teen-parent relations was something other than the constant struggle between generations, this ad would not be effective. It is based on the assumption that this girl is the typical teenager and that yelling matches like the one it mimics are normal, are commonplace.
            This type of fight may be the standard in the movies or on television, but do real teenagers talk like this to their parents? I can’t speak for every teen on the planet, but I do know that it is not as commonplace as it is made out to be. I rarely fight with my parents. The few times that we disagree, it is usually because of either a communication error or the fact that we are really frustrated about various things, and we take these frustrations out on each other. My dad may be having trouble at work, or my mom could be fighting the fine arts department head for more time. Because of this, we found that it was best to let each other know what our frustrations are all the time, so we don’t take it personally when the other gets crabby. As a result, we share everything.
            Another common claim of the stereotypical teenager is that it is a bad idea to share everything with your parents, but I’ve found it to be much easier than holding things back. There are no secrets or lies and a lot fewer misunderstandings. Some would claim that there are some things that teens should be able to keep to themselves, mostly because their parents wouldn’t understand. In my experience, there are very few things that parents don’t understand, as long as your actions are within reason. This raises the question: if you can’t tell your parents about it, is it a good idea to be doing it?
            Granted, if I tried to keep a secret from my parents, they would eventually find out, especially since my mom is privy to the insane amount of gossip at school. Then again, parents have a way of finding out your secrets even if they don’t work at your school. They have their mysterious ways of seeing right through you, despite any attempts on your part to cover up your tracks. Maybe this could be attributed to the fact that they were also teenagers at one time, no matter how long ago that was.
            Times have certainly changed since our parents were teenagers, but some life-lessons are relevant in any decade. It may seem, especially with the implications in today’s media, that the generation gap can’t be bridged, that parents and teens will never understand each other, that it is not even worth trying, but I claim the opposite. The stereotype can be proven wrong, and your parents don’t have to work at your school either. You just have to be more open to their advice, and you have to share more of your own experiences with them. Perhaps you’ll find that your parents are also your best teachers.