“You are a child. You think and act like a child…. Perhaps after you are 30 years old, have graduated from college or trade school, have a job, produced something someone wants to pay for, paid taxes, raised successful children, then maybe someone will care what you think,” said Ron Guthrie, a man from Ogallala who wrote this in a letter to the editor to The Telegraph about me. In the last month, I have tried to understand why people believe my age makes my opinions and views any less valid than anybody else’s. What I have noticed is that older people will hear what I say, and if it doesn’t go along with their opinion, they will brush me off. They tell me that I just think the way I do because I’m young and haven’t “lived life” yet.

The problem with this is we are expected to act like adults, yet we are still treated like children. We are told that one person can make a difference, but told not to make waves. This can be seen through the way people have been attacking the victims of the Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting, the people who experienced first-hand what they are fighting against. Even though they are the people who were affected by issue of guns, adults still dismissed their opinions and their protests because they were too young to know how guns affect them. This kind of dismissal takes a toll on our entire generation.

Because our views are belittled and dismissed by adults, we often do not respect our own ideas. Because we are told we’re too young to know anything, we don’t trust the things we do know. When asked what we want to do with our lives, we don’t trust that we know. Adults often tell our generation what will happen in “the real world,” but what makes our lives imaginary? And if the reality we are living in is different from theirs, why are they not preparing us for the “real world?” Additionally, our high school experience is completely different from the adult’s previous experience. They never had to deal with fear at school, or growing up with the prevalence of social media. When adults don’t listen to our views, they aren’t seeing the entire picture, because they haven’t experienced everything we have experienced either. When are we in the “real world” and when will people start caring about our ideas and opinions?

In order to fix the problem, adults need to start listening to teenagers and try to see where they are coming from. Teens need to start vocalizing their ideas because they are important and valuable, and we need to start listening to and believing in ourselves.