Growing Up in America Essay

Submitted By Natpat1
Words: 727
Pages: 3
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Natalie Slappy
March 18 2013
7th hour English
Ms. Dudley Why growing up in America is challenging… My 7th hour English class is currently reading the book Black Boy. The main character Richard Wright faced many challenges growing up such as dealing with his father leaving out of his life at a young age, racism, and living in poverty. Today in 2013 some problems include sexism/sexuality, peer pressure, violence, and teen pregnancy. These are some of the reasons it is hard growing up in the United States…. Sexism/sexuality is something hard teens go through. A lot of people around our age find their selves “confused” and not knowing if they like boys or girls. This also is a problem because many people do not support gay relationships which can cause hardships for the person and lead to things such as bullying which can lead to something even worse which is suicide. Even when some people openly come out and say they are “gay” they are still not accepted by the public and get teased. Others keep it to their selves because they know they won’t get accepted and think why I should make my life more stressful then it already is. Something else that is hard dealing with is peer pressure. People get pressured into many things such as dressing a certain way, doing drugs, stealing, engaging in sexual activity, and drinking alcoholic beverages. Many people get pressured into things they don’t want to do because they feel as if they don’t do it they won’t be “cool” or feel included into the group. Also the media influences a lot of things my age group does. A lot of people particularly teenage girls have sex because they think it will make their boyfriend stay or love them. Some kids give in to peer pressure because they want to be liked, to fit in, or because they worry that other kids might make fun of them if they don't go along with the group. Others go along because they are curious to try something new that others are doing. The idea that "everyone's doing it" can influence some kids to leave their better judgment behind them.

Violence is another problem, I use to live in Detroit and violence is a problem in the city. People in Detroit or in Michigan in general are very materialistic so they steal materialistic things such as cars, iPhones, clothes, jewelry etc. many of my friends have had their iPhones snatched on many occasions. This problem exists because people simply care about material things more than anything else in this generation; they’re hungry for money and will do whatever it takes to get to it. Also more people own guns and aren’t scared to use them. There are annually 15,263
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