The Best Years of Your Lives

One of the things that made me really mad at my son’s DARE graduation was when the chief of police from my town got in front of the crowd and told the kids that the next seven years would be the best years of their lives. I almost stood up and shouted, NO! You’re WRONG! But did not for fear of embarrassing my children, and seeming even weirder than I already do to my neighbors.

I realize that he was trying to impress upon the students the importance of making good choices over the next few years (and in that vein, I wish he would have added the college years as well, but in my town they don't assume you’ll go to college). But there would have been better ways to send that message. For the Chief, who probably played football, drank beer underage, and was popular with the girls, those likely WERE the best years of his life. The same might be said for men I used to teach high school with, young men I work with, and the town’s high school principal whom I pray will be gone before my children reach those grades. I don't know any women who might say that.

For the vast majority of us, life gets better as you get older. I can count seventh through ninth grade as the unmitigated worst years of my life, and I’ve had some pretty hefty tests since then. I’m not alone. When I taught high school myself, I tried to preach this message: yes, with adulthood comes more (but mostly different) responsibility, but oh, there’s so much more you get to do. My job was to unconvince the kids that life was downhill from age 19 on. My job was to teach them not to peak at 18 or 27 or 90, but to keep reaching higher. And I was supposed to teach them biology too.

In my town where an individual holds more status from having gone to hairdressing school than college or graduate school, I wish THIS was the message that was getting out there: these next seven years will be difficult ones, and will go a long way to shaping who you turn out to be; choose wisely now, so you can enjoy your adulthood too.