TEEN VOICE: This is us — teenagers

A 17-year-old boy walks down the street outside his school during his off period. The woman who lives across the street sees him, taking in his long hair, stained T-shirt and baggy jeans. “These kids today,” she thinks to herself, already mentally arresting the boy for the assumed drugs in his backpack. The boy gets into his car, and goes home to do his homework before his tutoring job.

Across town, a girl with ripped jeans and a black hoodie slinks down the street. Her earbuds are plugged in and her hood is up, creating a barrier between her and the world. A young mother sees her coming, and smiles in her direction, but the girl drops her eyes and hurries on. The mother is taken aback, but brushed the missed connection off as a moody, disrespectful teen. The girl hurries down the street, listening to her Mozart, to the art gallery to teach her painting class to underprivileged children.

The girl and the boy, like a great number of teens, are not judged for who they really are. Adults and sometimes even peers apply stereotypes to us, at an age when some may believe we will never be different than how we are currently perceived.

Another assumption is that all teenagers party on the weekends and live only for their cell phones.

Understand, not all or even many of us are that superficially driven.

Take this boy, for instance; because he was wearing baggy jeans and his hair was long, people assume he’s off to smoke or drink or break the law.

Just to set one thing straight - yes, some teens do party. They get roaring drunk, soaring high or arrested. According to NIDA.com, 30 percent of teens abuse marijuana. Sometimes, they dress in dirty or baggy clothes.

But 70 percent of teens don’t smoke marijuana, and many don’t even drink. And you know what? I have never touched a drop of alcohol or any drugs, and I wear old sweatpants and loose, stained t-shirts to school nearly every day.

Adults tend to take teenagers at face value; if they’re dirty looking, they must be bad news, right? They should all be locked up and sent to rehab. Trust me, we’ve gotten the message:  “This is your brain and this is your brain on drugs.” A person cannot be known simply by a stereotype of their demographic.

Speaking of stereotypes, here’s one that has to be true; all teens constantly want to have sex, and parents should lock away their daughters because teen pregnancy is just this side of infectious, right?  Sorry to disappoint the masses, but teenagers do think about things other than when they might hook up again. Ever heard of school? Sports? Friends? All teens are not obsessed with sex, we are casual about it. We debate sex like our fathers trade fishing stories and our mothers chatter about recipes. Yes, we do have sex, and no, it not always for love. According to TeenHelp.com, 34 percent of teenage girls will become pregnant. Believe me, we feel bad for those girls going through a pregnancy, but it does not mean the other two-thirds of us are going to follow in their footsteps. We know how to use protection and we have access to birth control. Adults can lay off the constant jabbering about getting pregnant, because it scares us teens as much as you.

Teens, of course, do not stay teens. We grow up, leave the nest, and make our way in the world, and this leads me to the biggest stereotype of all; those teens that do drugs, get pregnant, or find themselves enjoying the state’s hospitality will never amount to anything in life and remain deadbeats until the end of time.

I beg to differ, yet again, as this assumption is grossly out of line. Just because a teen is a delinquent or likes to party does not immediately mean that they will be useless as an adult. Noted director Quentin Tarantino dropped out of high school by the time he was 16, and he seems to have done pretty well for himself. We all know Walt Disney was one of the greatest legends in film, but he was so fed up with school that he dropped out by writing a letter of protest to his principal. Maybe some teens are burnouts and potheads, but in the future, anything is possible.

 You see teens how you want to see us. You see pot smokers, sex addicts and potential criminals. But how do you know who or what we really are? That girl in the belly shirt and ripped jeans might be going to her slam poetry reading, and that boy in the truck jacked up off its wheels might be going to volunteer again at the senior center. Thirty percent of teens smoke marijuana and the same number of teen girls get pregnant.

That leaves 70 percent who do not believe that just because a kid drops out of school, he or she drops out of life.

The next time you see a teen who looks as though they could fall into the stereo-trap, try talking to them for a change. They are not always what you think they might be. This is us - we are teenagers, nothing less, but everything more.

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(Kelly Galten, 17, is a senior at Petaluma High School. Her passion in journalism focuses on writing opinion pieces, as it allows her to put a personal touch into her writing.)