What Teens Really Think

A poll of Washington area kids gives us a piece of their minds

Teens today.

They're a generation in a hurry, hurtling headlong to adulthood but not yet shed of youthful innocence or naivete. They're mixed up -- and the girls in particular are stressed out. They view the future through cracked rose-colored glasses, anxious about the direction of the country and the world. Most predict another terrorist attack as big or bigger than September 11 sometime in their lives. One in four expects a nuclear war.

At the same time, teenagers in the Washington area are brimming with youthful optimism and self-confidence about their own futures in the dangerous world they will inherit, according to a survey of high-school age teens and their parents conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University.

Sometimes their confidence borders on delusional: The vast majority say it's likely they will be rich. Sometimes it is poignant: Most are convinced they will be married to the same person till death do them part. But more often their expectations are sensibly realistic: Most expect that just about everything, from a new house to a college education, will cost more when they are their parents' age.

Their world is good. Area high schoolers agree that it's a great time to be a kid. Looking forward, they believe the country's best years lie ahead. Big majorities predict the world will be more racially and sexually tolerant and accepting when they are in charge, a place where people will be more free than they are now to live and love as they wish. Few teens -- black or white, male or female -- see their race or gender as a roadblock to success. Many expect to have a richer, fuller, better life than their parents, a prospect particularly vivid for area teens who are first-generation Americans.

"My mom was born in El Salvador," says Blanca Pacheco, 17, a senior at Albert Einstein High School in Kensington. "I have much more opportunities. I have so many doors open to me. I just have to work for it. It is there for me, if I want it and I try."

But she worries that the United States is drifting in the wrong direction, and fears another cataclysmic terrorist attack. "Life is very unpredictable. Anything can happen. I have a lot of things I want to accomplish in life, and that takes me past the bad things that are happening."

Like Blanca, and despite the general optimism, the majority of local teens say the country now is seriously off course. Most say pollution, AIDS, drug abuse, immorality and divorce will be worse, not better, by the time they are middle-aged. Majorities expect it will be harder for them to find a job, raise a family or buy a house than it was for their parents.

Are they conflicted and more than a little confused? You bet, says Rod Fisher, 17, who was born in Brazil and is a senior at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School.

"It's a confusing time, rather than bad or good. I'm stuck in the middle of so many things -- college things, the war, the economy, other things that are going on," says Rod, who wants to postpone college to chase fame and riches with his punk rock band Anada ("Like 'Canada,' but without the 'C'," he explains).

"I think most teenagers 13 to 18 are very confused right now," Rod says. "It's hard to know what direction you want to go in when the country doesn't know what direction it wants to go in."

These views are far from unique to teens in the Washington region, according to a separate Post survey of teens nationally. While this region is richer, better educated and more diverse than the country as a whole, one of the biggest surprises of the surveys was how closely the attitudes of area teens mirror the views of high school-age teenagers across the country.