Teenagers are invincible (at least that’s how we feel). We’re young and stupid, ready to make the mistakes that no adult ever would. We roll around in our ignorance because we’ve experienced just enough life to think we know what life is.

So parents will shout when we neglect to study for a test. They’ll ground us in attempt to teach us responsibility, to teach us punishment. But who needs 40 years of experience when we’ve got 16 under our belts?

So we can drive fast because we think we’ll never get in an accident, and that’s only one of our antics. Parents will continue to reprimand us. But I’m willing to bet that beneath all the scowls and speeches about safety, adults actually look at teenagers with a spark of nostalgia.

These are, after all, the years before responsibilities. Most teenagers don’t have to worry about a thing. That’s the beauty of being a teenager. We’re young enough to be able to do anything we want without consequence, and we’re dumb enough to do anything, too.

“Youth is precious,” they say. But what do they really mean? There’s more to youth than the number of days someone’s been alive. There’s more than the number of candles that go on the cake. Youth is the ignorant mentality that comes with the lack of candles.

Youth is blind to the ills of the world. It doesn’t see any responsibility to pay the bills or the obligation to take care of a family. Youth allows teenagers to do whatever they want whenever they want: hang out at the sound of a single text, buy an expensive jacket using a parent’s credit card or pull an all-nighter to finish playing a video game. Because the next day there’s no boss to fire us. There’s no child who needs to be fed. There’s only a parent to scream in one ear and out the other.

Youth is ignorance, which sets us free. The ignorance that adults frown upon and try to get us out of is also the one that they secretly envy.

Parents shouldn’t rush their children’s maturation. Teenagers are only young once, and being young is fun. What’s the hurry to get old anyways (seeing as it’s inevitable with or without parental influences)? We’re stupid while we can be, and we love every minute of it.

Someday, we may drive fast enough to crash into responsibility, whether responsibility means being forced to pay the bills or having a baby. These consequences will mean something when they come. But we’ll never learn of consequence if parents never let us experiment and make mistakes, big and small. Shouting and grounding doesn’t teach consequence. It merely incites anger and rebellion.

So let us be free. Let us fly. When we get “shot down” from the sky, it’ll be a sad day. But until then, the flight will be fun, and our trip will be free, just like it should be.

Kyle Chang is an Inglemoor High student.