Funny the way children
and young adults are
not taken seriously.
By Jill Cooper


Throughout the younger years of my life I thought church and religion were for the older; people like my parents and my aunts and uncles.
Walking down the streets passed the cussing elders, and the drunken men, thinking where has our spiritual side gone? The looks came that always do. Even while simply browsing in department stores with my friends or even my parents, the looks were the same then too. They watched you carefully, as if being under the age of twenty-five meant you were a prime candidate for a shoplifter.
I was a good child who got good grades and enjoyed church but had they known? Had they asked before they judged and became so skeptical of my youth? Strange the way children and young adults are not taken seriously.
Now that I’m slightly older, sitting with all my friends after church at the local coffee shop the waitress continues to pass us by. Walking around now for the forth time with the coffeepot she has passed our table for almost a half-hour, while we sit with empty coffee cups.
Instead she fills the cups of the older, the men you can tell are nursing hangovers from the night before. She fills the cups of the elderly women that are laughing loudly over their breakfasts, while it is we that are discussing things rationally and quietly; trying not to disturb the other patrons.
When we try to get her attention she merely glances at us over a shoulder; her eyes saying we are nothing but troublemakers and a nuisance.
A group of friends wanting not to cause trouble, but only to sit and drink some coffee.
Erie the way children and young adults are not taken seriously.
Defeated, we get up from our table to pay for our coffees, and we do so separately, sorting through our change. She looks almost a bit smug them, happy to see us leave. Happy to have forced the young group of friends out that had only wanted a few cups of coffee.
Sickening, the way children and young adults are not taken seriously.


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