Why is it so hard to be a teenager?

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To me, the reason the teen years are so hard is, it's the first time in our lives we make decisions that will affect our future, but we don't have the experience needed to back up these choices. Everything important is new to us. In fact, we often think that we are the first to think something, or at least think a certain way about things. Our emotions run high because of hormones and excitement to get past the things of childhood and get on with life. It's a time when we are stuck "between" childhood and adult, but we want to pick and choose what parts of our childhood we want to hold on to, and what parts we want to let go. We are eager to take on the benefits of being an adult, but we're not quite ready to accept everything that comes with it. Many teenagers get thrust into the adult world before they are ready. Teen pregnancy, neglectful parents, absent parents, addictions, life threatening or debilitating accidents or illness...or friends and family with such problems. Each of these rob the teenager of the developmental years where our bodies and minds learn to cope with heavy responsibilities. The problems we face as teenagers also can bring on fears of growing up. In our minds, if we can't face the responsibilities and down sides of being adults as teenagers, how can we face them as adults... so we don't. We don't to the point that Western Culture has extended adolesence far beyond the ages with the "teen" suffix. Many studies show that it now takes until our mid-to-late 20s before we are expected to fully take on the mantle of adulthood. I think one of the reasons our younger generation today seems unwilling to cooperate in the culture is we have given them no incentive to want to. The ones with parents are told, "go get a job", but why would they want one if they are already handed everything they want? For those whose parents don't hand them things, why would they want a job when all their parents do is whine and complain about their own job? We, as a society, tell our teens to take on responsibilities, but what example are we in this department? We live in a world where everything is someone else's fault, disaster recovery is the government's responsibility, and if you don't make as much money as you think you should, it's your employers fault. So why should our kids accept responsibilities when our example shows them why they shouldn't? Being a teenager is naturally difficult. I think we make it harder than it has to be.