ABSTRACT
Adolescence is problematic in contemporary American society. The prevailing view is that adolescence is a normative period of storm and stress entailing a generation gap and rebellion against adult standards; adolescents are also said to be experiencing a drastic decline in moral values. These views are evident in a variety of different places. For instance, childrearing advice books provide an intriguing window on popular culture perceptions of teenagers. A quick perusal of parenting advice books suggests that adolescence is a battleground. Titles such as Surviving Your Adolescents: How to Manage and Let Go of Your 13–18 Year Olds (Phelan, 1998), Teenagers: A Bewildered Parents’ Guide (Caldwell, 1996), and “I’m Not Mad! I Just Hate You!”: A New Understanding of Mother–Daughter Conflict (Cohen-Sandler & Silver, 1999) portray parenting an adolescent as a challenging task and being an adolescent as equally difficult.
