We live in a time where anti-depressants are prescribed off the wall, political correctness runs rampant, and teenage killings are frequent. Why? It's simple, the powers that be are oversensitizing not only the youth, but the whole population.

My mother grew up poor in the projects, and was raised almost soley by her mother. Many of her friends were in the same situation, or their parents were divorced, or they were plain unfit and they had to raise themselves and their siblings. The ones that did have parents got a whipping when they did something wrong. All of them turned out fine.

Today if a child is under the same circumstances, they are put on meds, or may kill themselves. If you spank your child, you could get arrested for abuse, it is encouraged for kids to call the police or Child Protective Services if they get hit.

Yes some kids have it rough, but never before has it ever had such a drastic effect. The sad thing is, most kids DON'T have it that rough, especially people I know. Most kids don't have to worry about the kind of things our parents and grandparents had to worry about, yet they are more weak and fragile then ever.

In my school district there are so many different support & counseling groups. There is now Teen Screen. If you've never heard of it, it's a voluntary thing where they evaluate you for mental illness. They are inventing disorders in order to place you on a medication. They are trying to make you think that if you are experiencing any sort of difficulty in your life, that there is something wrong with you and you need help. Someone calling you a bad name or rejecting you is now grounds to cut yourself, throw up your food, or become clinically depressed. It was not always like this. People are offended by things like "Merry Christmas" or the word "God" in the pledge of allegiance. I'm agnostic and I don't even care!

Young kids and teenagers complain and walk around like they have the worst life ever. You would think they were 45 rather then 15. Everything is so dramatized and major. Happiness is taboo. There is no reason a teenager should be miserable all the time. Kids used to go to WAR, and today's youth fall apart because their boyfriend or girlfriend dumped them, or their parents got a divorce. This behavior is being endorsed. Let's tell these kids that they are depressed and make them think they should take offense to everything. Yeah, that's a way to strengthen the nation. Why wasn't "depression" so prevalent until now? In the past when kids were bullied, they grew up and strived for greatness, beauty, whatever they got made fun of for, and rubbed in the faces of those who picked on them. Today if a kid is bullied, he may bring a gun to school and blow them away. By making every little bump in the road a huge deal, we are weakening the population.

If this continues, our generation stands no chance. If we can't deal with the ups and downs of life without medication, how will we procreate? How will we evolve? If we try to make this pretty little world where we must consider whether or not it offends someone, how can we still have freedom of speech? The sensitivity push is damaging to American society. Life is not all sugar and rainbows, there will always be hard times. Instead of encouraging youth to tough it out and make the best of it, we are telling them to give up. Some give up by going to a psychiatrist, others by suicide. Psychiatrists are for people with REAL problems, people with schizophrenia, bi-polar, rapists and the raped, pedophiles and their victims, murderers, the abused and assaulted. You are not sick because you had a bad day, or even a bad week. There is nothing wrong with being sad when someone rejects you or ridicules you. But these common events should not cut so deep that it impedes your progress in life. It is unhealthy.

We just don't know when to learn from past mistakes and change, and when to apply "If it aint broke don't fix it." This is a case of the latter. We have been enduring the same problems for years, and our adults have turned out alright. People didn't tie a rope around their necks when times got hard. Let us not stop social evolution.