ANSWERS: 35
  • i think they are right becuz the brain isnt fully developed until about age 22, therefore the chemicals and hormones associated with love are to much for a teenager to handle....also....i thought i was in love sooo many times as a teen...i wasnt...take care
  • I don't think it's necessarily true--I think adult love and teenage love is something different.
  • I'm torn between thinking "That is so true," with, "They must not remember being teenagers." I think that our definition of love changes as we grow older and, hopefully, wiser. One of the factors in that definition is we begin to see true love as something that endures over time. That doesn't mean teenager's idea of love is any less real to them.
  • To be honest, in most cases, I think that is true.
  • If they aren't talking about the shallow hook up that is called love then I think the adults who say that are full of sh*t. That teenage love doesn't usually last is no indication of how real the love was. Frankly adult love relationships aren't passing that test either. I think adults downplay teen love because they know, odds are, it will end.
  • as you grow you will understand the true meanings of love.goodluck!
  • i think that sketchy is right they must not remember being teenagers i was with this guy for 4 years and then MY MOM made us stop talking because she didn't like his mom. but at the moment i am in a great relationship!!!! But just because our parents say that it's not found till we are older even if that was true isn't it worth looking??? thank you all for making me realize that and i hope that i helped someone out too!
  • I think they don't remember being a teenager.
  • I don't know if that is true. Teenagers can only experience the depth of love that they know. They have not had the time to experience the deep kind of love that an adult, who must make serious and sometimes life-altering decisions based on that love, and can see that love get deeper still. I am an adult now, and I cannot say that my love for my first love was not love, it was just not as deep as the love I have for my husband. Telling teens they "don't know what love is" sounds cheap to me. Perhaps saying "you don't know how deep love can get" is a better way of putting it.
  • I think teenagers know love. But they don't have the context to understand it.
  • I think they're talking about the kind of love that makes you crawl out of a warm bed every morning to go to a job you really don't like just so you can bring home enough money to pay for a roof, food, transportation and utilities for yourself and the people you love. Now if one of those people you support wants to add to the mix of all the things you're already handling, by taking the small amount of time you have to share with them and turning it in to a debate about how much they love their current bf/gf, it would be an understandable response to hear them say, "you don't know what love is."
  • I think that there is truth to both sides. Teenagers absolutely understand what "being in love" is with the incredible intoxication that it brings. Sometimes parents forget what that is like. But they may not fully understand something that parents of teenagers understand -- loving as opposed to being in love once the intoxication has worn off. Thatinvolves taking care for someone "for better and for worse" as the marriage vows say. I think both teenagers and parents ought to have conversations that acknowledge that difference because once the distinction is understood, both sides may change both behavior and perspective. The parents may see the need to revive the romantic part of their relationships, and the teenagers may become more aware of the responsibilities that being in love brings. Both parents and teenagers need to know that there is a lot to learn from one another.
  • that we know more than you think we know teenagers...we know/experienced more than we should have but when parents/adults say that we get agrivated
  • I think that the adults/parents have been teenagers and know what they are talking about from experience.
  • I think they are right.
  • I think hogwash. Isn't it the thrill of "being in love" that teenagers have that we "adults" are always chasing after when we date/or are single?? Its the first love, the ache in our hearts when we thought about someone that we "loved" as a teenager that we desperately try to duplicate as ADULTS. Getting a grip on life and love doesn't have to mean you extingish the angst, the thrill of romance, dreams and the unknown. Sometimes if we could just stop trying to figure out everyone and be as free as teenagers we would be able to actually enjoy the relationship rather than complicate it.
  • I used to think "adults" had no idea what they were talking about. But the older I get, the more I realize that they were right on. They really did know what they were preaching about, on a lot of things about life. That comes from experience.... so I would say its not so much about being older but being just a bit wiser.
  • I think the parents are right... but it still should never be said. It's solely the experience of relationships that will get them to the same understanding of love as there parents.
  • Then why do they always ask theier kids "Do you love me?"
  • I think it's unfair to state that all teenagers don't know what love is. Granted, a lot of them have absolutely no idea, but not all.
  • I think teenagers are in the best frame of mind to know what love is. Most teenagers don't have adult responsibilities, therefore their choices aren't clouded. Most adults love with their heads because of money or compatibility or whatever. Most teenagers think with their hearts. I feel that that's a more informed judgement of love. Peace.
  • I sort of agree because most teenagers dont know. But there are the few that DO. So I guess it all depends who your talking to. But also when they say that, how do they know what they're thinking?
  • I think that teenagers occasionally get lust confused with love. That is what worries the adults. Teenagers, however, do know what love is.
  • Kids are still inexperienced in the ways of love. Yes, they can have sex, and all that other jazz, but that doesn't mean they know everything about love. Ususally they have one or two serious relationships around the time you turn 18. Half of the time you don't even learn what heartbreak is until you're 20something. Teenagers misteak lust for love a lot of times. The only thing I remember about not liking then, is when they said that it wouldn't last. I didn't know if it would or wouldn't, but I didn't want them raining on my parade when I was finding out.
  • I think its pathetic. Just because when they were a teenager they didn't feel anything, doesnt mean that us teenagers don't feel love. Because i know i am in love with my other half. And no body can tell me different. Being seventeen, and being in love, is difficult, but i know its love.
  • I loved when I was a teenager, I just couldn't express the emotion in adult language, I'm not talking about LUV I'm speaking of LOVE I loved my family, My friends, and the City where my ancestors lived. I Loved family stories, the smell of New York Harbor, the boat whistles late at night as I was going to sleep, the pure made in America cotton sheets which kept me warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I loved Ebbitts Field, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and egg-creams made the NYC way. I loved going to hardware stores with my father on Saturday, and Picking Rasberries on Buckout Road with my mother. In fact, maybe that is the reason adults and teenagers/children can't communicate on the issue of "love" maybe the word has different meaning for different ages?
  • I think they are saying that because they are scared.
  • I would never say that and here's why. I fell in love when I was 15. My family and his family and all the other adults in our lives swore up and down and still to this day say "it was infatuation". He died 2 years later and to this day every time I think of him I cry because I wonder what our life could have been. I can't ever picture myself with anyone else because I still love him so much..I can't let him go. It's hard for some adults I think to realize that teens can be "in love"..real love but I know that I loved him..not infactuation. I will say that teens do not have any business getting married and having a family but I will never say that they can't fall in love.
  • At times, parents feel that their teenager cannot possibly understand the implications of that statement. That they have not had enough life experience to determine what is true or false. I, on the otherhand, think that most of the time, parents say that because it keeps their teenager, in the minds of the parents, at least, still too young, therefore, still under their wings.
  • I think love is different to everyone. It's strength is different with each person you meet. But I don't think that you're ever too young to love because I believe you can love many things growing up. You love your family, stuffed animals, certain shows--love doesn't have to be romantic love all the time. And by parents saying kids don't know what love is, it belittles that one emotion that's supposed to gives us compassion. No one wants to feel like they don't know how to love. I'm 20 and my parents still say I don't know what love is. But my last guy, I dated for 3 years and hours after we met we became inseparable friends, emotionally, and after a couple of months of such an intense bond, we finally started going out. I've never felt that connected to anyone, not even family or friends. Even now, we love each other still and that's something I would never want to lose. That's love, a cosmic connection. My mother would tell me when I was younger that she loved her life with my dad. She never would say that she loved him. Only that she loved her life with him and how marriage wasn't love all the time.
  • I agree, because they are too young to be able to tell the difference between physical attraction, sexual drive, and real love. To distinguish between those traits takes long years of experience and a completely developed brain, and that takes place around the age of 25.
  • I agree with them for the most part. I don't think a number of full-grown adults really know what love is either, but maybe that's just me.
  • I think I agree with them, but I also think that no teenager will. They have to have about 10-15 years to realize that the intense hormonally charged feelings they get in their teens and early 20s aren't really love.
  • I'm sure that teens know what it's like to love family members, hopefully they know that, but I've seen in some cases they can't even do that. If they can't get that kind of love right, I don't se much hope for real genuine love between two people. It happens, but most aren't thinking past themselves and what they get out of it, instead of what they bring to the relationship, what they have to offer someone else.
  • What is love? Maybe it is sacrificing your life for the life of another or working a job you can not stand so your kids can go to private school or provide private health care for an aging parent. Perhaps it is telling your kid your proud of them when they are flunking school and doing dope with their friends and just wrapped the family car around a telephone pole. Maybe it is using your vacation time to take the family pet to the vet or remodel the house. Perhaps it is changing or cleaning up after a spouse that has just had chemo or dialysis. Maybe love just means different things to different generations.

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