honestly i think the reason why it’s so common for kids to have the “it’s not a phase, mom” argument in their adolescence is less because they genuinely plan for their current state of being to remain utterly unchanged forever and more because they’re tired of having their interests/self expression/beliefs/etc dismissed as foolish due to being probably temporary
i know that when i was that age i certainly wasn’t thinking about whether or not i’d be into whatever shit i was into then when i was 80, all i knew was that i was sick of feeling like the adults in my life were just rolling their eyes and waiting out everything that was important to me at that moment
Literally, i truly dont think i cared as a teen if i was gonna be emo forever, because thinking about that shit made me feel existential in a bad way, but i mostly just wanted the adults in my life to take my interests seriously without it being dismissed as "teenager stuff youll grow out of so it doesnt really matter". Treat teens as people, not nuisances whose interests are unimportant.
