June 14, 1999
Web posted at: 11:59 a.m. EDT (1559 GMT)

For those of you who have forgotten what it was like to be a teenager, it's about five years of entrapment. You are trapped between the kid you once were and the person you are destined to become. This constant state of uncertainty is stressful not only for teens but for adults as well. Parents try hard to keep their kids away from things that might corrupt their future, whether drugs, alcohol or violent movies. But placing strict restrictions on teens will accomplish only two things: really, really annoy them and make the temptation for rebellion greater.

The newest protective gesture is requiring movie theaters to ask kids to show photo identification before seeing R-rated films. This carding, in my opinion, is just a silly waste of time. First, the majority of movies are rated R, and they tend to be the most exciting and desirable to see. In general, when a group of kids, let's say age 13 or 14, go out to see a movie, and their choices are a Disney cartoon, an adult romance or a violent thriller, they're going to be drawn to the thriller. If they can't get into that, they'll probably just hit the streets rather than waste their hard-earned bucks. And it is much better to have your kids sitting safely in a theater watching an R-rated movie than on the streets, where they can be exposed to a world just as violent as Hollywood's. Parents should be relieved that their children want to see Scream at a theater they know, instead of having absolutely no idea where their kids are and whom they are with.

Some argue that if a parent is O.K. with his teen's seeing an R-rated flick, he can just buy the kid's ticket himself and be on his way. Um, no. Not only is this an incredibly embarrassing situation for young teens, possibly on their first date, but it might not even be allowed. When Scream came out, I was eager to see it; and my dad drove me, a couple of friends and my younger brother to the theater and went in to buy us tickets. They informed him that he would have to go into the movie with us; his permission was not sufficient to let us in. Since my dad couldn't stay to see the movie, we all went back home, where he instead had to spend a long night with a bunch of giggling teenage girls.

We all know how effective laws against underage drinking, smoking and drugs are: they're not. Who's to say that movie-theater carding won't be just as ineffective? If the shooting at Columbine High has taught us anything, it's that parents need to tune in to the very trying lives of their teens. Kids are capable of holding some serious emotions, which if not expressed and understood can lead to destructive actions. Violent movies are, in some ways, a venting mechanism. And rather than blame the movies and place further suffocating laws on kids, why not let them decide what they can and cannot see? By giving them the freedom to choose, you are showing them a little piece of respect and responsibility.

The writer, 17, is the daughter of PEOPLE executive editor Susan Toepfer and author Lorenzo Carcaterra

Cover Date: June 21, 1999

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• Dad says, 'I don't miss politics,' but that may be because he's got something better
• Most of the post-Littleton lawmaking has focused on guns. Now it's Hollywood's turn to squirm
• Why carding kids is a bad idea
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• Is this the end for Milosevic?
• With Chicago's antiloitering law struck down, California is a model for how to fight street gangs

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