When asked about their favorite memories as teenagers in the 90s-2000s, my parents practically had the same answer. Buying their first car. They clarified that this was because of the freedom and accomplishment they felt. As teenagers, they had a lot more freedom than teenagers today which also made their teenage years fun, but I believe that if you asked teenagers today what they are most excited about, their answers may match up with my parents.
As teenagers in the 90s to the early 2000s my parents say they had way more freedom than teenagers today. They said, “there weren’t cameras everywhere like there is today, so we got away with a lot more than teenagers do now”. This really shows that they could get away with way more things than teens today, which was most definitely fun for them.
The feeling when they had enough money to buy their first car was “unmatched”. My mom says that she got a “old granny car”, while my dad got a 1984 Cadillac Deville which was huge for him, but the thing that my mom was happiest about was the feeling of accomplishment, and her experience when she was working. My mom had her first job at Dairy Queen, and she still talks about how much she loved the job and even “considers going to work there again after she retires”. My dad didn’t talk much about how he made the money to buy the car.
They eventually brought up that the freedom they got after getting cars made being teenagers so much more fun for them. They could cruise with friends and always have a ride when they needed to get places (if they had gas money of course) and that really summed up their favorite memory(s) of being teenagers.