We Have Proof That Teens Have Acted Like Teens Since Ancient Times & It’s Hilarious
This kid chiseled an angry note to his mom, and it’s too much.
One of the greatest movies to come out of the ’80s has to be The Breakfast Club. And while the plucky, insightful, angsty (and deeply problematic) teens offer some really amazing, memorable lines (“Could you describe the ruckus, sir?”) one of the best exchanges has to be between the two adults. “Carl, I’ve been teaching for 22 years,” says the grumpy vice principal to Carl the janitor. “And each year these kids get more and more arrogant.” Carl scoffs. “Oh bullsh*t, man. Come on, Vern. The kids haven’t changed. You have.” It just highlights a universal truth that every generation of adults thinks teenagers are uniquely entitled, whiny, bratty, or bad and every generation of teenagers is exactly the same.
All the way back, it turns out, to ancient Mesopotamia.
In a recent video, (kinky) historian and TikTok creator Dr. Esmé James (@dr.esme.louise) shares one of her favorite relics from the ancient world: “This letter we have from ancient Mesopotamia, which is essentially just this brat of a teenage boy complaining to his mother about the quality of his clothing.”
The letter, which was translated from a clay tablet by A. Leo Oppenheim in Letters from Mesopotamia: Official Business and Private Letters on Clay Tablets from Two Millennia, reads...
Tell the lady Zinu [that] Iddin-Sin sends the following message:
From year to year, the clothes of the young gentlemen here become better, but you let my clothes get worse from year to year. Indeed, you persisted in making my clothes poorer and more scanty. At a time when in our house wool is used up like bread, you have made me poor clothes. The son of Adad-iddinam, whose father is only an assistant of my father, has two new sets of clothes, while you fuss even about a single set of clothes for me. In spite of the fact that you bore me and his mother only adopted him, his mother loves him, while you, you do not love me!
Shhh! If you listen very quietly, you can almost hear the sound Iddin-Sin jumping up to hit the top of the door frame echoing across the millennia...
“Humans have always been human,” James laughs. “The centuries may separate us, but brattiness remains.”
And just as teenagers have been obnoxious little hobgoblins for (at least) 3,800 years, their elders have been convinced “No, but this generation is really different” for as long. Take, for example, this zinger, translated in 1913:
“We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-control.”
Yeah, that’s from Narām-Sîn, a ruler of the Akkadian Empire who reigned from 2255 to 2218 BCE.
So the next time your teen is extra angsty and teen-y, go ahead and take comfort in the fact that thousands of years of parents have had to put up with their nonsense... and then maybe go ahead and hug your parents.
