A sitting cliché? (From Haringey Independent)

A sitting cliché?

12:21pm Wednesday 28th May 2008

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The other day, I was the victim of an unprovoked and vaguely insulting torrent of abuse from a complete stranger. While minding my own business sitting outside a Crouch End café, a just-about-middle-aged woman approached me and told me how pathetic I was. Admittedly, she was probably right.

Crouch End is a honey pot for young families and the occasional celebrity, and I apparently, sixteen and sipping a cappuccino was, as she assertively told me, a ‘sitting cliché’. At first I was taken aback by this allegation, the audacity of it, and the chutzpah with which this woman had seemingly spontaneously delivered such an accusation. I asked her why I was such a disgrace, and, to my surprise, found myself concurring with her. According to the woman, I must have been the stereotypical north London teenager, wallowing in self-pity over the futility of adolescence and trying to beat the academic system by spending my afternoon paying extortionate prices for coffee, instead of revising for the upcoming exams that will span the next month.

This, it being the truth and all, was hard to swallow. I tried to wash it down with my Americano, but alas, foolishly consolidated her argument and burned my tongue at the same time. I however, not being one to submit myself to harassment, substantiated or not, decided to take her on. Big mistake. I asked her whether she, being yummy mummy itself, was in any position to accost me on grounds of being a cliché. She quelled what I thought was a cunning retort with ease, telling me how she was raising a child on her own, working three jobs and how I was most likely having the state spoon-feed me GCSE’s and laying my generation and I a path to salaries and mundanity. I had no idea what she was talking about. She was clearly insane, and regrettably, perceptive.

But her stance in this little altercation, and the fact that the following day’s biology exam was plaguing me, made me re-evaluate my situation. The media is constantly telling us that standards are slipping and that the youth of today are being liberally decorated with undeserved A-stars, while us, the exam takers in question, are possibly under greater pressure to achieve high grades than any of our predecessors. I understand that my point of view is limited, but it seems to me that young people will never be accredited with success on a national level, because there will always be a plethora of explanations as to why they improved that exclude the fact that maybe, for once, standards of education are actually getting better.

Who knows? I certainly don’t, but until I do, I will still resent, if not admire, anybody who accuses me of being a hopeless stereotype. The truth, in all its cruelty, hurts.