When I was a kid and honestly, even a teenager, I was awkward in the best possible way.

I was stumbling through life, experimenting with who I was, and making choices that made complete sense to me at the time and absolutely no sense looking back. I wore way too much of my mom’s Chanel blush before “blush blindness” was even a phrase people threw around online. I was committed to a bright blue eyeshadow moment even on days I wore a pink Juicy tracksuit. I had phases, opinions, outfits, and interests that came and went as quickly as they arrived.

I also had the worst clip-in extensions from time to time.

And you know what?

Nobody needed to intervene.

Nobody needed to tell me I was building the wrong identity. Nobody needed to optimize my hobbies or turn every interest into a potential career path. I was just a kid figuring it out.

That’s what growing up used to be.

You were allowed to be a little weird. You were allowed to be embarrassing. You were allowed to try things that didn’t work, look back years later and laugh, and move on.

The awkward phase wasn’t a problem to solve.

It was the process.

I keep hearing people say, “The kids aren’t alright,” and I think we need to talk about why.

Kids today are growing up in a world where they’re expected to know who they are before they’ve had enough time to become anyone at all. They have a camera in their pocket, an audience they didn’t ask for, and the constant pressure to present this perfectly aesthetic version of themselves before they’ve even figured out the messy one.

No wonder so many of them feel overwhelmed.

We took the most human part of growing up, the experimenting, the weirdness, the bad decisions, the cringe moments, and somehow turned it into something kids are supposed to avoid.

But those moments were doing important work.

The embarrassing bowl haircut taught you that embarrassment passes. The weird hobby taught you that your interests didn’t have to make sense to anyone else. The phase where you completely reinvented yourself every six months taught you that identity isn’t something you find once. It’s something you build.

Now kids are growing up with the idea that everything they do is evidence of who they are.

A bad photo isn’t just a bad photo. It’s something that can follow them.

A strange interest isn’t just a strange interest. It can become something people judge.

A mistake isn’t just a mistake. It can feel permanent.

That changes the way people experiment.

And experimentation is how humans grow.

We Forgot That Confidence Comes From Surviving the Awkward Moments

The funny thing about confidence is that it doesn’t actually come from always feeling confident.

It comes from realizing you can survive feeling uncomfortable.

You wear the outfit that maybe nobody else understands. You try the activity you’re terrible at. You say something awkward at a party. You realize you’re not naturally gifted at something and decide you either want to keep trying or move on.

Those little moments teach you that being imperfect is not dangerous.

But when kids grow up feeling like every moment is being watched, judged, or recorded, it makes sense that they become hesitant to try.

Nobody wants to be bad at something in front of an audience.

Nobody wants to look foolish when everyone seems to be performing a highlight reel of their lives.

The problem is that nobody becomes interesting, creative, or confident by skipping the messy middle.

The messy middle is where the good stuff happens.

It’s where you find out what you actually like instead of what you think you’re supposed to like.

It’s where you learn what fits and what doesn’t.

It’s where you become someone.

Bring Back the Weird Kid Era

I don’t think we need to romanticize every part of the past. There were plenty of things about growing up that were hard. But I do think we lost something important when we started treating childhood like preparation for adulthood instead of a life stage worth experiencing.

A kid should be allowed to have a terrible style phase.

They should be allowed to be obsessed with something random.

They should be allowed to change their mind.

They should be allowed to be a little cringe.

Honestly, we all were.

Every adult has a version of themselves they’re grateful nobody could Google.

The questionable outfits. The dramatic phases. The strange interests. The confidence that came from not knowing enough to be embarrassed yet.

That version of ourselves wasn’t something we needed to outgrow faster.

That version of ourselves was where we started.

Maybe the kids aren’t alright because we’ve created a world where they’re rarely allowed to just exist without performing. They’re not able to just be kids.

They’re expected to achieve, compete, optimize, and prepare before they’ve even had a chance to wander around and figure themselves out.

But sometimes the thing that creates confident adults isn’t early perfection.

It’s having the freedom to be a little ridiculous first.

The blue eyeshadow.

The insane amounts of blush.

The emo phase your parents didn’t understand.

That was never the problem.

That was the beginning of figuring out who you were before the world started telling you who you should be.