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Amid the avalanche of reports deploring troubled teens and blaming their youthful peers and social media, two new trends are emerging that are both disturbing and encouraging. And teenage girls are the focus of these trends.

On one hand, girls of the 2020s are depicted as miserably depressed, imperiled, and suicidal. But they are also seen as dynamic achievers, increasingly in education, jobs, and activist leadership, all to the consternation of traditionalists. Which is it?

Bad news first鈥攁nd it is bad.

American girls are being abused and murdered at appalling rates. From 2010 through the most recent 2023 , 6,600 American girls under age 18 were murdered. The murder rate of American girls averages 10 times higher than in the .

Yet facing the truth about who is violently victimizing girls has long proven inconvenient for American leaders, institutions, professionals, and media. Instead, for more than a century, all have maligned each new generation of girls as the most mentally disturbed ever.

Recently, a new fear has emerged. Modern girls鈥� arrival in and increasing dominance of many traditionally male domains is frightfully damaging to female mental health and physical safety, declares a barrage of popular commentators led by , , , , , , , , , and , joining what used to be a crusade by . These authors depict teen peers as dangerous, and most argue for restricting girls, or even (like Pipher and Flanagan) for returning 鈥渇ragile鈥� girls to supervised and 鈥減rotected鈥� home life.

罢辞诲补测鈥檚 , from the to psychologists, lawmakers, and media commentators, stampede to blame violence against girls on , mainly school shooters and 鈥溾�� exacerbated by 鈥渒ids鈥� finding and 鈥�.鈥� The consensus dominating discussion is not just wrong; it鈥檚 absurd.

Who鈥檚 Murdering and Abusing Girls?

The gyrations the establishment herd indulges in to avoid the real answer is bitterly ironic, given the dangers their own demands to redomesticate girls present. Homes, and the grownups in them, not the outside/online worlds and peers, are what most endanger girls, authorities鈥� own statistics and surveys show.

show just 7% of murdered girls under age 18 were killed by youthful peers. In contrast, nearly 60%鈥攅ight times more鈥攚ere murdered by grownups ages 25 and older, including 56% of the 2,500 girls murdered by guns. Eight times more children and youth are murdered by guns , overwhelmingly by , than 鈥攖he single biggest reason guns are the leading instrument of death for young Americans. Three in four murderers of girls are adult men.

The reports that in 2021 alone, 600 girls were murdered and tens of thousands were victimized in substantiated violent, sexual, and psychological abuses at home, overwhelmingly by grownups. The CDC鈥檚 2021 , a massive, 116-question survey of 8,000 teenagers鈥攖he most comprehensive, authoritative documentation of teen issues available鈥攄etails how damaging these abuses are.

One in seven 12- to 18-year-old girls reports violent abuse (beatings, kickings, and other injurious assaults) and 62% report emotional abuse (being sworn at, name-called, etc.) inflicted by parents or other household grownups, compared to one in 11 and 48%, respectively, for boys. Those findings represent 400% to 600% increases, from , of abuses that go far beyond normal family disagreements. Girls are three times more likely to be violently abused by household adults than at school or by dating partners, and four times more likely to be psychologically bullied by grownups at home than .

Standard regression analysis assessing key factors that potentially affect mental health (which authorities either didn鈥檛 do or won鈥檛 publicize) shows that in every case, parents鈥� increasing stand out as more damaging than every other factor鈥攊ncluding social media鈥攂y wide margins. Compared to the fraction of girls who report no abuses by household grownups, the most frequently abused girls were 2.5 times more likely to report getting five or fewer hours of sleep per night (a strong correlate of depression), 2.5 times more likely to report sadness, 3.1 times more likely to report frequent mental health problems, 6.6 times more likely to binge drink, and 17 times more likely to report suicide attempts.

Girls who are frequently abused by household adults are also four times more likely to suffer bullying at school and five times more likely to suffer bullying online, compared to girls who are not abused at home. That may be why the survey shows abused girls are 30% likely to spend more than five hours a day online, including seeking mental health and medical help. The weak correlation between and depression is a reverse one: Depression drives more online time, not the other way around.

These realities should be igniting loud alarms among mental health and institutional authorities who are well aware of decades of compelling research exhaustively tying to adolescents鈥� and tragic . The pivotal CDC survey, when fully analyzed, shows the dangers of authorities鈥� refusal to confront household abuses, while rushing to ban or restrict teenagers from pathways by which teens make connections and find help. Schools, in particular, should drop their grandstanding and, instead, switch to later hours to allow teenagers more time to sleep.

What Does 鈥淒epression鈥� Mean?

But there鈥檚 a silver lining to all this. Girls are responding normally to the crises of addiction, depression, abuse, violent mortality, and official indifference afflicting America鈥檚 increasingly troubled grownups, who lack the will to respond with normal urgency to clear threats. What authorities term a 鈥渕ental health crisis鈥� is not whiny, self-absorbed adolescents moping over some TikTok or Smartphone snark.

Instead, supposedly depressed, suicidal Generation Z girls and women are sharply reducing their dropout and early parenthood rates, and attending college, earning degrees, dominating career fields, and becoming global leaders for activist causes in increasing numbers. Achievement and are not behaviors traditionally associated with depression. And scientists only recently have begun to explore this apparent contradiction.

find 鈥渄epression鈥� has risen the most among liberal and politically aware teens, especially girls. However, that clinical term appears to confuse feeling overwhelmed by one鈥檚 own problems with feeling challenged by the problems of the world. 罢辞诲补测鈥檚 youth are 鈥渕ore attuned to political events than prior generations,鈥� developing 鈥減olitical beliefs鈥� that 鈥渆ncapsulate many aspects of lived experiences and social identity鈥� that, in turn, affect 鈥渕ental health trends.鈥� A 2022 Pew Research Center study found four times more liberal than conservative youth use social media for activist causes, part of complex networks of youths鈥� online connections.

Meanwhile, American grownups are suffering severe difficulties adapting to jolting modern changes, racial and cultural diversity, and new technologies. tripled amid rising opiate addiction and the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic. Suicides, homicides, and accidental drug and gun fatalities have skyrocketed over the last two decades among teenagers鈥� parents鈥� generation.

Grownups who lost jobs are twice as likely to abuse teens, the CDC survey shows. These vital adult contexts for teens鈥� behaviors are yet another reality authorities ignore. Instead, American leaders and institutions have veered into destructive teen-bashing and culture-war crusading at a time when intergenerational alliance and greater social connections are crucial to confronting unprecedented challenges. 

This is true at the local level and worldwide. Many teenagers are right to feel depressed about conditions in their homes and communities and are right to be disgruntled with the inexcusable failures of authorities to address looming global crises. Supportive adults should not see these youthful attitudes as pathologies to be deplored and treated. They are grounds for hope.