Moonkin, you can rebel whenever you want to and feel the need. There's no statute of limitation on being a pain in someone's backside :-)

I don't know what you think rebelling consists of but I think people who do it "need" to do it, they don't "decide" to do so. People who rebel like different sorts of things than I did. I grew up in the 1960's was "prime" age for the real Woodstock, I graduated high school in 1968 and college in 1972. I was playing Bridge with 3-4 friends in my dorm room when the dorm loudspeakers told us to shut our windows because the Maryland National Guard were using tear gas near the dorm and the wind might blow it in through the windows if we didn't shut them. I didn't have a boyfriend through 8 years of high school and college, much less know anything about sex, drugs, rebelling, etc.

I can't imagine regretting not having had sex then or rebelling and dropping out of college or something to go live in a commune? I certainly don't regret the too much drinking I did in my 20's when I was out of school! I would happily go back now and wipe that out so it never was. There's nothing "glamorous" or to be missed by rebelling. It would be like missing what you have now. People who rebel have a difficult life and "have" to rebel just like you and I "have" to be the people we are now. It's not something you want. I don't think there is a "typical" teen, other than a "confused" one :-) Whatever one goes through in teenhood, is not pretty because so much is going on with growth in all areas of one's body, mind, social learning, etc. I was very lonely and I hated it and it hurt me badly but I wouldn't trade it for "rebelling", that's just another painful way to spend one's teen years.

If I could do my teen years over, I would work harder at school, try to get to know my parents better and spend more time with them (especially helping my stepmother around the house) and would push myself more to make friends/be friendly and not be so shy or feel so badly about myself (would have taken more pride in myself). One doesn't stay with one's birth family forever, but goes "out" into the world of work and moving and dating and meeting others and starting a family, etc. --- getting "life experience" and that's a whole different thing than it looks like from when one is a teenager. Think about when you were 10 versus what you think and know now; when you're 24, things will be more than twice that different! I'm 57 and could no more have imagined what my life would be like now when I was 17 than have become a rocket scientist :-)