Why do Kiwi young people set their sights so low?

Published 18 October 2022 | 5 min read

Jehan Casinader has always been a favourite of mine. His newspaper columns are insightful and clever – plus he has the advantage of sharing a high school with Jacob, EQ’s very own Digital Marketer!

The following article tells his story and is a good lesson to always encourage innovation and giving things a go to follow your passion:

‘When I was 16 years old, I decided to take a punt. I contacted the editors at the Sunday Star-Times and New Zealand Herald and began pitching stories, claiming I was a “freelance journalist”.

To my surprise, they never requested my CV. They didn’t do reference checks. They didn’t even ask if I had been to journalism school. (I hadn’t.) Instead, they began commissioning lengthy feature articles from me.

Most of these editors had no idea that I was a high school student in Lower Hutt, sitting at home in bed, being paid handsomely – by a teenager’s standards, at least – to write articles for the weekend papers.

Back then, Facebook was a toddler and Twitter was a newborn. If you Googled someone’s name, you didn’t expect to find a catalogue of their work.

There was no deception on my part. I contacted the editors from my Hotmail address. Having written for a youth magazine in my early teens, I knew how to pitch a story. Before long, I was interviewing newsmakers, politicians and celebrities.

As a teenager, I didn’t drink alcohol and couldn’t be bothered getting my driver’s licence. I was more interested in political parties than house parties.

Was I a nerd? Of course. Too serious? Probably. But I was determined to pursue my interests. In doing so, I was able to set myself up for an incredible 15-year career that has allowed me to travel, meet inspiring people, do meaningful work and make a decent living.

So here’s what baffles me: why aren’t more Kiwi young people taking similar risks? And how can we empower them to back themselves?

It’s no secret that New Zealand is facing a youth mental health epidemic, with high rates of distress in children and teenagers. This generation is burdened by issues like climate change, housing affordability and the impact of technology – on top of all the usual pressures of adolescence.

Some are experiencing clinical depression or anxiety, and they need professional help. But others are simply starved of purpose and self-belief.

Kiwis often claim that we “punch above our weight”. We point to global success stories like film director Taika Waititi, Allbirds creator Tim Brown, and any All Black who’s been to a world cup.

And yet, as I travel around the country, I meet young people who have no aspirations. Their field of vision is so narrow that they can’t see the opportunities available to them. To put it bluntly, they’re languishing.

That’s not their fault. Our culture doesn’t encourage young people to dream big. Instead, we caution: “Don’t get a big head. Don’t take a gamble. Don’t rock the boat. Instead, play it safe, and you’re guaranteed to have a perfectly acceptable life.”

The truth is, many parents don’t want their kids to be exceptional. They want them to land smack-bang in the middle of the bell curve: not underachieving, but not overachieving either.

If there is a “Kiwi dream”, it’s this: get a degree, gain some kind of long-term employment, buy a house and a couple of toys, earn enough to have a decent holiday each year, and save enough to retire at 65 and play golf.

You may cry, “And what’s wrong with that?” Nothing – if that’s the kind of life you desire. But is it fulfilling?

People ask me why I started working in the media at a young age. I think they expect me to say that my parents pushed me to achieve. They didn’t.

From childhood, however, my parents gave me a story about who I was. They told me that I was a leader, a good communicator, and that I would make a contribution to the world.

I never questioned that story, and I grew up believing it to be true. It validated me, affirmed my worth, and gave me the confidence to pursue my interest in journalism.

I was willing to experiment. At intermediate, I skipped class to make documentaries using the school Handycam. I wrote letters to the local newspaper. I made my dad take me to Avalon Studios so I could sit in the audience while TV shows were taped.

When I was old enough to do work experience at TVNZ in my early teens, I would print out Judy Bailey’s scripts and take them home to practise delivering voiceovers.

These pursuits often came at the expense of my classwork. I faced pressure from my parents and teachers to focus on my “real” schoolwork. But I pushed back, because I was certain that I was heading in the right direction.

New Zealand needs rebels and rule-breakers. We need innovative thinkers who are willing to do things differently. Sometimes, that means we need to give young people permission – and even encouragement – to resist our traditional expectations of them.

Having initiative is vital too. I knew the media was a competitive industry, and I was willing to hustle. I tracked down editors. I kept harassing them. And I faced plenty of rejection – including from bosses who did figure out how inexperienced I was.

One email read: “A quick online search suggests you are still at high school and around 15 years old. Only in very extreme cases would I consider the work of a high school student who has no formal journalism training. You should approach a local community newspaper rather than a national Sunday newspaper.”

I flatly ignored that advice, and found other editors and producers who recognised my potential and were willing to offer their support and mentorship.

New Zealand is an incredibly easy country to get ahead in. Because our population is small, networking is pretty simple. When you overcome your reluctance to ask a stranger for a coffee or a connection, you’ll likely discover that they’re willing to help.

At 20, I put together a story for TVNZ’s Close Up programme, to show the executive producer what I was capable of. One afternoon, the team was frantically hunting for items to fill their empty show. My story was on a tape on the shelf, and the boss watched it. Within minutes, it had become the lead story for that night’s programme.

Sometimes, you have to stick around for a while to get the break you’re after. That requires patience and persistence.

You may think I was a young “overachiever”. That word is often used by people who feel uncomfortable about their own path in life.

I’ve never been interested in achievement for its own sake. I’ve always enjoyed challenging myself, being scared, following my curiosity, and chasing experiences that fill me with joy.

For some, it’s difficult to “dream big”. If you live in poverty or don’t have a stable home environment, you’ll struggle to dream at all. We need to address the social factors that make young people feel hopeless in the first place.

But rather than viewing all youth mental health issues as problems to be solved or illnesses to be cured, we can ask: “How can we help young people to believe in themselves?”

Across the country, plenty of teenagers are running their own race, like the students leading the School Strike for Climate, those who have set up businesses as part of the Young Enterprise Scheme, and those who participated in this year’s Youth Parliament.

We don’t need another generation of Instagram influencers. We need people who are willing to experiment, take risks, withstand rejection – and back themselves.

When I was 17, an editor rang me in horror after she heard me interviewed on Radio New Zealand’s Mediawatch. I could hear the panic in her voice when she realised that, across many months, she had paid a high school kid thousands of dollars to write articles.

After all these years, that still makes me smile.’

Click here to read the article by Stuff.