Female youths most stressed, poll finds

Part three of a five part series

NEW YORK — Stressed out by your high-pressured job? Don't assume your kid is any less stressed out by school. Especially if she's a she.

Young people experience stress at a high rate, and females more than males, an extensive Associated Press/MTV survey shows. A similar divide exists in terms of fears and safety: Girls and young women are less likely to feel safe in their neighborhoods, in schools, or from terror attacks.

The source of stress changes as we get older, the survey shows. Among 13- to 17-year-olds, school is by far the most commonly mentioned source. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, it's jobs and financial matters. In all, fully 85 percent of young people said they felt stress at least sometimes.

"I'm a pretty high-stressed person," says Katie Duda, 21, who's finishing up a degree in culinary arts and awaiting the birth of her first child in a few weeks. "But if I'm not stressed out, I'm bored." Right now, it's the responsibility of parenthood that is stressful to Duda, who lives in Bakersfield, Calif.

"It's the unknown of it all," she says. "Not the birth itself, but the next 18 years."

Tenth-grader Madelyn Dancy of Memphis has a whole other set of concerns. She wants badly to excel in school so she can fulfill her dream — and the hopes of her family — of becoming a doctor. "That's why I work so hard," says the 15-year-old. "They're looking at me to do something in my life that they couldn't do." For her, stress comes from schoolwork and "having to do so much in so little time." She also plays lacrosse and tries to have a life outside school.

"It's going pretty well," says Dancy. "I've hit all my goals, but I'm setting more."

Kelly O'Brien has goals, too — the 20-year-old from Santa Rosa, Calif., plans to finish her business administration degree within a year, get married two years from now, and later have a family and own a home. Stress comes from balancing her schoolwork with two part-time jobs, as a bookkeeper and as a candy store clerk.

"It's always in the back of my mind," says O'Brien of the financial pressures of young adulthood. "Right now I'm comfortable, but I've had friends my age who've actually bought a home. I'm like, 'How can they do that?"'