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Basic Trope: Adults respond to a child or teen complaining about their life by saying that these are the best years of their life.

  • Straight: Alice complains to her parents about high school, and they respond that she shouldn't be complaining, since these are the best years of her life.
  • Exaggerated: Alice comes home crying about being beat up mercilessly, mocked by teachers, assigned three times as much homework as her classmates, which she will get an F on no matter how hard she works, and spat on by the principal, and her parents say these are the best years of her life.
  • Downplayed: Alice usually has an okay time at school, but she's hit a rough patch because of a fight with her friends and an upcoming test and her parents aren't giving any sympathy.
  • Justified:
    • Alice's parents believe that she actually does have a good life, and see her as a Spoiled Brat.
    • Alice's parents had a great time in high school and only believe the same will happen to Alice, even if things have changed over the years.
    • Alice's parents just don't care about Alice's problems and only did this to shut her up.
  • Inverted:
    • Alice's parents complain about their retirement, and she tells them they shouldn't complain, since retirement is supposed to be the best years of their life.
    • Alice is happy in school, and her parents try to nag her into misery so that she will be happier later.
    • Alice is miserable in school, but her parents reassure her that this is as bad as her life is going to get.
  • Subverted: Alice complains to her parents about school, and they comfort her, never mentioning the BYOYL phrase. Alternatively, though they are initially dismissive, they eventually grow sympathetic to her plight.
  • Double Subverted: Alice complains to her parents about school, and they comfort her at first, but it turns out they only acted sympathetic to try to use Socratic irony to show how absurd it is that she isn't calling high school the best years of her life.
  • Parodied: We are treated to a montage of Alice suffering terribly at school, coming home more bruised and distressed each day, while her parents are shown after every scene of her suffering, telling her that these are the best years of her life.
  • Zig-Zagged: Alice's parents seesaw between sympathy for her plight and outrage that she would dare to complain about her teenage years.
  • Averted: Alice never complains about high school to her parents.
  • Enforced: The writer thinks that high school really was the best years of his life, so he has the parents in the work use the line. Alternatively, the studio is afraid of angry parents writing in to complain that they can no longer use the BYOYL line to stop their teenagers from complaining because they watched a show featuring parents admitting that high school isn't the best years of their lives, so the studio uses the phrase in its programming.
  • Lampshaded: Alice mocks her parents for using a line so trite and just plain wrong as BYOYL.
  • Invoked: Alice complains about high school to her parents specifically to see if they use the BYOYL line, and when they do, she comes to the conclusion that their perceptions of high school are grossly unrealistic.
  • Exploited: The corrupt mayor starts a campaign that pushes the BYOYL slogan, while changing school policies so they tacitly encouraging bullying, so the kids who come out end up so broken and dreamless that they gladly go work at his factory instead of aspiring to college or other higher pursuits.
  • Defied:
    • Alice refuses to tell her parents about her high school problems because she knows they'll just use the BYOYL line.
    • Alice's parents refuse to use the BYOYL line, no matter how tempted they may be to use it, because they know how foolish it is.
  • Discussed:
    • Alice's parents debate whether they should use the BYOYL line with Alice once she starts complaining about high school.
    • Alice and her parents argue about whether high school really is the best years of her life after her parents use the line.
  • Conversed: Alice and her friends talk about parents in a TV show they watch using the BYOYL line.
  • Deconstructed:
    • Alice's high school life sucks, plain and simple, but because her parents keep telling her that high school is the best years of her life, she takes this to mean that life is only going to get worse, and thus become depressed, turns to drugs, or even commits suicide.
    • After graduation, Alice quickly loses contact with anyone she even considered a friend and is unable to make new ones, making her high school years better by comparison because she now has to handle the same issues alone.
  • Reconstructed: After Alice complains to her parents about how much high school sucks, they comfort her while telling her that high school is supposed to be the best years of her life. However, rather than leave it at that, they give her advice to help her actually make them the best years of her life, and she succeeds.
  • Plotted A Good Waste: The writer has Alice's parents use the BYOYL line to her to make the teenage audience dislike them and justify her not coming to them with serious problems.
  • Played For Laughs: Alice's parents respond to her every little insignificant complaint, even the ones she just tossed out off-hand and isn't actually miffed by, by saying that high school is supposed to be the best years of her life.
  • Played For Drama: Alice's parents use the BYOYL line to her whenever she complains about high school, causing such great disagreements between them that a permanent rift is driven in their relationship.

Can't you see? This is the best trope of your life!

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