Friday, August 13, 1999
The secret world of America's teens
Writer delves into high-risk culture
BY CINDY KRANZ
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Patricia Hersch spent three years immersed in teen culture and made a startling discovery: Teen-agers are largely neglected and unsupervised by adults. As a result, teens form their own communities, with their own sets of values, ethics and rituals.
“Unfortunately, with the culture they've grown up in as adolescents today, good kids are regularly engaging in behavior that puts them at risk,” says Ms. Hersch, a journalist from Reston, Va., where she followed the lives of eight teens.
One of those teens, an eighth-grader, was involved in school, church, music and sports, but spent her last year in middle school partying and drinking with older boys, unbeknownst to her parents.
“We need to be really concerned,” Ms. Hersch says. “Parents or adults who think that these kids are any different are wrong.”
There is hope, though, if parents listen to their teens and communicate with them, she says.
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IF YOU GO
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• What: Patricia Hersch signing and discussing A Tribe Apart: A Journey Into The Heart Of American Adolescence.
• When: 7 p.m. Aug. 25.
• Where: Books & Co., 350 E. Stroop Road, Kettering.
• Information: (800) 777-4881.
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Ms. Hersch will sign and discuss A Tribe Apart: A Journey Into The Heart of American Adolescence (Ballantine Books; $14), the book that recounts her experience, Aug. 25 at Books & Co. in Kettering.
At age 46, the mother of two sons began her project by spending one year at a Reston high school and middle school observing and building trust with teens. She compiled a list of 60 teens to interview, intending to narrow the number to eight.
“I was looking for boring, kids who come to class not dressed or pierced in any odd way,” she says. “They were kids who didn't stand out as wretched behavior problems or academic stars.”
Ms. Hersch sent consent forms to the teens' parents before the interviews. Parents agreed to unfettered access to their children and not to ask questions about what she learned. Ms. Hersch agreed she wouldn't ignore dangerous behavior. She was shocked by the number of parents who signed the form and didn't bother to meet her.
Even more surprising, some parents of the final eight who became part of the book never attempted to meet her and have never read her book.
Ms. Hersch narrowed the list to four boys and four girls. Four were from intact families; four were from divorced families (two of those were in stepfamilies). One was African-American. Another was Hispanic. She changed their names, but none of the details of their lives.
“It is, in a way, a secret world,” she says. “My conclusions show it's more of a secret than we think.”
She tried not to define the discussions, seeking an undistilled picture of how adolescents weigh the things adults are concerned about, such as drinking and sex, and whether the kids engage in them.
Ms. Hersch also found adolescents who lack and long for connections with adults.
“Essentially, since the early 1970s, we have been a working nation,” Ms. Hersch says. “It's not a women's lib issue. It's an economic issue. More than 20 years later, we haven't even resolved the issues of day care yet.
“We have wave after wave of adolescents growing up with little interaction with adults. As a result, they are a tribe apart.
“Most parents want to be the best parents they can be. They're simply squeezed to death, time-wise.”
What kids need
Like everyone else, adolescents, need to feel part of a community, and so in the absence of adults, they form their own conclaves where they are at risk for engaging in unhealthy behaviors, Ms. Hersch says. They consider those behaviors to be normal, so the “just say no” messages don't get through to them.
“One of the messages they get from society, growing up, is anything goes, as long as you can get away with it. What's wrong for me might be right for another.”
What's more, she says, adults send conflicting messages. One teen who would be grounded for life for smoking pot goes to a friend's house where those parents allow it as long as she does it at home. That fascinates the other teen, and fascination sometimes leads to experimentation.
“We have to see things from their point of view,” Ms. Hersch says. “Most kids I interviewed do not do things to be bad. They do things because they seem right to them at a given moment.”
There are some things parents can do, even if they can't quit their jobs to spend more time with their teens. “We as adults have to be ready to take a deep gulp and listen to how these kids are living their lives,” Ms. Hersch says.
Adults don't listen
The big message she got from teens was adults never let them finish what they're talking about. If a teen comes home and says he had a bad time at a party, the adult usually cuts him off and grills him: What party? Was there drinking? Were there drugs? The teen shuts down.
While Ms. Hersch reminded the teens that it's a parent's job to worry and know what their children do, the teens still lamented that adults don't listen to them.
And parents need to be involved. “It sounds self-evident, but I have been amazed at the lack of participation of parents at sporting events, concerts, plays and even back-to-school nights,” Ms. Hersch says.
Parents and other adults, she says, must reach out to teens and recognize that they are part of the community.
“They get a bad rap, and they know it. We need to value them for who they are. They are just as valuable as little children. They're the same little kids, only in bigger packages.”
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