Reflection 1
/ THE RISE AND FALL -OFTHE- AMERICAN TEENAGER Thomas Hine>,, litoiII - Perennial AnImprint ofHarperCollinsPublishers Ahardcover edition ofthis book was publishedin1999 byBard, an imprint ofAvon Books, Inc. THE RISE AND FALL OFTHE AMERICAN TEENAGER. Copyright ©1999 byThomas Hine. All rig!1ts reserved. Printedinthe United States ofAmerica. No part ofthisbook maybeused orreproduced inany manner whatsoever withoutwrittenpennission exceptinthe case ofbrief quotations embodiedincritical articles andreviews. Forinfonnation address HarperCollillS PublishersInc., 10East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
HarperCo11ins booksmaybepurchased foreducational, business, orsales promotional use. Forinfonnation pleasewrite: Special Markets Department, HarperCollins PublishersInc., 10East53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
First Perennial editionpublished 2000. DesignedbyKellan Peck The Library ofCongress has catalogued thehardcover edition asfollows:
Hine, Thomas The riseand £111 oftheAmerican teenager IThomas Hine.-lst ed.
p. em.
ISBN 0-380-97358-8 1.Teenagers-United States. 2. Adolescence-United States. LTitle.
HQ796.H493 1999 99-24381 305.235'0973-dc21 CIP ISBN 0-380-72853-2 (pbk.) 02 03 04 RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 ONE TheTeenage Mystique Americacreatedtheteenager in its own image-brash, unfinished, ebul lient, idealistic, crude,energetic, ~nnocent, greedy, changing in allsorts of unsettling ways. Amessy. sometimes loutishcharacter who isnonethe lesscapable of performing heroically when necessary,theteenager em bodies endless potential not yethobbled by the defeats andcompromises of life. The American teenager is thenoble savage in bluejeans, the future in your face. Teenagers occupyaspecial placeinthe society. They afeenvied and soldto,studied and deplored. They are expected tobreak somerules, but thereare other restrictions thatapply only to them. They' areata golden moment in life-and not to be trusted. Ours isaculture that isperpetually adolescent:always becoming but nevermature, incessantly losingits none-too-evident innocence. We don't want to admitthat we're grown, mature and responsible. We ad mire people like Ronald Reagan, JamesStewart, or David Letterman, who maintain acharmingly awkward,fresh-faced teenagestyle into mid dleage and beyond. We like fresmnan legislators and suspecttheexperi ence of professional politicians. We arebesotted with youth-it's nature's Viagra.Teenagers arefilled The Teenage Mystique 11 with new powersandtheability touse them. We respond withwonder, envy-and alarm. We know we can't keepupwith these kids. We wonder if theywillbeable tokeep theirenergies under control. We worry thatthey willrunroughshod overeverything that'sworthwhile. What was new about theidea of the teenager atthe time the word firstappeared during World War IIwas theassumption that all young people,regardless of theirclass, location, or ethnicity, should have essen tially thesame experience, spent with peopleexactly theirage, in an environment defined by highschool andpop culture. The teen years have become defmed not as aninterlude but rather as something central to life, aperiod of preparation andself-definition, aperiod of indulgence and unfocused energy.Fromthestart, ithas embodied extremeambiva lence about thepeople itdescribed. Teenagers embracethelatest dances and thelatest fashions. Adultsfearthat teenagers willgototally out of control. The teenage yearshavebeen defined as, atonce, thebest and freest of life and atime of near madness anddespair. Our beliefS about teenagers aredeeply contradictory: They should be free tobecome themselves. They needmany years of training and study. They kuow more about thefuture thanadults do. They know hardly anything at all. They ought to know thevalue of adollar. They should beprotected fromtheworld of work. They arefrail, vulnerable creatures. They are children. They aresex fiends. They arethe death of culture. They arethe hope of us all. We love theidea of youth, but are prone topanic about theyoung. The very qualities thatadults findexciting andattractive aboutteenagers are entangled with those we find territying. Their energy threatens anar chy. Their physical beautyand budding sexuality menacesmoral stan dards. Their assertion of physicalandintellectual power makes their parents atonce proud andpainfully aware of their own mortality.
These qualities-the things we love, fear,andthink we know about the basic nature of young people-constitute ateenage mystique: aseduc tive but damaging way of understanding young people.Thismystique encourages adultstosee teenagers (and young peopletosee themselves) not as'individuals but as potential problems. Suchapessimistic view of the young can easily leadadults tofeel that they arepowerless tohelp young people makebetter livesforthemselves. Thus,theteenage mys tique canserve as anexcuse forelders toneglect thecoming generation and, ultimately, tosee their worst fearsrealized.
In the first decade of thetwenty-first century,America cananticipate 12 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER thelargest generation of teenagers in itshistory. one even larger than the baby boomer generation thatentered itsteens foufdecades ago. Some seethese young people as barbarians atthe gates, and others look forward greedily tolarge numbers of newconsumers. But allseem toagree that having so many teenagers around will mean something important forthe country. That's why this is a crucial moment to question the teenage mystique andlook formore useful ways tothink about theyoung. I'm going tobegin with ahorror story.onethat isnot atall typical of young people's experience today.Itdoes, however, illustrate how the teenage mystique provokes us todraw spurious generalizations froma singular abhorrent actand how itcan lead tostrange anddestructive fonns of denial. On the night of June 6, 1997, aneighteen-year-old woman from Fork River, New Jersey, gavebirth toasix-pound-six-ounce babyboy in the women's rest room of thecatering hallwhere her high school senior prom was taking place. Her sonwas found dead,tiedinaplastic bag inatrash caninthe lavatory where he was born. Hismother, meanwhile, wasdancing, smiling,andto all outward appearances, en joyingwhat'ssupposed tobe amagical night.
This story excited tremendous publicinterest, as truehorrors do.
Always therearequestions. How could she not have known thatshe was pregnant? Didn't her parents, vvith whom shewas living, know? And how about her boyfriend of twoyears, thepresumed father? The explanation thatshehad taken towearing baggyclothes didn'tseem convmcmg. The bigger, morefundamental questionwas how shecould have done it.She saidshebelieved thebaby was bam dead. (Prosecutors felt otherwise, andinthe end, shepleaded guiltytoaggravated manslaughter and was sentenced toafifteen-year jailtenn.) But even amiscarriage spurs more emotion thanthis young woman displayed. According toone account, shetouched up her makeupatthe bathroom mirrorafterdis carding her child, thenemerged smilingandanimated, minglingwith her classmates as ifabsolutely nothinghadhappened. When faced with shocking events,peoplesearchforreasons andmeanings.
In this case, anexplanation wasclose athand: ,Shewasacontempo rary teenager, a member of ageneration that's out of control."Shehas come of age," wrote columnist GeorgeWillinthe June 15, 1997 issue of the Washingto/l Post, "in asociety wherecondom-dispensing schools The Teenage Mystique 13 teachsexeducation in the modem manner, which has beenwell-de scribed as 'plumbing forhedonists.''' People magazine usedtheincident as anoccasion toassemble arogues' gallery of teenagers who havebeen charged withcommitting callouslyviolentacts. One of these was another young New Jersey woman inher teens charged, withherthen-boyfriend, with killing anddisposing of hernewborn inamotel Dumpster in Dela ware. New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman quickly camefor ward witha$1.1 million program tocure what shecalled a"moral crisis" thatledteenagers to kill theirinfants. Sheacknowledged thatteen pregnancy was actually in decline, but added thatshewas alarmed atthe phenomenon of teenage mothers who believe "the popular attitude that says, 'Anything goes,'including givingbirthtoababy anddiscarding it in the trash." Governor Whitman's statementdemonstrates thatthefacts have far less power than what people believe is true.Andwhat we seem to believe is that today's teenagers areuniquely threatening. One distin guished criminologist has described abreed of lawless, heavilyarmed, and rutWess "teenage superpredators." There's no doubtthatsuch people exist, particularly insome low-income citydistricts wheredrugdealing and other crimes .are justabout theonly economic activities. But there's a temptation tosee all teenagers-with the possible exception of your own children andafew of their friends-as part of this savage horde.
By giving birth to andkilling herbaby atthe senior prom, theyoung woman provided neighbors andpundits withavery strong temptation to cast what happened as aparable. M?-ny elements of the teenage mys tique--sexuality, consumption, youthculture, hell-raising-coalesce on prom night.
Compared withmost other societies, ours is short of ritualsthat meaningfully recognizeyoungpeople's arrivalatmaturity.
The senior prom is one of the few inwhich young people takeanactive, even enthusiastic role.Itmarks theend of high school, thenear-universal experience of American youth,inaway thatallows young people to be farmore expressive thanthey are,capped andgowned, atgraduation ceremonies. Bothyoung people andtheir elders expect itto be anight to be remembered forthe rest of one's life.
For older people, thesenior promconjures up gyms festooned with crepe paper andgirls in frilly evening gowns. That sort of promdied most places during the1970s. What replaced it,after afew promless years insome schools, isverydifferent, thoughcorsages andeven cum- 14 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER merbundsarestill involved. The event is held inahotel ballroom or catering establishment. The girlschoose drop-dead sexydresses thatmake them appear as adult as possible. Transportation isoften by limousine, a practicethatbegan as aconcession toparents who knew thattheir chil drendrink on prom night, probably becausetheyhad.It'sanexpensive event. Atypical prom couple spendsabout$1,000 all told. The contem porary prom is not afarewell toschool days but astrong assertion of nearly grown-up status, astatus thatthesociety at large, doesn't fully accept.
By giving birthatthe prom, theyoung woman violated theold fashioned meaning of the prom as acelebration of the end of aprotected, almost childish mode of existence. But heract also undermined themore recent tendency by young people touse theevent as anaggressive asser tion of maturity. Sheproved herselfphysically capable of bearing achild, but not mentally, emotionally, or morallymatureenough tohandle it.
She had, inaword, shown herselftobe ateenager. One element of this story that captured theimagination of those who reflected on it was themusic. Not long aftertheyoung woman emerged fromthewomen's room,sherequested asong from the disc jockey. It was "Unforgiven" byMetallica, agroup known forthe kind of relentless, pounding soundsthatgive parents headaches andmake them wonder whattheirchildren hearinthis stuff-:-ar indeed whether they can hear at all. "If she is likemillions of other young adults," wrote Will, sounding likecountless generations of elders,"she has pumped into her ears thousands of hours of the coarsening lyrics of popularmusic." Others foundsignificance inthe lyrics of thesong, which begins: "New bloodjoinstheEarth andquickly he'ssubdued." Adults havebeen deploring therawness, primitive rhythms,andcar nality of young people's musiceversince ragtime firstbecame popular early inthe century. Itreminds themthattheir children are becoming openly sexual----::-and that they have some new moves of their own.
In fact, music ismore corrunonIy asubstitute foraction thana provo cation. Ballroom dancing is stylizedseduction, but itmost often leads only toanother dance.People singtheblues totell about how miserable they are,anditmakes them and tlleir listeners feelbetter. Marches keep soldiers in line between battles. And heavy-metal fans-when asked how theyreact tothe cacophonous soundsandnihilistic lyrics-tend toreply that themusic calmsthemdown. We probably can'tblame Metallica.
(Besides, thechild inits song livesintooldage.) The Teenage Mystique 15 What didmake herdo it? One neighbor suggested itwas theresult of indulgent parenting; her mother andfather gave her acar, and they even bought the gas for it. Others mightblame Satan-or society. I'm reluctant tohazard suchexplanations, becausethelast thing Iwant to do isto seem tobe making anexcuse forsuch anevil act. But whatever the cause, thestory illustrates thegrotesque consequences of theteenage mystique. The young woman was unwilling toadmit, eventoherself, that her actions had consequence-in thiscase, ason. Moreover, the teenage mystique enabledthosearound her todeny thereality of her situation, and itallowedhertodeny thegravity of her act. She accepted one of the mystique's keyassumptions: What teenagers dodoesn't really count.
Most of us treat theteenager as aself-evident phenomenon, an un avoidablestage of life.Adults fulminate aboutteenagers, childrenare encouraged to lookforward tobeing teens, andthose who fitthe defini tion seem to accept it,attimes reluctantly. Yettheconcept of the teen ager remains arbitrary andconfusing. The word "teenager" tells us onlythattheperson described isolder than twelve, younger thantwenty. Thesesevenyearsrepresent anenor mous chunk of aperson's life,oneinwhich mostpeople experience big physical, emotional, intellectual, andsocial changes. The word"teenager" actually maskstremendous differencesinmaturity between different members of theage group, andwithin individuals as they pass through the teen years.
Defining aperson strictly interms of age feels natural tocontempo rary Americans. Our society's commitment toequality seemstodemand objective classifications. We don't trustpeople in authority to judge whether,forexample, thisyoung person is mature enough todrive or tovote, while another onethesame age isnot. We recognize thatsuch judgments mightbecorrect, but also that they aresubject to abuse.
Conferring andwithholding rights isaserious matter, and age seemsto be the most objective standard we canapply. The trouble withcreating adistinct groupdefined solelybyage is that we conjure upphenomena that don't reallyexist. Is therereally an epidemic of teenage pregnancy, or are women in theirteens simply participating inalarger societal trendtobear children out of wedlock?
Crime, especially drugcrime, is amultigenerational industryinwhich people in their teens areactive participants. Is it,then, meaningful to 16 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER speak of ateenage crimeproblem? In1998 Reuters reported on ascien tific study that purported to show the neurological causes of "teen angst." What the researchers found wasthat the "teenage mind" reacts to crises while usingapart of the brain associated with impulsive action,while adults ma~e greater use of theareas associated with rationality andexperi ence. Deep in the story. itwas noted that older teens havebrain responses closetothose of adults. There is, in other words, no such things as "the teenage mind," onlydeveloping human minds. Until thetwentieth century,adultexpectations aEyoungpeoplewere determined not by age but by size. Ifa fourteen-year-old lookedbigand strong enough to doaman's work on a farm or in afactory or mine, most people viewed him as aman. And ifasixteen-year-old wasslower to develop andcouldn't perform as aman, hewasn't one.For young women, theissue was much thesame. To bemarriageable wasthesame asbeing readyformotherhood, whichwasdetermined by physical devel opment, not age.
Sometimes young people coulddisplay learning, skills, or religious inspiration that would forcetheirelders toacknowledge theirmaturity. The important thing,though, wasthat thematurity of each young person was judged individually.
Today's teenagers serveasentence of presumed imnlaturity, regardless of theirachievements or abilities. The prodigy has tofinish highschool. The strapping, well-developed young man showshisprowess not atwork but on the football or soccer team. The young woman who isreadyto be amother istoldtowait adecade instead. That doesn't mean that we havegiven upthinking aboutourselves and others in terms of size, only that thismindset coexists uncomfort ably with our practice of regimented agegrouping. Recent studies show that young people who view themselves as more physically de veloped than their peers are more likely thanothers to be sexually active, to drink; and to engage in risky behavior. They often cause discipline problems in schoolsbecause theyareunwilling toaccept society's assertion thatthey are not grown up. They arealso more likely to attempt suicide.
Today's young people grow to their fullsize and reach sexual matu ritysooner thandidmembers of earlier generations. The mismatch be tween young people's imposing physicaldevelopment andtheir presumed emotional, social,andintellectual immaturity isdramatic.Willthese pow erful young people, who are judged not yetready to join theadult world, The Teenage Mystique 17 assertthemselves andimmediately careen out of control,endangering themselves andothers? This is-aperennial anxietythat'sneartheheart of the teenage mystique.
Teenagers spendmuch of theirlivesdealing withpeople who do not know them as individuals, and under the control of institutions that strivetodeal with people uniformly. Once theyleave thehouse, they are atthe mercy of abattery of bureaucracies. Chief among theseare public highschools, junior highschools, andmiddle schools, all of which have become increasingly largeandimpersonal. Moreover,issuessuch as insurance liabilityandfear of sexual harassment chargeshaveweakened relationships betweenstudentsandteachers. When theschool dayends, teenagers inpublic areasuspect class, of particular interesttolocal police andthesecurity forces of shopping malls andother private businesses. Teenagersareoften expected to be transgressors, and when theydofail toconform to the frequently ambiguous rules within which theyareexpected tolive, theycan be punished veryseverely. Institutionally, teenagersaretreated as some thing lessthan real people-sometimes resembling children,sometimes adults. And during the1990s, it has become politically populartopunish them as both. In recent years,adults' disapproval of teenagers has grown. Ina1997 survey, 90percent of adults saidthatyoung people arefailing tolearn such values as honesty, responsibility, andrespect, andtwo thirds agreed that thenext generation willbeworse thanthelast. The media offerreasons forpessimism. Justabout all thenews they report aboutteenagers is bad.(Most newsabout anything is bad, of course. Part of theproblem may be that "teen" is suchashort and seemingly descriptive word forheadline writers. You rarelyseeaheadline that says FOUR TWENTYSOMETHINGS ARRESTED.) Still, some of thestories arememorable. Young males showupat school withautomatic weaponsand mow downstudents andteachers who slighted them-or anybody who happens to be around.Ateenage male murders achild who came to his door selling candybars to raise money for hisschool. Two teens in aremote hou~e order out for pizza-because they plan to killthedelivery man.Agang of teens on their waytoplay baseball inthe park bludgeon astranger todeath with their bats. The litany cango on and on.Teenagers seemto be descending 18 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER to alevel of brutality beyond what many adults can remember, or even imagine.
"We know we've got about sixyears to tum this juvenile crime thing around, or our country isgoing to be living in chaos,"President William J. Clinton said in 1997, expressing an opinion shared by others across the political spectrum. At the time he made the statement, he knew thatcrime by young people hadactually beendeclining fortwo years, but he responded topublic perceptions of amassive increase. Teenagers' crimeshave become deadlier and more spectacular, but that'slargely because of theweapons beingused. The switchblades used by the juvenile delinquents who were so menacing during the 19505 were surelylethal, but anindividual wasn't able to harm more than one person atatime. When young people have access to guns, aprivate dispute can tum into amassacre. Indeed, many of the most dramatic recent incidentshave happened in mralareas, where school violence is extremely rare, but firearmsare common. Arecent national study of adolescent healthidentified guns in the home as ameasurable risk to teens'health, along with dmgs,alcohol, cigarettes, and automobiles. In a1998 survey, one in sixteenagers claimedto cany gunsoccasionally, and 6percent said they take them to school.
Thus, even as serious crimes by teenagers decreased by more than 11 percentbetween 1994and1996, Congress andmany statelegislatures con sidered or enacted legislation requiringpeople asyoung as elevento be tried and punished as adults forawide range of crimes. Inthe November 19, 1995 New York Times, Princeton criminologist John DiIulioprovided a justification fortoughness when he called themid-1990s crimelull "the calmbefore thestorm" andwarned of acoming generation full of teenagers who are"fatherless, godless,andjobless." Today'steenagers areamenace, and tomorrow's aregoing to be even worse, theargument goes. Youth crimerateshave been declining throughout the 1990s. Still, as hasalways been the case, people in their teens-especially males commit alot of crimes. Throughout the 1990s, a bit less than athird of such serious offenses as murder, rape,larceny, and autotheft were com mitted bypeople intheir teens. (In1979 teenscommitted abouthalf of such crimes, but thatwaslargely because there were more teenagers then.) Violent crimefor[mancial gain, like athletics, is ayoung man's activity, requiring daring,physical confidence, and to ~ome degree, belief in one's own immortality. Such criminality tends to peak along with men's physicalprowess during their twenties. The Teenage Mystique 19 Crime is one of the few pursuits incontemporary lifethat allows young men to reach economic maturityataround thesame time as their bodies. Beforetheinvention of the teenager, most young men were making money on their own atfourteen or so, and they weren't consid ered abreed apart but simply members of theworkforce. Crime is one of thefew occupations to which youthfulentry isnot foreclosed. We aremore accustomed tothinking of contemporary teenagers as predatorsthan as victims, but therearegood reasons toworry about them. Farmore of them aregrowing upinlow-income householdsthan was the case afew decades ago. They spendmoretime on theirown; today's youngpeople areable to be with theirparents tentotwelve fewer hours each week thanwasthe case three decades ago. They arelikely toattend schools thatareovercrowded, acondition that will worsen because fewschool districts expanded theirsecondary schools toaccommodate thelarger numbers of teenagers they will enroll during thenext decade. Manyschool districts havelittle choice inthe matter, because theyarestarved formoney. Publicschools, new taxes, and teenagers arethree of the least popular causesincontemporary America, and when you put them all together,it'sapolitical loser.
Even those who aren't poor willhave aharder timerealizing their ambitions inan economy inwhich higher education is becoming ever more necessary andever more expensive. Four years of college areno longer enough tobring substantial financialrewards. The medianincome for college graduates isequivalent towhat highschool graduates earned in 1970.
The good newsabout contemporary teenagers isthatthey arecoping very welldespite thesechallenges. They are,ingeneral, farbetter off than their parents wereattheir age. They arehealthier thanever, and although theirrisk of being shot or murdered ishigher thanitwas forty years ago,their risk of dying during theirteens is considerably lower. They are less likelytodie in automobile accidents,anddespite recent upticks inalcohol anddrug use,these remain farbelow thelevels of twenty-five yearsago.Teenage pregnancies areindecline. Soare high school dropout rates. Young people's aspirations forhigher education are on theupswing fornearly all racial andethnic groups, withthesignificant exception of Hispanics. They express greateroptimism abouttheirlives than yonng people of the 19705 and19805.
It's good tofeel hopeful abouttheprospects forthe young andto 20 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER feelconfident thattoday's and tomorrow's teenagers will turn out all right. Yet,sometimes thisheartfelt desiretosee young people tum out well gives risetoadestructive aspect of theteenage mystique. We tend to believe that young peopleare not fullyformed andthat there isstill time tohelp them correct anymistakes theyhave made. This isagener ous belief thatcontains asubstantial element of truth. But thisoptimism becomes distorted when, seeingtheteen years asthelast chance toperfect troubled young people beforethey tum intovicious adults, our driveto perfect the young becomes coerciveandarbitrary. The belief thattheteenager isanunfinished personhelped giverise, acentury ago,tothe juvenile justicesystem. Thisplaced thecourts in a quasiparental roletoward young people andcreated separate procedures and punishments-along with a large roster of offenses thatareconsidered crimes only if young people commit them.Asimilar desiretoshape the teenager tosociety's liking also underlay theearly twentieth-century movement tomake highschool, which onlyasmall fraction of young people then attended, intoauniversal experience. Thisambition was achieved duringthe1930s.
Although thesetwoinstitutions arecurrendy under fire forbeing ineffective, effortstoperfect teenagers arestronger thanever. Indeed, reforming thebehavior of teenagers hasbecome asurrogate fortrying to deal with many problems of thesociety atlarge. The weaknesses we see in youth are our own, and we know it. We become angry with teenagers because we want them togrow intohealth ier, wealthier, andwiser versions of ourselves. We convince ourselves that by whipping today's young peopleintoline, society willachieve temperate perfection afew decades hence,and we willatone for our own shortcomings.
Teenagers arethe target of nearly everyeffortto cut smoking, alcohol abuse, andillegal druguse. Mter all, theteen years are when mostpeople acquire badhabits they'll havetherest of their lives. Yet,despite laws prohibiting sales of tobaccoproducts tominors, thedisappearance of cigarette vendingmachines, andmassive advertising andeducational ef forts, smoking by teenagers increased duringthe1990s. One hasto won der whether, by focusing so single-mindedly on teenagers, theselawsand exhortations conveythemessage thatsmoking isanadult activity-not merely astupid one.(Smoking isalsoaneffective, low-key way torevolt against health-obsessed baby boomer parents.) Young peoplehavefor many yearsasserted themselves as grown-ups by acquiring adultvices. The Teenage Mystique 21 We tend alsotooverlook olderagegroups in which drug useand drunken driving isincreasing, while we payvery close attention to teen agerswhose behavior has, in general, been improving. One result of this attention isa national movement to restrict thedriving privileges of the youngbylimiting thehours theycanlegally drive or forbidding them tocarry other young people in their car. Yet even theAmerican Auto mobile Association, which supports suchrestrictions, concedesthatthe main problem with teenage drivers isnot theirage but theirinexperience. There hasalso been awidespread revival of youth curfews in cities from Washington to LosAngeles, Phoenix toDetroit, andDallas toSan Jose. By1997, 146 of the200 largest American citieshadcurfew laws requiring young people under sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen to be off thestreets afteracertain hour. So didmany of thelarge suburban count iesthat surround thecities. In most places, the curfew isenforced inter mittently andselectively. It isatool thatallows policetodetain young people without cause. Meanwhile, evidencethatcurfews stopcrime by young people is scant. Mostcrime by juveniles is minor andhappens immediately afterschool getsout. InSan Diego, agroup challenging the city's curfew on constitutional groundsfound that-during aperiod when the curfew wasn't being enforced-83 percent of youth crimeoccurred outside of curfew hours. No part of theteenage mystique ismore alluring andperplexing than sexuality. Being a teenager is, in some respects, anunnatural act,an imposition of culture on biology. Itmeans continuing tobe achild when your body is telling you otherwise. Young people nearing thepeak of their physical andsexual powers areexpected todelay using them, and focus theseenergies on acquiring skillsandmoral values. Adults, especially parents, hope that young people willremain innocent of their sexual power. They are embarrassed totalk with their children aboutsexuality, fearing thatdoing so willonly encourage theirchildren tohave sex. But theysuspect, correctly in mostcases, thatteenagers arealready exploring their sexuality.
Teenage sexuality suffusesandconfuses theculture. Likeatree in first bud, thepotential adult body seems more attractive than one that is fullyformed. Adultsenvyteens fortheir energy, theirfreshness, their passion, and they seektoimitate them. There's something crazy about the way grown-ups trytorecapture anevanescent moment. Meanwhile, 22 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER television,magazines, and ftlms aresaturated with seductive imagery of teenagebodiesacting out adultfantasies. That's unsettling toadults and young people alike. The worship of taut young bodiessendsamessage to-adult women thattheir own matu rity is akind of failure. Y cung peoplelive in anatmosphere inwhich erotic images of young female andmale bodies arebeing usedtosell nearly everything. (And we areonly now beginning torealize how often adults' eroticfeelings areacted upon with teenagers.) Contemporary teenagers aresexually active. Among seventh and eighthgraders, about one in sixreports havinghadsexual intercourse, while among ninth throughtwelfthgraders, nearlyhalfreport intercourse.
Meanwhile, young people arechanging theirperceptions of various sex ual acts. Some researchers havefound thatoralsex isincreasingly defined as justanother form of "making out," s~ort of realsex, though most parents would not agree. And although theabstinence educationprogramsoffered by many school districts advocate postponing sexuntil marriage, theshape of con temporary young people's livesmakes thatunlikely. Today'steenagers are faced with the prospect of anadolescence thatstretches wellinto their twenties, as graduate andprofessional educationareincreasingly required for jobs payingamiddle-class salary.Fortyyearsago,teenage marriage wascommonplace; now it'sclose tounthinkable. It'sone thing to tell afifteen-year-old tosave sexformarriage when the event islikely in three years or so, but quite different when theevent is adecade or more away. Fewaregoing towait forthose tenyears, sothey reason, "Why not now?" Still, even though adults,teens,andchildren live in ahothouse of adolescent sexualimagery andinnuendo, we persist in abelief or ahope that young people canbekept sexually innocent. We clingtoabiologi cally naive belief that if teenagers aren'ttoldanything aboutsex,the problem willgoaway.
Parental reticence aboutsexuality is nothing new.Even Sigmund Freud's sonMartin complained thathisfather wastooembarrassed to tell him anything aboutsex. The sex-drenched character of contemporary commercial culture would seemtodemand thatschools and other institu tions thatserve teenagers provideinformation thatmight put themedia's seductiveness in context.
Nevertheless, Congresshaspassed alaw providing extrafunding to states thatinitiate programs encouraging abstinence as theonly means of The Teenage Mystique 23 birthcontrol. Beforethe1997 school yearbegan, parentvolunteers in one rural North Carolina countygathered toslice three chapters out of theninth-grade healthtextbook. The subjects considered includedmar riage andparenting, contraception, andAIDS andsexual behavior.
Teachers wereinstructed totell students thatthey should find out about these things athome, probably fromparents who areeven more squea mish about sexthan Freud was.
There's noevidence thatinformation about contraception-or even distributing condoms in school-gives youngpeople theidea of having sex. The entire culture andtheir own bodies seemtobe doing thatquite effectively. Indeed, ifthere isanyone thingthatcanmake sexdull for teenagers, it istoteach it in highschool.
Like sex,money playsacomplex, oftencontradictory roleinour thinking aboutteenagers. Teenagers' buyingpower is as robust as their sexuality, yet we believethatyoung people donot and should not play a role inthe productive economy.Teenagers areto be protected .from the world of work, whether theywant tobe or not.
Teenage consumers helpdrive suchleading industries as popular music, movies, snack foods,casualclothing, andfootwear. They spend about $100billion ayear, just on things forthemselves. Two thirds of this comes fromtheir own earnings, therest from theirparents. Inaddi tion, large numbers of people in theirteens shopforfood fortheir families andinfluence purchases whoseestimated worth,depending on theassumptions youmake, ranges from$40billion to$100 billion a year. Because theirnumbers areincreasing andtheir buying habitsaren't yet fixed, teenagers are of intenseinterest tomarketers. Their tastes and habits hintatthe world of tomorrow. Teen consumers arebelieved to have theeconomic power tomake a new television networksucceed or toenable retailers tomake money on the Internet. Indeed,because mar keters findthatpeople undertwenty buy products based on their"aspira tional" age,usually aboutfiveyears older thantheir realage, young Americans becomepart of the"teenage" marketaround the age of nine.
Adults maynotapprove of everything teenagersdowith theirmoney, but they arecomplacent aboutteenagers' role as consumers. However, the prospect of teenagers earningmoney, especially alot of money, trou bles many adults.
That's because ourculture tells us thatthe "job" of teenagers isnot to work foraliving, buttogo toschool andacquire skills that will 24 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER enablethemtobe fully productive five or tenyears later. Educators and socialworkers callforteenagers' pay to be kept low sothat they won't be tempted to enter the job force and become independent prematurely. Underpaying young people is,thus, avirtuous act, done fortheir own good. We tend to view teenagers as more or less of aleisure class, even though it's clearly not true. They are to be seeneverywhere in the service economy-flipping burgers, working in stores,delivering parcels as theydid acentury ago, though now with afashion-forward attitude. Arecent Gallup pollfound thatabout half of all highschool juniors and seniors workpart-time, averagingfifteenhoursaweek. Despite theevidence of teenagers in productive positions--and the existence of entire industries thatdepend on their labor-we tend to view their work as inessential, away foryoung people tobuy theluxuries they demand whilelearning skills that will beuseful laterinlife. In fact, a study byTulane University researchers suggeststhatworking teenagers are more likely tocome fromrelatively affiuenttwo-parent suburban households thanfrom poorer, urban, or single-parent households,which isn't toosurprising, considering that s'uburbia is wheretheservice jobs are found.
While having ateenager inthe household oncegaveparents useful labor andeven apositive cashflow, contemporary teensarefarmore often afinancial drain. What neverseems tochange, however, is the effort toharness teenagers' productivity whilelimiting theireconomic rewards andthepersonal independence thesecould provide. Young people todayseemtobe in aworld of their own. They go to school withtheiragemates. They are with them onthe job. They hang out with them andthey buy products andseek out entertainment designed justforthem. The existence of this teenage culture, which seems wholly impervious toadult influence, isone of themost conten tious aspects of the teenage mystique.
Talcott Parsons, thesociologist who was thefirst tostudy contempo rary youth culture duringthe1940s, concluded thatitplaced ahigher priority on humanistic valuesthandoes thesociety atlarge., He observed that while adultsarejudged on arelatively narrowrange of competencies, being whatteens thentermed "a swell guy" required awide range of physical attributes, atWeticability,social skills, confidence, andtoalesser The Teenage Mystique 25 extent,intelligence. Inpractice it'svery demanding toconstantly undergo such all-encompassing assessments.Andit'sextremely inconvenient that it should comeatthe same time as pimples.
More recently, youthculture has taken on amore sinister aspect.
Parents oftenfeel as if theirteenage offipring havesuddenly become members of an alien tribewhose members payattention onlytoone another. Parentsfeeltheir opinions countfornothing, compared with the judgment of the other kidsatschool. Inreply, teenagers often com plaintointerviewers thatthey have been abandoned bytheir parents, who areworking hard,divorced, or uninterested in them.
Those on both sides of the generational dividehaveapoint. Some degree of withdrawal fromone's parents is anecessary part of growing up, and parents inevitably findthisseparation emotionally wrenching.
Likewise, manyfamilies havebeen caught between fallingwagesand rising material expectations, forcing longerworkhours forparents.
Friends help fill thegap.
Nevertheless, youngpeople cravecontact withtheir families. One of themost important incentives toteenage pregnancy, researchershave found, isthat it isaway forthe young woman towin individual attention she wouldn't ordinarily receivefromfamily members.
Indeed, themost powerful positivefactorthatdetermines thewell being of young people, according tothe 1997 adolescent healthstudy, isthepresence of parents who areengaged intheir children's livesand have highexpectations forthem.
On average, youngpeople spendmore time hanging out with people their own age.Still, justabout everystudy that has been made of young people intheir teens shows thatthey seek a connection withtheirparents andarevery sensitive totheir actions. The teenage mystique, whichencourages parentstotreat their young as iftheywere some strange andexotic species, playsabig role increating the youthful anomieanddeviant youthculture thatadults sofear.
The upcoming generation keepschanging its shape-from tormentor to victim, frominnocent tovoluptuary, fromconsumer tocreator, from menace to hope. It's not surprising; teenagersquiteliterally embody change. They undergo aseries of physical transformations thatcan be discontinuous, seeminglyunpredictable, andunsettling forthe young and their elders alike. They become walking, back-talking metaphorsforthe speed andinexorability withwhich ourlives arebeing transformed. But of course theyaremore thanmetaphors, morethanpassive 26 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER receptors and reflectors of social.visions. They areindividuals who will learn andcreate and say "No!" atseemingly inopportune times. They will,likeevery generation, face thedifficult task of makingsense of their lives indifficult times. It'seven possible that they will, with OUf help,revise or escape the teenage mystique and invent new and better ways to be young.
