Young people need mentors. They need guidance. They need
more than their parents can usually offer. In fact, I think they are
genetically predisposed to take any action that is in direct conflict with any
advice their parents have given them. But they will listen to a mentor. They
will latch on to another adult with whom they feel can more closely relate. In
a bygone era, when people lived primarily in villages, or even in a more recent
time when more extended families tended to live in the same town on neighboring
farms, this role would have been filled by an aunt or uncle, or even older
cousin or next door neighbor. A young person who wasn’t quite making their own
way in the world would have easy access to a plethora of grown-ups who were
willing to introduce them to a trade, point them in the direction of a career,
coach them in their personal finances and even in their personal relationships.
I’m
afraid that the more we connect with each other in the virtual realm, the less
we really connect with each other in a real and physical sense, and our young
people are suffering for it. When they buck against all of the advice their
parents (assuming they have parents who care enough to offer advice) are trying
to give, they’re so disconnected from their extended families and community
that their unmet needs continue to go unnoticed. And as they flounder, unhappy
with the advice their parents are giving them and unable to connect with
another mature individual, they soak up the advice of other teens who also lack
any real level of mature guidance. Eventually we find that they are
20-somethings with no sense of what life is like in the real world, no ability
to manage money or prioritize tasks and goals, and absolutely no idea who they
are or what they want to be when they grow up.
I feel
strongly that this calls for a very concerted effort in our community. We, as
community members, need to reach out to the teens in our local high schools.
They need to feel important. They need to recognize that they have value. They
need to be taught that there is value in working for a living and contributing
to their community. They need to be shown how to manage money. They need to be
taught simple tasks like how to fill out a job application, draft a resume,
speak with a manager, interview for a job. They need to be shown that they have
an inherent self worth that is not tied to anyone else’s perception of
themselves. Our girls need to be shown that their self worth is not tied
directly to their sexuality and that they are valued without making themselves
into objects for the sexual gratification of others.
I wish
I could take them all in – every one of the 12-15 year old girls on my Facebook
profile who are trying so desperately to be women already, who think that the
measure of their value is directly proportionate to the amount of eye-liner
they wear. I wish I could take every one of them under my proverbial wing, to
coach them and teach them all the things no one was able to teach me at 14 …
before they find themselves in the same position I was in at 15.
