Posted on 04/03/2005 2:26:22 PM PDT by BenLurkin
In a culture that idolizes youth and the young, a new court of gods and goddesses has taken over Olympus. They are related to the skeptical, but often talented and driven Generation X. They are its little brothers and sisters, different enough that a new vocabulary is developing to describe them.
They are no longer "teenagers," but teens. They are not "Generation Y" or even "Gen Y," but simply "Y-ers."
It's got to be short.
It's got to be sleek.
It's got to be easy to text message.
One word, however, has not passed out of the vocabulary of parents and employers when describing youths - "Slacker".
Even the disassociated ranks of Gen X have been heard to mutter against the entitlement attitude of many coming up behind.
Like the older brothers and sisters they are, twenty-somethings grumble, 'When we were growing up, you still had to work." Maybe not work in the "dead end" corporate world of their fathers, maybe in the music studio, or on a film set, or behind the bar in a distant country, or even at some "McJob," but you had to work.
Many "Y-ers," on the other hand, are living off mom and dad and waiting to be discovered. Reality TV is going to make them famous and all they'll have to do is show up and display how great they are. In the mean time, they have their allowance.
They spend it incessantly, especially to support their technology addiction.
Some sociologists call them "confident," "assertive" and "savvy." Others use words like "brash" and say they are ripe for disillusion by real life. All of these may be true of - at least some of - the latest "generation."
The trouble with generalization is that an individual never quite matches the mold. Poking a head into the life of a single teen can yield a very different picture.
Sarah L- is 17.
She is a senior at Lancaster High school, taking AP English. She works four days a week. She saves her money.
Sarah is not waiting for her big break. She's making it.
And that without many suburban-middle-class advantages often associated with "Y-ers."
Hardly more than four years ago, Sarah and her brother, Shawn, lived a very different life.
Their mother, a single mom, tended to wander.
"I've been dragged around, like, the whole western side of the United States," Sarah said.
The perpetual journey finally halted at a trailer park in Bakersfield. The three lived in an RV.
Life had gotten even more complicated for mom.
"When I was in middle school, she got a drug problem, but I had no idea. She kept it such a secret from my brother and me," Sarah said.
Sarah and Shawn spent day and night inside the RV.
"I would just read all day. She didn't want us going outside," Sarah said, "because someone might see."
Finally, four years ago, the family intervened. Mom went into rehab, and Sarah and Shawn went to live with Uncle Bruce and Aunt Tammy B-.
Mom disappeared two weeks later.
Family life was a whole new world for Sarah.
"This is the most loving home I've ever been in," she said.
Home now includes three cousins - Ashleigh, 19; Heather, 15; and Bruce, II, 8.
"I love it!" she said, "even though some people see it as odd."
The listless days of waiting for nothing are long gone. Now Sarah lives in the rough-and-tumble of a seven-person household.
Each week is packed with school, chores, work and family time.
"Gosh, I haven't been out with my friends in a long time," she said. Though, "I'm not embarrassed to be seen with my brother . . . I love spending time with (family) even more than my friends."
Mornings start at 6:15, so Sarah can drive Heather and Shawn to Lancaster High before the traffic rush.
Sarah's AP English and Peer Helping classes are highlights, in the busy muddle of learning, growing and relating that is high school.
English is her favorite, especially the writing exercises that give her a chance to develop her writing style, she said.
Other than that, "I just like the discussions we have . . . and hearing the ideas that other people have about the piece that we're reading."
Peer Helping class brings Sarah into close contact with other students and their problems. As conflict managers for the school, she and Shawn help kids talk through their problems and the emotions that go along with them. It gives Sarah a more considered view of her peers than might be expected.
Fitting-in and accepting others are the biggest struggles among teens, she said.
Guess some things never change.
"I see a lot of kids trying so hard to fit in, and they look so awkward," Sarah said. "They look so uncomfortable."
The result is often conflict.
"So many fights around my school are just because people are different," she said.
The high schoolers have a wide range of priorities.
"A lot of kids' goal right now is just to have fun," she said. "The more serious ones, it's to get into college and be happy there."
Sarah puts herself in the second category.
"I'm focussed on going to college . . . to be the first person in my family to get a degree."
The ambition comes with a price tag, both figurative and literal.
"Some of them are scared to leave home and not have the comfort of their family there," she said.
Finding college funding can be at least as challenging.
"It's kind of overwhelming," she said, despite a Governor's Scholar Award for scoring in the top 5% in the state on the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) test, in 2003.
Sarah had applied for many other scholarships, but she's not waiting around for others to determine her fate.
Going to college means working - now.
So four days per week, including weekends, all the homework, housework and family fun has to be done before 4 p.m.
Sarah works the Drive thru window at the Taco Bell restaurant on 10th Street West and Avenue I.
On pay day, her cash does not evaporate, as it seems to for many young workers.
"I'm saving for school," she said. When she does spend money, it's on necessities, such as gas.
Also, "It helps out my family a lot when I buy my own clothes or shoes for school," Sarah said. Other than that, "I'm just putting my money in my account."
She wants to get an apartment with cousin Ashleigh, this summer, and to earn a degree in Journalism from Antelope Valley College. For the moment, she hopes to be a newspaper journalist, or maybe a teacher, but her strongest desire is:
"To become someone that I can look back and be proud of, and to have a happy life."
That is something every generation can relate to.
Always encouraging to read such stories.
I hope her dreams come true. I also hope she doesn't get trapped in the journalistic trap that captures so many that think they have to over emphasize and over inflate stories to make a point. I have a niece that has happened to.
Thanks for posting this. And good for her!
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