Transcripts

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SPEAKER 1: All of them, no matter what they were dealing with, were looking for someone that would talk to them, an adult. I think so often we are so convinced by the kind of nose ring sullen turned off behavior by young people that they don't want to talk to us, and that's absolutely not true. They are desperate to talk to adults. And what I think we have to do and what the people in this book did to bring these kids out was to reserve judgment and simply truly listen. And that is a very difficult thing to do, but it's essential if we're going to find out what's really going on in our kids' minds.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SPEAKER 2: I have blue hair. I change it frequently to green or purple or some other bright color, but right now I have blue hair and that is part of who I am. It's a symbol to me of the struggles I've gone through in the last few years and how I've overcome the restricting boundaries of society.

I grew up in a very religious family, the oldest of six kids. I was home schooled until sixth grade, which was my first year of public school and also the beginning of breaking away from the values and beliefs I grew up with. As I got older, it became easier for me to stand up for myself and say, you can't tell me what's right for you as what's right for me.

But by standing up for myself, I was just screwing myself over because the more I did, the more my parents realized I couldn't be changed and therefore, the less freedom they gave me. It got to the point where I felt I would explode if something didn't change. I was using drugs heavily to get away from the pain because I knew I lacked the emotional strength to deal with things.

One summer about two years ago, I came to the conclusion that the only way my parents would ever give me the freedom I needed was if they thought I believed in what they did. So I decided to fake it. I went through a personal revival, and it worked. Gradually, my parents got more lenient. But at the same time, they were getting even more religious.

The biggest challenge in standing up for myself, which I faced about a year ago was coming out to my parents about being bisexual. They, of course, told me it was wrong. I couldn't understand how anyone could think that something I considered so beautiful was perverted.

There were other things. It was wrong to be extreme in appearance and attract attention, even if that's not the intent. And it was my fault that people looked at me and stereotyped me because of my appearance. It was endless.

My parents finally let me go back to public school in 10th grade. The conflicts between us didn't get any better because I was becoming more and more sure of myself. During the summer between 10th and 11th grades, my parents decided our struggles were doing us and the rest of the family more harm than anything else. So I moved in with my grandparents.

Shortly after that, I started going to drug treatment and stopped using drugs. I didn't feel the need to use them since I wasn't being emotionally bombarded anymore. I also started going to one-on-one counseling.

The more I got in tune with myself, the more I realized how many of my parents ideas and beliefs were influenced by the media, stereotypes, and our society in general. It hit me then that the struggle wasn't standing up for myself just to my parents, but to the whole world. I can't let myself be influenced by society's ideas of right and wrong. So I try to just smile at the people who I know are criticizing me as soon as I walk past. And I hope that as I'm learning that it's OK to be who I am to the full extent, other people will come to that same realization about me and about themselves.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SPEAKER 1: It was clear to me that these young people wanted attention, and they weren't getting it. And I don't want to put blame on one group of people here. I think we're all struggling. I think we all want good things for our children.

But I think maybe what we're missing is some simple solutions to the common meal time, for instance, that so many kids talk about they never see their parents not at dinner. There's pizza in the oven, grab a piece, and go out the door. If we could do little things like have three common meal times a week in the evening-- I think we're scared of our kids, too. And if we could stop being afraid of them and their nose rings and their orange hair and really listen to what they have to say, we might learn what the despair is all about.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SPEAKER 3: Pride is a word that is the basis of my everyday life. It gives me courage to overcome any obscure obstacles that come my way. And it also gives me the will to want to do the best I can to succeed, not only for the bettering of the world, but also for my own self assurance.

To many, pride brings fear into their hearts, disillusionment to their souls, and discomfort to their spirits because they lose sight of what pride really means. That is what happened to me. I thought that pride was a cynical view that people had of themselves.

In my opinion, people who said that they had pride in themselves were trying to hide something wicked about themselves that they didn't want anyone to find out about. So they put on this I'm confident of myself act to make people believe that they had themselves together.

I, for one did not want to be known as a shallow, egotistical person. I wanted everyone to think that I was the type of person that would always see to everyone else's needs and wants before I even dared to consider myself. The truth was I didn't take pride in myself and therefore had to seek it out by doing things for other people. But instead of helping me, it showed me what a shallow person I really was.

I know what it is like to always follow the crowd because I couldn't think for myself. I know what it is to think that I'm a nobody because my hair wasn't as long as Tanya's or my clothes weren't as nice as Clarice's. It's hard not fitting in with the end crowd because you feel as if you're less of a person or nobody is going to because you don't hang out with all the popular kids. That all comes from not having pride in yourself.

There will always be those that will pressure you to compromise who you are to become like them. Misery loves company. Anyone who would have you sell yourself short of living out your full potential is a miserable person who only wants to drag you down the road of self-pity with them so they don't have to take the journey alone. Those are the people that I had to rid myself of in order to be who I am, a proud African-American female who will not be cut short of the American dream, because I deserve the best.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SPEAKER 1: I think that this book and these kids deserves special attention partly because they're representative of all of our kids. This isn't a group of only the kids who have had terrible abuse in their life and a lot of alcoholism. What this is to me is a cross section of a despair that's going on in this country that I think is different now. And after the reaction to the book that I brought out last year about the number of, for instance, weapons in the schools these days, the number of kids that are getting shot either in the suburbs or in the inner city or in a small town, these concerns are topmost in young people's minds, too.

I'm not sure that we all had to deal with these same issues when we were all growing up. I'm not sure that we had the kind of information that these young people have about the world. I'm not sure that we saw an OJ Simpson trial or Bronco ride from beginning to end the way these kids are seeing now. So I don't think things are like they used to be. And I think when you read the essays in the book, you'll find that they're not or else you'll find that it helps you understand your very normal teenager a lot better.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SPEAKER 4: My first love, oh, did I ever look forward to it. I wanted someone to care about me, someone to make me feel special. A lot of my friends had boyfriends, and I thought it was so grown up.

I knew it right when I saw him, I knew that he was the one-- charming, intelligent, fabulously cute, and 16. He was three years older than me and the object of much adoration. It didn't matter to me that he was dating a friend of mine because I knew that he was the one, my first.

His name was Brent. I remember the first time I met him, it was early October, and the trees that lined his street wept tears of gold, brown, and scarlet mourning the loss of summer. The wind had picked up and put a skip in my step as my friend and I neared his house.

"So you must be this Connie girl I've been hearing about?" His voice was like honey, the words so tangible that I felt as though I could almost taste the sweetness of them. There was such a fluttering in my stomach that I had to sit down for fear of losing my balance.

We sat outside and watched the sunset, none of us saying very much. A friend of Brent's showed up apparently for my benefit, but I paid him no attention. I spent that night and many others after it watching the sunsets with Brent.

One evening, he invited me over to his house for dinner. I immediately jumped up, leaving my homework scattered all over my pencil on the floor and started off to his house. Walking down the newly shoveled street, I gazed around me fascinated at the way the full moon reflected off the snow making that early December evening seem magical and eerie.

When I arrived at his house, he greeted me with a kiss and then pulled me into the dining room where the candlelit table had been elegantly set for two. I nearly swooned. Without further ado, he lifted me up and sat me down on the dining room table, began kissing me with more vigor.

Being so close to him thrilled me to my very fingertips. And I shivered as his kisses seared down my neck and over my shoulder. His hands had begun to inch their way down my pants. I felt him fumbling with my zipper.

Gently pushing him away, I crooned in his ear, "What's for dinner?" "You," he replied, getting back down to business with my zipper. "Well, I'm serious," I said, pushing him back a second time. I was beginning to feel nervous. "So am I."

His voice was gruff as he jerked me back towards him and started pulling at my shirt. "Brent," I said my voice raised slightly, "please, stop." "What's wrong with you all of a sudden," he asked. And for a moment, there was malice in his eyes.

He had succeeded in tugging my shirt off and was now starting in on my pants again. "Wait just a minute." I was starting to become angry, and this time I shoved him away with all of my might. He went flying back and slammed against the wall.

The fire that flashed in his eyes was like nothing that I had ever seen before. In a moment's time, he was before me. And even as I heard the resounding whack, there were purple spots exploding before my eyes, and I could feel myself sinking into soft, warm blackness.

I awoke to the sensation of bombs going off all around my head, and I was having trouble opening my right eye. I was lying on a couch. When I looked up, I saw Brent sitting at the other end of the room nursing a bottle of vodka. Slowly pulling myself to my feet, I eyed him warily.

He looked up. "No, sweetheart, you don't need to leave yet. Sit down with me for a little bit." He put an arm around me, but he seemed wobbly.

The stench from the vodka permeated my lungs, and I had to fight back the gagging sensation that had slowly crept its way up the back of my throat. "Come on, hun," he whispered and motioned back towards the couch. In a sudden burst of energy, I wrenched out of his grasp and ran sobbing out into the night. As I made my way home, I allowed my mind to wander back to all of the advice, all of the warnings, all of the experiences shared with me by my mother and her desperate effort to keep me from getting hurt. I wonder how I could have lived with someone so wise and not ever known it.

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