Is This Letter For Real? Teenagers Need to Shape Up

[debrand]

I found this on The Rebelution. Apparently, a judge in the 1950's wrote a letter to teenagers telling them to shape up. The advice wouldn't be bad for some of our stay at home adult kids or children from decent families. My problem with the letter is that the judge was supposed to have worked with troubled teens. That means that he would have been aware that there are many kids who come from abusive or highly dysfunctional homes. Telling all kids to broadly obey their parents doesn't sound like something a judge who worked with troubled youth would say. It does sound like something someone would write who saw the problem only through newspaper articles and not first hand experience.

Always we hear the plaintive cry of the teen-ager. What can we do? … Where can we go?

The answer is GO HOME!

Hang the storm windows, paint the woodwork. Rake the leaves, mow the lawn, shovel the walk. Wash the car, learn to cook, scrub some floors. Repair the sink, build a boat, get a job.

Help the minister, priest, or rabbi, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army. Visit the sick, assist the poor, study your lessons. And then when you are through — and not too tired — read a book.

Your parents do not owe you entertainment. Your city or village does not owe you recreational activities.

The world does not owe you a living… You owe the world something.

You owe it your time and your energy and your talents so that no one will be at war or in poverty or sick or lonely again.

Grow up; quit being a crybaby. Get out of your dream world and develop a backbone, not a wishbone, and start acting like a man or a lady.

You’re supposed to be mature enough to accept some of the responsibility your parents have carried for years.

They have nursed, protected, helped, appealed, begged, excused, tolerated and denied themselves needed comforts so that you could have every benefit. This they have done gladly, for you are their dearest treasure.

But now, you have no right to expect them to bow to every whim and fancy just because selfish ego instead of common sense dominates your personality, thinking and request.

In Heaven’s name, grow up and go home!

[debrand]

therebelution.com/blog/2012/11/judge-gilliams-open-letter-to-teen-ager/

This is what the site says about the judge:

With fathers gone to war and mothers gone to work, hundreds of thousands of unsupervised young people turned delinquent in the 1940s, often ending up before men like Judge Gilliam on charges ranging from truancy and petty theft to arson and murder.

For a quarter-of-a-century, from 1940 through 1965, Judge Gilliam was the sole arbiter of these cases in the populous city of Denver, Colorado — sitting down each year with hundreds of young felons, troublemakers, and petty criminals

[ElphabaGalinda]

I really hope it's not real, because a lot of troubled teens CAN'T go home, and you shouldn't tell them too. Teens with problems have those problems for a reason, and even if they come from good families, telling them to help out at home and get a job isn't going to help with whatever the real problem is.

It does look like another one of those "kids these days are spoiled and irresponsible" things that older adults have been saying since the dawn of time and have never been quite as true as they think.

I also don't like the fact that he seems to blame mothers gone to work with delinquent activity. I take comfort in the fact that this was writing in the 50s, and many popular ideas from the 50s are considered outdated by rational people.

Saying grow up and quit being a cry baby is never a constructive thing to say to anyone.

[Ramona]

This thing was all over Facebook a while back ~ I don't like it. It's one of those ridiculous and untrue "things were so much better in out day" things.

[celestial]

We actually discussed this letter back in August: http://freejinger.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12247

[valsa]

You’re supposed to be mature enough to accept some of the responsibility your parents have carried for years.

They have nursed, protected, helped, appealed, begged, excused, tolerated and denied themselves needed comforts so that you could have every benefit. This they have done gladly, for you are their dearest treasure.

Except a lot of troubled teens come from families where their parents didn't do this.

Yes, there is a small group of teens who were just "spoiled rotten" by their parents and only get into trouble as teens because mommy and daddy stepped in when they were younger to make sure they never had to face any consequences for their bad behavior.

However, this is a very, very small group.

Most trouble teens come from troubled families. Parents who were unwilling or unable (whether due to age, poverty, mental or physical illness, addiction, imprisonment, their own dysfunction, whatever) to provide a safe, secure, and well-adjusted home life for their children.

I hate people who think they have the perfect sound-byte sized (or 1950s equivalent) answer to a very complex problem.

[JaChelle Sugar]

I really hope it's not real, because a lot of troubled teens CAN'T go home, and you shouldn't tell them too. Teens with problems have those problems for a reason, and even if they come from good families, telling them to help out at home and get a job isn't going to help with whatever the real problem is.

It does look like another one of those "kids these days are spoiled and irresponsible" things that older adults have been saying since the dawn of time and have never been quite as true as they think.

I also don't like the fact that he seems to blame mothers gone to work with delinquent activity. I take comfort in the fact that this was writing in the 50s, and many popular ideas from the 50s are considered outdated by rational people.

Saying grow up and quit being a cry baby is never a constructive thing to say to anyone.[/quote]

Ah-fucking-men. Even in those cases when that's exactly what they need to do, saying so to them accomplishes nothing, at best. Zero. Zilch. Nada. At worst it makes the recipient more resistant to change. Its the kind of thing that needs to come from within.

And the Rebelution is full of shit. I never get tired of the Modesty Survey for lolworthy and headdeskworthy comments.

[julie paradox]

Well, quite apart from the whole troubled-teens-are-likely-to-have-troubled-parents angle, one thought jumped out at me.

He hasn't even thought this through. Hang the storm windows - need someone to show you how. Paint the woodwork - need money to buy paint. Ditto both of these for learn to cook and repair the sink. Build a boat - how, what with, where, what the hell for? Get a job? You have got to be kidding.

As for the bolded - how the hell can any kid do that without help from the cleric/Red Cross/SA or some sort of volunteer organisation to tell you who needs help (how many kids know even who on their street is ill?) And it isn't at home either.

[debrand]

I wish that they provided a link to a scan of the original letter.

They did provide a link to the article that first quoted the judge. I'm not breaking links because it is to a nonfundie newspaper.

http://www.thepiercecountytribune.com/p ... l?nav=5011

[Trynn]

Yes. I wish it were that easy to just "get a job." Maybe in the 50s the economy was booming, however, now it's practically in the toilet. That and you have to be 14 to work anyway(last I checked, at least.), so troubled 13 year olds are just screwed.

[ADoyle90815]

Yes. I wish it were that easy to just "get a job." Maybe in the 50s the economy was booming, however, now it's practically in the toilet. That and you have to be 14 to work anyway(last I checked, at least.), so troubled 13 year olds are just screwed.

This. With the economy still in the toilet, teenagers are left to compete with people who were laid off from other jobs so they're screwed anyway. Also, college graduates being able to work for one company until retirement is just a thing of the past, which will never come back even with the economy improving.

[Paisy]

I may be wrong but from what I understand child abuse at the hands of parents didn't start to get a lot of awareness until the 70's. At least that's what I've heard and read.

[Jezebel]

Except a lot of troubled teens come from families where their parents didn't do this.

Bingo.

Also, of the people I've met who had the most callous, "quit whining and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" attitude toward abused and neglected teens and young adults, nearly all of them admitted (directly or indirectly) that they had been abused and neglected kids, themselves. Sure, they'd pulled themselves up and became outwardly successful adults. But to survive their difficult upbringings they'd shut down their ability to feel empathy, tenderness, and compassion--and never re-connected with it.

And Paisy, you're right--child abuse didn't really become an issue until the '70s. Hitting one's kids out in public for misbehaving was still normal when I was a child. The idea that spanking was cruel and inappropriate, and only engendered more problems, was just beginning to gain traction.

[YPestis]

The letter was written during a time when popular opinion was that kids should obey parents and everything would turn out alright. I think abuse and neglect was not as widely acknowledged as it is these days. I believe most teens who run away have issues. Many are escaping dysfunctional homes, abusive situations, and are searching for a better place to live. I think it's a fundie thing to view societal problems through the lens of a 1950s sitcom. You know, the idea that parents are loving, moms stayed home, everyone was white and middle class and attended church. Blacks knew their place, gays didn't exist, women loved being SAHM. With that fantasy in mind, fundies imagine all problems would be solved by having people fall into their designated place in society. You know, kids obey parents, wives obey husbands, black people grateful getting whatever scraps they can get. Through rose-colored lens, life was great.

[JesusFightClub]

It's a daft letter because teenagers are teenagers, and we have the luxury of not forcing them to be anything else.