The Young: Adult Penchants--and Problems

By Frank Trippett

Suddenly they were back in the news, if briefly: young people marching with placards and upraised fists to protest U.S. military intervention in El Salvador. Naturally the demonstrations stirred memories of the Viet Nam War. But they were also a striking reminder of something else: how little American youth has made its presence felt in recent years.

Compared with their predecessors, Americans in the pre-adult age brackets have, for the past ten years, been nearly invisible. Those predecessors, to be sure, were something special. They were the most active and activist generation of young people ever to come down the American pike. They were also, being baby-boom youngsters, the most numerous. In terms of both numbers and aggressive venturousness they all but dominated the stage of U.S. social change during the 1960s.

The young in those years did more than merely hold the attention of the nation; they became a national obsession. Adults sometimes imagined themselves lost on the wrong side of that much repeated cliche, the "generation gap." From hairstyles to civil rights, the young made their presence felt in almost every aspect of national life. And as the decade ended they provided the great body of the visible opposition to the Viet Nam War. Their activity peaked in the angry campus protests that followed the killing of four students during antiwar demonstrations at Kent State University in 1970. Soon after that, to the shock of many of their elders who expected them to persist and grow as a permanent political force, the young moved offstage.

Theirs would have been a hard act to follow, had anybody tried. As things turned out, nobody did. In the decade since, with the war ending and the draft no longer a threat, youngsters as a whole have not showed much inclination to give themselves to public causes even as voters, let alone as life crusaders. While they occasionally barge into the national consciousness during such rites as their pre-Easter pilgrimage to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., they seem to live mostly outside adult view. As a result, they have given the larger society no clear impression of what they are like.

What they are not like is certainly clear enough. They are not like their predecessors, those activists of the '60s. Professional youth watchers have described the young of the '80s as being more traditional, more religious, less rebellious than earlier youths. Also more pessimistic, more serious, more worldlywise. Says Psychology Professor Harry Schumer of the University of Massachusetts: "They are returning to private goals. What matters is the here and now." James Barry, director of admissions at St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa, says: "The good old days [of mobilized youth] never happened to them. They hardly even talk about the '70s. It's just now. And now isn't so hot."

The voices of the young tend to corroborate these views. Says David Greene, 17, of Worcester, Mass.: "We're a generation of pragmatists. There's less pie in the sky for us today. So whatever works we'll do it." Christian Nurse, 16, a sometime short-order cook in Boston: "We've got to look out for ourselves. Nobody else will--the politicians or whatever. The main thing is taking care of your business, having a job and knowing what to do with the check at the end of the week."

The young, of course, are far too numerous to be so blithely lumped into one thing or another; the 13-to-21 age group, though a diminishing fraction of the total population, still totals some 32 million. They are also too diverse. Still, every generation is distinguishable by the trait-marks of its mainstream members.

The peculiar thing about today's young is that so many of their characteristics sound like those of --adults. This is particularly true of their cynicism and their hard-boiled self-centeredness. Says Dr. Saul Brown, director of the department of psychiatry at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles: "Teen-agers have grown up on Watergate, and they feel those in power are out for themselves. Many seem to feel, 'Let me get what I can now!' " Says Joan Schuman, director of Massachusetts' bureau of student services: "It is their selfishness that strikes me most of all. The predominant theme is 'What's in it for me?' and 'I don't care what happens to my fellow man.' "

Today's young indeed resemble adults in their aspirations and even in their problems. Their foremost aspiration is often to get a job that will keep them going, and a growing number work while in school. Says Thomas Fulton, assistant superintendent of the Pleasantville (N. Y.) school system: "So many seniors work that it's taking away from the total high school environment." Their very grownup worries are about the uncertainty of the future in general and the danger of nuclear destruction in particular; almost none believe in the possibility of any worthwhile survival of nuclear war. Though one recent study showed a slight decline in the use of marijuana among high school seniors, excessive drinking is an ever growing problem (an estimated 5.3 million 14-to 17-year-olds are problem drinkers). So is teen-age sex (a million or so pregnancies occur each year among teen-agers).

The breakdown of the traditional family has made many of the young feel that they are left with too much adult-like freedom. The increased number of families with both parents working, as well as the high divorce rate and the number of one-parent households, has deprived the young of guidance they consciously desire. The casual character of many modern divorces leaves affected youngsters not only without adequate control but without adult models to respect. Says Michael Peck, director of the Suicide Prevention Center in Los Angeles: "Parents are leaving homes because they want an alternative lifestyle, and that is just not very convincing to a child. In effect, the parent is saying, 'I'm more adolescent than you,' which is a terrible blow to the child." On the other hand, what some parents do give the child might be better withheld. Says Atlanta Psychiatrist Alfred Messer: "The 'me' attitudes of many adults are now filtering down to lower age groups. Teen-agers don't have enough good ego models."

The situation of the young today, contrasted with earlier generations, raises the question of whether some fundamental revision of youth's special estate in U.S. society may have occurred. It has been a long while since Americans rhapsodized about youth in the way of, say, Thomas Wolfe, who saw it as a wonderful time of existence, full of "the strange and bitter miracle of life." Indeed, America has directed less and less sentiment toward youth as parents and authorities have more and more relinquished to the young what were once seen as adult folkways and vices. Youth, or adolescence, as a special, privileged stage of life, crytallized a relatively short time ago--around the turn of the century. Is it possible that society, moved first by alarm about its children and then by disenchantment, has subtly begun the process of disestablishing youth simply by turning everybody to adult ways promptly at puberty?

--By Frank Trippett

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