Being Different

A recent post by @freedomtowrite got me to thinking about generations and changes and being different. The "youth culture" is a relatively recent phenomenon, going back only a few generations. Some have traced it back to the 1800s, but it didn’t become blatantly obvious to most observers until the 1900s. Once it began, each generation of youth has striven to set itself apart from previous generations. "Let's be different!" was the challenging cry each time. Of course, each participating young person ends up doing the same thing as every other participant in the current mode of change, so there is very little individual difference, just a group difference. This has always amused me.

Often, these changes are seen as rebellion against the previous generations, and sometimes they truly are. Generally speaking, the group differences have focused on clothing, hairstyles, and music. In the '20s girls bobbed their hair and wore shorter dresses and nylon stockings. The men wore baggy suits. Young people reveled in frivolity and silly phrases and energizing music and dancing. In the 50s we saw bobby sox, poodle skirts, and pony tails on the girls, and shorter jeans (remember the glaring white socks?) and butch haircuts on the guys. Rock and Roll was the music of the day. The '70s brought long straight hair and wide-leg polyester double-knit slacks (or else tight jeans) for the girls, and plaid slacks, turtleneck sweaters, and longer hair for the guys. Pop, folk, and rock music were heard everywhere.

I remember hiring a babysitter in the 1980s and wondering if she had a foot injury, because her high-top athletic shoes were not tied. Later, I learned this was a fashion trend among the young people. About this same time the youth were pinning their jeans tightly around their ankles with safety pins to create a tapered pant-leg. Some managed to fold and roll their pants without using pins. Although I was no longer a teenager, I did have an '80s perm like most other girls and young women.

I look at today's young people, and see them running out of ways to set themselves apart. They are no longer content with different clothes, hairstyles, and music. Now they are covering themselves with tattoos and piercings, and listening to "music" that isn't at all musical. (I don't care what the words are: rap always sounds belligerent!) Confusion about one's sexuality has become the latest fad, and I'm convinced the soaring suicide rate is also connected to this generation's desire to make a statement and be boldly different. Do they think they will magically get another life, like in the video games they endlessly play?

Where does it all end? Hairstyle statements, from pink mohawks to dreadlocks, are easily altered as desired over the course of time. Clothing fads always end up in the thrift store sooner or later. Bur now we're seeing serious permanent physical and emotional damage being inflicted upon our youth, by themselves and/or by their own choice, sometimes resulting in death. Will the next generation suddenly decide to rebel against the destruction, choosing life and health and hope? Or will they slide deeper into despair and mutilation and confusion? I almost hope I'm not around to see what happens next, but perhaps supportive grandparents will be desperately needed.