Teens Need Parents, Not "Party Buddies"

"I wanted to experience everything!" the girl exclaimed, twisting her face into an exaggerated smile. At twenty-two, she was relating how she'd felt the need, from some ten years earlier, to begin experimenting with alcohol, every possible type of drug, and as many sexual partners as she could find. At the time that she told her story, not only had her "experimenting" not stopped nor changed, but neither had her point of view. It was kind of like hearing that one believes they must "experience" a car wreck, just to be sure they hadn't "missed anything" in life.

Research has concluded that the part of the brain which regulates the ability to adequately evaluate risk-taking behaviors, and, essentially, the common sense needed to make sensible decisions, has not fully developed by late adolescence or even what American society considers young adulthood. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the young are not only much more prone to engaging in risk-taking behaviors, but also their lives being cut short as a result of such "experimenting." The eerie fact is most young adults do not have a clear, concrete concept of Mortality until they reach their late twenties.

"Kids. Some live, some die; and there's really not much anybody can do about it," remarked a middle-aged father. Can adults really be so jaded, so unconcerned, so dismissing of the value of human lives-- especially the lives of youngsters who are our greatest resource, the leaders of the future?!

In this city, there's a segment of the population, primarily teenagers and young adults, but not all; who are at the extreme; the twenty-two-year-old girl belongs to this group. Influenced by the long-ago cult movie "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," they label themselves "Freaks"-- and "horror" is an accurate word to describe this lifestyle.

From this movie they learn that anything goes-- and that the further one goes, the better-- to "experience everything." To exist at the edge of life, with no remorse if they or others fall off that edge. In having a childlike concept of Mortality, they glorify Death-- when a teenaged boy told one of his girl friends of his suicide plans, she responded that if he followed through with it she would throw a party in his honor and would write him a poem.

An even-younger girl commented that she was unable to go to sleep at night without first taking a handful of pills, and that she preferred to go to a friend's home to sleep on the floor in a group of boys and girls so she would not feel lonely. She has sex with her boyfriend, then her girl friend has sex with the boy, then the two girls have sex with each other-- this is what the "Rocky" movie has taught them: being "bi-" is not an orientation, it is a no-holds-barred scene of having to "experience everything."

Do fourteen-year-old girls belong in all-night gatherings of sex, drugs and alcohol, with other teenagers and young adults-- or being subjected to older people whose only place with them is to attempt to lure them into such behaviors, giving the youngest kids the idea that all it is about is dressing up in "cool" costumes, and then turning them into sexual situations to "prove" that they are "not just kids" by prodding them to drink and watch porn?

Most alarming, many of these youngsters have parents who engage in this type of behavior alongside of their kids. When parents do drugs with their teenagers, something is very wrong; when adults dress up as "the undead," something is very wrong. Parents are parents for a reason-- to guide their kids in the right direction, and to set suitable limits so a step in the wrong direction doesn't go too far and result in disaster. In other words, parents are meant to show their kids how to live-- not encourage them to die.