Who Gets Affected

In the eighties, the media raged with multiple tragedies concerning teenagers across America who mysteriously formed suicide pacts, riddling adults for quite some time. There were a particularly large number of teen suicides in Bergenfeld, a majorly middle-class, Caucasian sprawl town in New Jersey. Donna Gaines, who was an adolescent in the sixties, when resistance to any authority was a popular ritual among the youth, set out to Bergenfeld as an adult and befriended a group of “burnouts”, learning a bit about their lives. These burnouts, though suspicious of her intentions at first, let her into their social “adventures” and conversations. Upon finishing her involvement with Bergenfeld’s “dead end kids”, she found the phenomenon happened to be less about the suicides and more about how baby-boomers falsely interpreted teen behavior in such neighborhoods. For one, she noticed how teens could not fully express themselves anywhere amongst each other and in privacy from adults. As a result, teens would “go crazy” (act out, perform poorly in school, use foul language, do drugs, or commit suicide) and adults would demand they receive psychiatric help, attend reform schools, or check into mental institutions. The children came from “good homes,” but their activities indicated “possible mental illness, future criminality, and maybe even brain damage!” (Gaines 138). The assumptions many adults made are, when looked at retrospectively, pathetic. Not only did most adults fail to find a sensible solution, but they also neglected to see the problem, which was them and their social realities. However, today, in the 21^st century, some parents ask that their children be prescribed Prozac and Ritalin, which isn’t a big difference from thirty years ago. Back then, they blamed heavy metal rock bands (today it’s the rappers). And so the suicides continued.




As Gaines was being educated by the teens, she was told by one of them that what teens really needed was “a clubhouse, where older youths would be on hand to supervise the action, offer guidance to younger kids”, not a teen program (Gaines 85). This way, activities would be peer-regulated, and teens could benefit from this independence. However, authority figures would never allow it; they were convinced their children would be exposed to or engaged in drugs, alcohol, sex, and violence.  Bergenfeld “burnouts” had talents like skating, playing guitar, or writing poetry and lyrics, but “the bulk of this creative activity went unrecognized by adults,” which is why the problem proliferated (Gaines 85). It was also why teens continued to spend their time hanging out in front of the 7-Eleven, sipping Slurpee’s or smoking reefer in the parking lot waiting to be chased away by cops. 

Alienated youth are still forgotten in suburbia, with many adults believing they can be warehoused as they conform to adult standards. These adults have created a social situation along with their sprawl which only offers academics, after- school clubs, sports, or jobs. Their vision was that children would become proper “squares,” not indecent people. But if a teenager was interested in something else, the activity was prematurely considered dangerous or meaningless, and ruled out right away. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, the boredom lead to harmful behavior among teens. It was boredom which played a part in the New Jersey teen suicide pacts in the eighties and more recently, the Massachusetts teen pregnancy pact in 2008. Regardless, when children feel hopeless, they either find a permanent way out or put themselves in some other abject situation. 

 If these adults made an effort to change their faulty images of younger generations, and socially retrofit their communities, children would without a doubt discuss meaningful things and contribute to the wellbeing of their neighborhoods. They should encourage young people to create a place where they feel safe, but also where they can take necessary risks in order to learn from mistakes and eventually become autonomous, responsible citizens.

Part 2

James H. Kunstler, an urban critic, experienced similar situations growing up in Northwood, a suburban development in Long Beach, NY, where teenagers “entered a kind of coma” because didn’t have a meaningful place to nearby. He claims that young teenagers there faced the same situation I had faced as a fifteen year old in that “life there was reduced to waiting for that transforming moment of becoming a licensed driver,” and so in the meantime, they “congregated in furtive little holes—bedrooms and basements—to smoke pot and imitate the rock and roll bands who played on the radio” (Kunstler, Geography 14) Teens aren’t the only ones who lack an identity or a place to express it. Most people in suburbia are living such mobile lives behind closed car windows or immobile lives in the isolation of their homes that they never have the chance to experience social life and understand the meaning of a place. Ideas are rarely shared and thoughts are rarely exchanged personally.

On a typical workday, a Miamian will leave the house in a car, maybe make one stop for gas, and return at the end of the day without seeing any form of society (except for colleagues or peers). The elderly person may be forever trapped in the nursing home because there is no other way to get around. The low-income worker has no money to spare for gas, so he/she will have no opportunity to speak to other people. The budding adult may experience feelings of isolation because he/she cannot leave the paved streets for a more vibrant lifestyle and begins to express outward frustration such as aggression or inward frustration through withdrawal from others.