disoriented

Spent all of Saturday morning and part of the afternoon yesterday getting “oriented” to the hazards of High School. It was a meeting for parents of 9th graders, facilitated by lawyers, counselors, therapists, and educators, evidently designed to frighten the bejeebers out of Moms and Dads who are sure that their kids are the  ”good kids” who would never get into trouble with drugs, alcohol, drivers licenses, inappropriate sexual behavior. The message seemed to be that worst-case-scenarios involving good kids are a commonplace, as are various forms of “parental malpractice.”

It was a good reality check and wake-up call, especially the attorney’s testimonial about the troubled “good kids” he represents week in and week out. But it was also a relief finally to be reassured that it wouldn’t happen to most of our kids, that the point of our session was to raise awareness that– having been raised– would effectively nip deviant adolescent hi-jinx in the bud. The largest message of the morning: talk to your kids and to their friends’ parents, ask questions, challenge false perceptions (”everybody’s drinking/using/going to unsupervised parties…”), be involved in their lives, realize that the teen-age brain is still very much a work in progress with respect not only to knowledge acquisiton but especially on the  emotional maturity front.  Mostly solid stuff, worth a little Saturday morning startle for the sake of their and our long-term good.

But I took issue with a couple of things one of the counselors had to say.

First, he seemed to endorse a “backlash” he had observed against the late, great Fred Rogers. “That’s just wrong!” I heard myself blurting. And it is. Mr. Rogers gets a lot of unwarranted criticism, mostly from the right, for allegedly padding kids’ self-esteem without a corresponding insistence that they earn it. Don’t tell them they are uniquely special, we heard, unless you also spell out the counter-vailing message that they all are “uniquely ordinary.”

Now, I understand the importance of instilling a feeling of community and compassion for others in young people. Being special does not mean being haughtily superior. And yes, all humans are “ordinary” at most levels. We share DNA and history and mortality and so much else that ought, eventually, to awaken in any normally-developing brain a powerful and comforting sense of solidarity with other people. So much about ordinary experience reinforces feelings of social isolation and difference, and these feelings can be especially painful during adolescence. We need also to tap into the ordinary perceptions that will help us coordinate our respective journeys. You are special, young man, young woman. We all are.

But it’s also a plain fact that every one of us is unique. We all have our distinctive talents, our individual distinctness, and we need to learn from the earliest age to treasure and nurture that distinctiveness. Fred Rogers was a genius at conveying this to the youngest kids, and reassuring them that they are worthy to be loved “just the way they are”– whatever they may accomplish in the classroom, however they may be regarded by peers.

When I taught Philosophy of Childhood and talked about Fred, college students who’d grown up in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood became misty-eyed and  sentimental. Some said Fred was the only adult they got that explicit message of acceptance from, and it had shaped them profoundly. Note, they grew up in the Neighborhood. He did establish that warm kind of intimacy, across the often-cold divide of the television medium. Fred’s young viewers didn’t just watch, they entered his world and carried it back with them into “reality.”

My other bone to pick yesterday: we were told that there is “no psychological, theological, or philosophical basis” for our culture’s preoccupation with the “myth of happiness.”  It’s ok for adults to model contentment, but that’s something other than happiness.

Well, that’s interesting.  I agree that our culture is badly confused about the real sources of happiness. We spin our wheels and chase false forms of gratification. In Happiness 101 we’re about to read Eric Wilson’s case “Against Happiness.” And Jennifer Hecht will expose “The Happiness Myth” (though she won’t toss the baby with the bath).  However…

The counselor then reported his finding, among High Schoolers, that many of them perceive their parents to be stressed out and unhappy– leading lives they do not wish to emulate, and why should they? Most adults– like the ones in attendance yesterday– do seem stressed and clueless much of the time: focused on dysfunction and potential disaster, not so much on what can go right in everyday life.

Those adults are not “contented,” and I’ll bet a lot of them gave up (or fore-swore) the dedicated pursuit of happiness a long time ago. Before they buy into the notion of happiness as a sham and a myth, I say they ought to give it a real shot. And do it ostentatiously. Let your kids see you do it.

And the next time the 9th grade parents are assembled for shock treatment, it might be useful to them to hear a few words from a happiness researcher. Or– is it too wild a dream?– from a happy philosopher. I work cheap.