There is so much from this quarter that I considered talking about but I wouldn't even know where to begin. I find that issues from this class come up frequently (anyone else find themselves wondering about adolescent brain development as this Duggar case develops? Just me then?) and I am excited to learn more about it going forward.
I think that one of the things that sticks out to me this quarter is the level of expectations kids have on them. Expectations from kids, expectations from parents, from the culture around them. It's a really heavy load to carry on top of everything they are already going through.
When we were doing the exercise that our Planned Parenthood speaker brought in, I found myself thinking about that a lot. How do we talk to kids (and to each other) about things that we are not comfortable with, or that we think should be held off on? What tools do we have, even those of us who really do believe in sex positivity and encouragement, to help someone deal with those challenging moments? How would teenage sexuality change if we were able to become more comfortable with the fact that it exists and it's okay? I definitely think this is a particularly long road ahead in this country, but hopefully we are slowly getting onto the right track.
I have really valued everyone's input and thoughts in this class. I know it's helped me recontextualize a lot of my own adolescence, as well as hopefully be a better friend and mentor to other people in my life. It's been a great ten weeks. :)
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
Friendship Wars
What I was most struck by in what we learned in these last few weeks was about friendships in adolescence. I tried to find journal entries to coincide with this time period for myself but there were fewer than I expected, primarily because I very rarely wrote about my female friends except in passing. My journals are primarily consumed with boys. Male friends, boyfriends, whatever whirlwind of attention I was a part of.
However, I think one of the more interesting things that we've talked about in conjunction with adolescence is this idea that it is a time when you are trying on new things. For the first time you are really getting to try to work out your social skills in ways that you never have before, and that can go well or very poorly. Personally it took me a lot of years to figure out how friendship with girls was supposed to work. One of the things I've most been pondering while we've been discussing these issues is how friendships are also something that benefit from modeling. If you don't see your parents or the adults around you in healthy friendships, you probably don't grow up with that knowledge innate.
I did find a journal entry from when I was 12 that I think makes pretty clear how very unaware I was of a lot of the nuances of friendship. It is not really indicative of my later years in adolescence.
Wendesday night I went to a rock concernt with Monica and it was loud. It was literally bouncing off the walls! But it was fun. We had three groups, Grammatrain, Jabba and Adams Apple. I would have been a thouroghly enjoyable evening except I broke up with Monica. I didn't mean to it's just that I was tired and I felt left out because she didn't seem to want me anywhere near her and I didn't, and still don't, understand why. But we broke up and I didn't get a chance to apologize.
Although there's a lot this entry doesn't say, I like that I automatically linked friendship to "breaking up" (we made up like a week later, btw, by me apologizing, which was typical). I think she was embarrassed of me that night, honestly. I was a pretty wide-eyed and socially awkward kid, and she knew other people there and didn't feel comfortable having me around. It was not the first time that happened when I was young, although I wouldn't gain enough self-awareness to get around it for a couple of years.
That said, when I was older, even though I never bother mentioning it in my journals, my relationships with my friends were in constant turmoil. Phone calls that ended in screaming matches and constantly hanging up and calling back, throwing the phone against the closet door. There was a lot of drama, a lot of wrangling to see who could be the person who earned the most attention. One of the things about the article we read about girls engaging in friendship wars, was that to me I feel like there are so many kinds of friendship wars. Whatever the top of the heap looks like can be very different depending on what is most prized in your circle. What is perhaps most interesting is why are girls so socialized to compete against each other in this way?
However, I think one of the more interesting things that we've talked about in conjunction with adolescence is this idea that it is a time when you are trying on new things. For the first time you are really getting to try to work out your social skills in ways that you never have before, and that can go well or very poorly. Personally it took me a lot of years to figure out how friendship with girls was supposed to work. One of the things I've most been pondering while we've been discussing these issues is how friendships are also something that benefit from modeling. If you don't see your parents or the adults around you in healthy friendships, you probably don't grow up with that knowledge innate.
I did find a journal entry from when I was 12 that I think makes pretty clear how very unaware I was of a lot of the nuances of friendship. It is not really indicative of my later years in adolescence.
Wendesday night I went to a rock concernt with Monica and it was loud. It was literally bouncing off the walls! But it was fun. We had three groups, Grammatrain, Jabba and Adams Apple. I would have been a thouroghly enjoyable evening except I broke up with Monica. I didn't mean to it's just that I was tired and I felt left out because she didn't seem to want me anywhere near her and I didn't, and still don't, understand why. But we broke up and I didn't get a chance to apologize.
Although there's a lot this entry doesn't say, I like that I automatically linked friendship to "breaking up" (we made up like a week later, btw, by me apologizing, which was typical). I think she was embarrassed of me that night, honestly. I was a pretty wide-eyed and socially awkward kid, and she knew other people there and didn't feel comfortable having me around. It was not the first time that happened when I was young, although I wouldn't gain enough self-awareness to get around it for a couple of years.
That said, when I was older, even though I never bother mentioning it in my journals, my relationships with my friends were in constant turmoil. Phone calls that ended in screaming matches and constantly hanging up and calling back, throwing the phone against the closet door. There was a lot of drama, a lot of wrangling to see who could be the person who earned the most attention. One of the things about the article we read about girls engaging in friendship wars, was that to me I feel like there are so many kinds of friendship wars. Whatever the top of the heap looks like can be very different depending on what is most prized in your circle. What is perhaps most interesting is why are girls so socialized to compete against each other in this way?
Saturday, May 2, 2015
The Search for Meaning and Unexpected Turns
I was extremely fascinated by the readings this last week on the search for religious meaning in adolescence and emerging adulthood and how that changed. I consider myself to be something of a poster child for how religious indoctrination as a child may not work in the long term... but it can work for a remarkably long time if it's tied to enough unhealthy things. I spent the majority of my life as a Christian until one day I was not. Most of my friends have had various levels of this, having been raised in one faith or another, believing it to various degrees until they suddenly woke up one day and realized that they did not. It was never that sudden, of course. Sometimes it feels sudden but you can always trace it back pretty far when you look.
One of the important elements about searching for meaning has to do with not only religious affiliations but political affiliations. After all, youth are searching for their values and religion is only one way you express that. If you are raised in a proper evangelical family then religion and politics are basically inseparable. You can measure my personal movement towards atheism/agnosticism/what-have-you by my movement from conservative politics to a liberal perspective. This is certainly not true with everyone -- there are very liberal identifying Christians out there in the world -- but they have a much harder time fitting into the tribe these days.
So for my sharing of journal entries this week, I thought I'd juxtapose. I blog regularly myself and I actually did an entire series on what it was like to leave Christianity as an adult (message me if you're interested in the link) but I think that my first post about that initial moment has a lot to say about what it was like to experience that shift in values initially. My initial plan was to use one from my Baby B days to compare and contrast, but for a variety of reasons, I rarely actually wrote about God growing up -- at least not in any prolonged sense. It was more of a consistent, all around you sort of thing. There were a lot of inclusions of "God is good" or that "God allowed something to happen" but it was rare for me to engage with it in a prolonged sense at the time. It was more the water I swam in, it didn't need to be talked about.
So without further ado, my entry from a couple years back.
One of the important elements about searching for meaning has to do with not only religious affiliations but political affiliations. After all, youth are searching for their values and religion is only one way you express that. If you are raised in a proper evangelical family then religion and politics are basically inseparable. You can measure my personal movement towards atheism/agnosticism/what-have-you by my movement from conservative politics to a liberal perspective. This is certainly not true with everyone -- there are very liberal identifying Christians out there in the world -- but they have a much harder time fitting into the tribe these days.
So for my sharing of journal entries this week, I thought I'd juxtapose. I blog regularly myself and I actually did an entire series on what it was like to leave Christianity as an adult (message me if you're interested in the link) but I think that my first post about that initial moment has a lot to say about what it was like to experience that shift in values initially. My initial plan was to use one from my Baby B days to compare and contrast, but for a variety of reasons, I rarely actually wrote about God growing up -- at least not in any prolonged sense. It was more of a consistent, all around you sort of thing. There were a lot of inclusions of "God is good" or that "God allowed something to happen" but it was rare for me to engage with it in a prolonged sense at the time. It was more the water I swam in, it didn't need to be talked about.
So without further ado, my entry from a couple years back.
I don’t think I believe this anymore.
I couldn’t even whisper those words, I typed them out on a keyboard, to my best friend, in what seemed to be the longest sentence of my entire life. I don’t know how long it took me to type it but I can tell you that it hurt, every single word of it.
You know the Roadrunner cartoons? Where the Coyote would be running across a canyon of some kind, so sure of himself, and all of a sudden he looks down and realizes that there’s nothing holding him up? Real life doesn’t work that way. We all know that gravity doesn’t wait for you to notice it. But sometimes truth does. One really honest look and before you know it, you’re in freefall with a lot of unknowns at the bottom.
I never thought it would happen that way. I never thought it would happen at all. I spent 29 years of my life with this thing, this faith. This was who I was. It may not be fair to say 29 years, I suppose. Infants don’t have faith as such. But I was in church from the first week I was out of the hospital. I have no memory of ever having a moment of accepting my faith. It was just always there, for better or worse, like my parents or weather or gravity. These things could work for or against you but they were always there. There was no alternative. I grew up, I questioned, I thought about things, I changed how I looked at things but I never thought I could decide against them. It was how the world was formed. It was too big of a story to rewrite, it was too much a part of my DNA to undo. The framework could be creatively worked within but never torn down.
Except one day David looked at my dating profile and I was fascinated, I wanted to say hello. It wasn’t that he wasn’t a Christian, I was okay with that. I had already determined that the importance of that trait was exaggerated. He was married and in an open relationship with his wife. Understand that I had many friends in all kinds of relationships. I was at least somewhat familiar with the concept of polyamory, and open relationships but these things were for other people. They were wrong. I could (and did) love my friends who were in these relationships, of course. Just like I loved my friends who were gay or who were living with their significant others or whatever the thing might be. But there was a dividing line and it was important, it was vital, it was simple. I could love them but I could never be them. Those things couldn’t be an option for me. And that day I looked at his profile and thought “I might want that. It’s possible. I want to know more about that.” I knew my framework wasn’t flexible enough for these things. I knew that there were compromises I couldn’t reasonably make and still be honest So I stopped and I took a look down. And I admitted the thing I had been avoiding for I wasn’t really sure how long.
I don’t think I believe this anymore.
That day I started falling. It was as scary as I thought and also less so. To be honest? It was a little bit of a relief. The fall was more honest than the running had been. There are still a lot of unknowns at the bottom. I’m learning to be okay with it. Sometimes the best you can do is say the most painful truth you have and see what comes of it.
As I said, I wrote this... well, it hasn't been two years yet but getting there. It's not really scary anymore. While this entry doesn't get into it as much as others, I would say it's probably important to highlight that while my being open to my relationship with one of my now partners did push me to this realization, it was not about him (and he did not know for probably 6 months or so, as that seemed like a lot to put on someone :P).
In general, the concepts we discussed about the changing generational views of the church anecdotally ring true to me based on my experiences and the experiences of many people I've met. But it was really wonderful to read studies and other evidence that backed that up.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Entry One: Adolescent Decision Making
I have always been particularly fascinated by the adolescent part of life. I am fortunate enough myself to have a record of large portions of my own, in the fairly consistent journals I kept starting at age 11 (though there are some unfortunate gaps from about 16 to 18 when I decided angst-ridden poetry was a better form of expression) and I have spent many amusing hours with some of my friends going over these records, trying to determine what my motivations might have been.
I would like to use that same fascination for this class. As I explore what interests me in the texts, I will share pieces from my very overwrought high school years and try to connect those dots, utilizing it to ask some of the questions I still find myself with -- not only about myself but for others as well.
While there were a number of fascinating concepts in the last few weeks, one of the ones I really found myself drawn to was how do teenagers make decisions? Why do they make decisions that have such capacity to harm them? And how can we keep them from doing that?
In Siegel's book Brainstorm he lays out many of the fundamental differences between the rapidly developing adolescent brain and a fully adult one. He explains it as "hyperrational decision-making." Hyperrationality simply means to think in extremely literal terms, without an ability to see the larger picture of the situation. We have no context for the experiences we are currently living at this age -- we are simply witnessing, evaluating, and reacting. That doesn't make those reactions stupid, or even necessarily impulsive. However adolescents value benefits much more highly than they value risks. So although they may be aware of the potential negative consequences to their actions, those negative consequences (in literal, concrete terms) are not as likely as the positive ones, and are also not as important.
This means, among other things, that attempting to use scare tactics on kids to get them to not do something is not really going to work. The problem is not that they are unaware of the risks. And you aren't likely to be able to overcome their brain chemistry to make risks more important than reward. But that doesn't mean that nothing can be done; it only means a change in tactics. Siegel offers an example of how many campaigns to stop teen smoking did not work until they realized that the best option was to tell kids (truthfully, which I think is important because kids are smart) that they are being manipulated by big corporations to smoke so that they will give up their money. Suddenly smoking is connected to values, and not smoking is about taking a stand for themselves and their own identities.
I thought immediately of Baby B (as I will generally refer to my younger self as) when I was reading about this. For context, while I made a number of mistakes and had a number of problems as a teenager, my main bone of contention with my parents, and what they believe started it all, was a boy. I was raised in a very hardcore fundamentalist home, I was homeschooled and in church several times a week, every week. And yet, through a series of events that don't matter, I met the "love of my life" when I was 14 years old. We will call him K.
There were a number of problems with this situation. One was that I was not allowed to date. Really not at all, although like with most things my parents would go through many waves of inconsistency on their policies with this. But certainly not at 14 (although K was not my first boyfriend). Another was that K was 18 years old. Also he was not a Christian. Also he came from a "bad" family, his mother was an alcoholic, there were always drugs and alcohol around his house. His friends all did drugs. I mean, any one of these things would have been enough but all of them were obviously intolerable.
Let me be clear that looking back, I can completely understand why my parents were so freaked out. If I had a 14 year old child who was suddenly obsessed with an 18 year old, that would not be a thing I would be okay with. But I want to look at how K and I were basically in love for the next two years. I wouldn't actually stop talking to him until after I was 18 years old. And how I have wondered many times, what could my parents have done that would have changed that? Specifically right now I want to use a couple of examples that I think highlight the kind of thinking Siegel talks about in his book.
In this example, I am about to sneak out with K for the first (of many) times. I'm maintaining all spelling and punctuation. Sorry about that. It seems unfair to change it now.
"It’s 11:00pm and in a half hour K and Ben are going to come pick me up and we’re going somewhere. Oh boy. Yes, it was completely my idea and yes I know I’m insane. I don’t know what’s gotten into me! I dunno. I’m looking forward to tonight in a sense. I’m not sure I’m looking forward to what we’re going to do. See, the mother of Ben’s child has moved in with this guy who has been beating on her. Ben is not exactly happy about that since his child could get hurt. He’s going to talk with him. I just hope I know what I’m doing. Actually I’m fairly positive that I don’t but I’m going through with it anyways. Why? I have absolutely no idea. They’ll be here in 20 minutes. Most of me really wants to go through with this and the rest of me is saying, “Bethany, you are insane!” I’m extremely nervous. Not about going with them so much as getting caught. Which would suck severely. Kim and Amanda (my best friends) are going to kill me. I’ve even considered not telling them. But then they would really kill me. 15 minutes till they get here so I’m gonna get ready to go. I’ll fill you in on details later."
I have always thought it was interesting to read here how I'm very clear that there can and very possibly will be negative consequences, but that it also never seemed to cross my mind to back out. This made a lot more sense to me after our readings from this last week.
My parents, my friends and my youth leaders all tried to get me to stop seeing K. They used a lot of guilt, a lot of religious pressure. Sometimes I would go home from a conversation with a youth leader certain they were right and that I had to break up with him for the sake of my soul (and his own -- the martyr element always worked best with me). But I would need to see him one last time first.... at the end of the week I would write that we had been sneaking out every night that week.
When thinking back about what my parents or other adults in my life could have done differently, I do have some ideas. I was very impressionable, I desperately wanted approval and the whole thing was a very conflicting situation for me to be in. I think that I could have been helped if I had safer places to be. But that leads me to other questions. How much of an adolescent's response has to do with their current situation? I was in a situation that was at least emotionally neglectful, if not abusive. There was a survival component to my life that I am always fascinated by in retrospect because it seems so far from my current life. How much in the way of positive choices can a teenager make without dealing with deeper issues? Is this like Maslov's hierarchy? Do you have to deal with the most pressing issues before you can deal with the "higher up" ones? Or are there ways to help still prune effectively, even in situations with such toxic roots?
I would like to use that same fascination for this class. As I explore what interests me in the texts, I will share pieces from my very overwrought high school years and try to connect those dots, utilizing it to ask some of the questions I still find myself with -- not only about myself but for others as well.
While there were a number of fascinating concepts in the last few weeks, one of the ones I really found myself drawn to was how do teenagers make decisions? Why do they make decisions that have such capacity to harm them? And how can we keep them from doing that?
In Siegel's book Brainstorm he lays out many of the fundamental differences between the rapidly developing adolescent brain and a fully adult one. He explains it as "hyperrational decision-making." Hyperrationality simply means to think in extremely literal terms, without an ability to see the larger picture of the situation. We have no context for the experiences we are currently living at this age -- we are simply witnessing, evaluating, and reacting. That doesn't make those reactions stupid, or even necessarily impulsive. However adolescents value benefits much more highly than they value risks. So although they may be aware of the potential negative consequences to their actions, those negative consequences (in literal, concrete terms) are not as likely as the positive ones, and are also not as important.
This means, among other things, that attempting to use scare tactics on kids to get them to not do something is not really going to work. The problem is not that they are unaware of the risks. And you aren't likely to be able to overcome their brain chemistry to make risks more important than reward. But that doesn't mean that nothing can be done; it only means a change in tactics. Siegel offers an example of how many campaigns to stop teen smoking did not work until they realized that the best option was to tell kids (truthfully, which I think is important because kids are smart) that they are being manipulated by big corporations to smoke so that they will give up their money. Suddenly smoking is connected to values, and not smoking is about taking a stand for themselves and their own identities.
I thought immediately of Baby B (as I will generally refer to my younger self as) when I was reading about this. For context, while I made a number of mistakes and had a number of problems as a teenager, my main bone of contention with my parents, and what they believe started it all, was a boy. I was raised in a very hardcore fundamentalist home, I was homeschooled and in church several times a week, every week. And yet, through a series of events that don't matter, I met the "love of my life" when I was 14 years old. We will call him K.
There were a number of problems with this situation. One was that I was not allowed to date. Really not at all, although like with most things my parents would go through many waves of inconsistency on their policies with this. But certainly not at 14 (although K was not my first boyfriend). Another was that K was 18 years old. Also he was not a Christian. Also he came from a "bad" family, his mother was an alcoholic, there were always drugs and alcohol around his house. His friends all did drugs. I mean, any one of these things would have been enough but all of them were obviously intolerable.
Let me be clear that looking back, I can completely understand why my parents were so freaked out. If I had a 14 year old child who was suddenly obsessed with an 18 year old, that would not be a thing I would be okay with. But I want to look at how K and I were basically in love for the next two years. I wouldn't actually stop talking to him until after I was 18 years old. And how I have wondered many times, what could my parents have done that would have changed that? Specifically right now I want to use a couple of examples that I think highlight the kind of thinking Siegel talks about in his book.
In this example, I am about to sneak out with K for the first (of many) times. I'm maintaining all spelling and punctuation. Sorry about that. It seems unfair to change it now.
"It’s 11:00pm and in a half hour K and Ben are going to come pick me up and we’re going somewhere. Oh boy. Yes, it was completely my idea and yes I know I’m insane. I don’t know what’s gotten into me! I dunno. I’m looking forward to tonight in a sense. I’m not sure I’m looking forward to what we’re going to do. See, the mother of Ben’s child has moved in with this guy who has been beating on her. Ben is not exactly happy about that since his child could get hurt. He’s going to talk with him. I just hope I know what I’m doing. Actually I’m fairly positive that I don’t but I’m going through with it anyways. Why? I have absolutely no idea. They’ll be here in 20 minutes. Most of me really wants to go through with this and the rest of me is saying, “Bethany, you are insane!” I’m extremely nervous. Not about going with them so much as getting caught. Which would suck severely. Kim and Amanda (my best friends) are going to kill me. I’ve even considered not telling them. But then they would really kill me. 15 minutes till they get here so I’m gonna get ready to go. I’ll fill you in on details later."
I have always thought it was interesting to read here how I'm very clear that there can and very possibly will be negative consequences, but that it also never seemed to cross my mind to back out. This made a lot more sense to me after our readings from this last week.
My parents, my friends and my youth leaders all tried to get me to stop seeing K. They used a lot of guilt, a lot of religious pressure. Sometimes I would go home from a conversation with a youth leader certain they were right and that I had to break up with him for the sake of my soul (and his own -- the martyr element always worked best with me). But I would need to see him one last time first.... at the end of the week I would write that we had been sneaking out every night that week.
When thinking back about what my parents or other adults in my life could have done differently, I do have some ideas. I was very impressionable, I desperately wanted approval and the whole thing was a very conflicting situation for me to be in. I think that I could have been helped if I had safer places to be. But that leads me to other questions. How much of an adolescent's response has to do with their current situation? I was in a situation that was at least emotionally neglectful, if not abusive. There was a survival component to my life that I am always fascinated by in retrospect because it seems so far from my current life. How much in the way of positive choices can a teenager make without dealing with deeper issues? Is this like Maslov's hierarchy? Do you have to deal with the most pressing issues before you can deal with the "higher up" ones? Or are there ways to help still prune effectively, even in situations with such toxic roots?
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