By Rita Argiros, Ph. D.
(This post started out as part of a lecture I gave to my social problems class on January 11, 2010. It morphed into something more suitable for adults who care for and about our students. Rita Argiros )
” Like [Navajo] sand painting, particular cultural representations serve as therapeutic frames that communicate to us who and what we are and how we figure in the larger order of things. These representations are therapeutic because they help people resolve the contradictions and ambiguities that it are inherent in any cultural definition of reality and self…
In capitalism, the sand painter works in churches, synagogues, or mosques, and in theaters, in front of television sets, at sporting events, or in the shopping malls that reaffirm the vision of abundance central to the consumer’s view of the world…a vision of the world designed to maximize the production and consumption of goods. … It is a culture in which virtually all our everyday activities — work, leisure, the fulfillment of social responsibilities, and so on —-take place in the context of commodities and in which shopping… serves as a therapeutic activity” (Global Problems and that Culture of Capitalism by Richard H. Robbins, Page 16)
FFS represents an alternative to the sandpainting that is modern youth culture–one that doesn’t place much value on consumption. On arrival most students are scandalized by the degree of structure, certainly. But they are also scandalized by all the aspects of consumer culture that will be denied them while they are at the school.
What exactly are they most upset about? I think that they are upset about the school’s structures and rules.. Adolescence is a time when there is a struggle between dependence and autonomy. But that is not how they put it. This is what they say. Why can’t we choose our own food? They must have eaten out a lot. Or, perhaps their parents cooked different meals for each member of the family. The point is that 30 years ago most teenagers ate whatever their parents cooked for them. Today children and teens support their own separate segment of the prepared food industry–as they grow older Count Chocula, gives way to Dominos and Mountain Dew. Our students arrive beliveing that they are entitled to choose what they will and will not eat.
The second most common complaint is lack of communication and communication technologies at the school. They feel entitled to, and therefore denied access to, all the gadgets that support current teenage culture — cell phones, MP3 players, computers with unlimited and fast Internet access, MySpace, Facebook, and the latest Napster replacement. Students tell me that they are angry when they leave here because they are not up with the latest. What they are worried about is image, is fitting in. The fashion scene and the music scene change rapidly. So we do rob them of their teenage years in this sense. They are going to have a hard time telling what music their friends will approve of them listening to. The time at the school is very unlikely to change actual musical tastes. If they still care about image when the leave the school then that 18 months seems like a life-time. They don’t know what is OK to buy, to wear, to listen to and still fit in.
I point out that they have lots of chances here to create their own music but few of our students are mollified by this. Their identities are formed by what they listen to and what they wear. But most of his comes ready-made. In today’s culture, you purchase almost every aspect of your identity. Even the process of figuring out what “type” might fit you, is done from a consumerist point of view. You define yourself by seeking out knowledge about what other people think belongs in the closet or play-list of a person like yourself. For most of our kids start out being defined by what they wear and what they listen to. How much more authentic to create music of your own, to learn to dance, paint or write, to dominate a basketball court, or cook a great meal.
Few of our students initially embrace the opportunities we give them to define themselves this way. Some come around after they are unplugged and detoxed from constant consumption. Many recover arts, and activities from childhood that they lost and they start playing a musical instrument again or get reconnected with a favorite sport.
Because they are at FFS, they complain that they do not have the opportunity to work (i.e., have a paying job.) But isn’t the main reason most teens get a job is to have spending money–that is, to have the money they need to buy the stuff they need to maintain their image? All the really important things that you can learn about work–how to take and give direction, how to show up on-time, how to take pride in a job well done, we teach. True, they don’t get much experience managing money. But again, they aren’t asking to learn how to save and invest and be truly responsible with money. What they mean by managing money is how to control themselves as consumers–because until recently in our culture that’s what being responsible with money meant for most of us–simply living within our means. And I doubt the after school job teaches even that degree of money management. Too many college students get into trouble with credit cards.
On the surface other complaints seem more genuine. I have heard that the Family Foundation School has denied adolescents the opportunity to learn about relationships and to spend time with their family. Sounds plausible. Certainly our students spend less time with their mothers and fathers than their mothers and fathers would like. But in the struggle for autonomy that defines adolescence, parents always lose. Most kids can’t wait to get out that door. Most teenagers spend their time with their friends, not with their parents. One senior told me that he spends more time talking to his parents now, and has more fun with his parents now that he is at the school than he ever did when he was home.
As far as relationships go, the stories I hear from our kids rarely involve fairy-tale first love. Increasingly what they are “missing out on” is the “right” to experiment with sex for the sake of sex, to “hook-up”–relationships are an afterthought. And let’s not forget pornography, the most direct form of sex as consumption. Today it’s all but expected that both male and female high school students have some experience with cyber porn. In contrast, at FFS students have real relationships. Even in the stories told by the most disgruntled former students you will hear comments about the many long-lasting friendships that they made here. Talk about a failure to connect the dots. These friendships would not be possible in a suburban environment in which every student lives in suburban splendor with their own room and private bath.
Indeed when I think about the teenage “fun” that we are keeping our students from within the framework of the culture of Capitalism this is what I see. Being a teenager or child is the stage of life where your main role is to be a consumer. In the old days, people romanticized the innocence of childhood. It was a time when you were free from adult knowledge of the harsh realities of the world. Today we romanticize adolescence as a time of freedom from the responsibility of having to make your own living, of having to work. When we talk about the “irresponsible” child or teenager, what we mean is they aren’t acting in a way that is going to turn them into someone who can support themselves eventually, to take up the role of worker or the role of investor so that they can pay their own way. But we are partly responsible. Our culture valorizes and legitimizes their time to be “free as adolescents and young people” and then wonders when some of them can’t find a way to balance the fun and freedom we tell them is their right, almost their obligation, with just enough discipline and self-control to prepare themselves for the next stage in life. For many young people, “just enough discipline” is no better than no discipline at all. What some may see as over-correction at FFS is no more than the minimum amount of structure and external control that is needed to save these kids.
If students reframe their experience here as the opportunity for personal growth and healing that it is, then by the time they leave us their initial feelings of denial will dissipate. Human beings are most happy when they balance fun and productivity, freedom and responsibility, creativity and consumption. Of course some never take the plunge and others recover their old song–”You denied me my teenage years.” For the most part, however, after 18-22 months at the school, students take their new sandpainting back into the world of iphones , facebook, music, cars, shopping, relationships and sex. This time, however, instead of being defined and controlled by all that stuff, they will be able to use these great new tools in the next stage of life. For most that is college. In our consumer culture, college has become the last stage of adolescence. No doubt it is a transitional period. But why not see it as the first stage of adulthood.
The culture of capitalism is all about abundance and for many that becomes abuse and addiction. But things change. There’s been lots of talk in the media about a new frugality in American culture. I hope so. FFS should fit right in. We are an antidote to consumerism and an antidote to the prolonged adolescence that our consumer culture fosters.
