Feature Article March 28, 2002
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Smile! Youre being blocked by a teen!by Inie PlateniusThe other day I was struck by how quickly we can make the transition from being comfortable with teenagers to seeing them as evil alien creatures from another dimension. It was a Friday lunchtime, and I was walking down the street in Sydenham between the drug store and the pizza place. Anyone who has been within five blocks of a high school at lunchtime knows what I was up against a slow-moving host organism composed of a clot of large and seemingly hostile humanoids was blocking the sidewalk and a good portion of the curb. To my great chagrin, my first reaction was resentment, coupled with fear. Fear! Why, not more than a few years ago, the kids in that alien organism would have been hanging out in my kitchen eating Kraft Dinner with my own rude teens. Standing on the sidewalk that Friday, treading water behind this mass of alien matter, I realized that the only difference between these teens and the ones in my kitchen was familiarity. I didnt know anything about these kids. And familiarity works both ways: If I was feeling uncomfortable because I didnt know these kids on the sidewalk, they must feel the same way about me. I noticed the same phenomenon the other night while attending a teen dance* at the Lions Hall. (Not as a dancer, ok?) This is the third one Ive been to this year, and I realise that the more I attend, the more comfortable we all are. Believe me, theres a lot for a middle-aged adult to freak out about at a teen dance! The room is dark and filled with dry ice fog. The teens are bopping around the hall in their summer clothes, with fluorescent things hanging from their belts or wrapped around their wrists and other body parts. Sometimes all you can see of a kid is the eerie green glow of the light tube in her teeth. The music is deafening, and just in case you start to actually get your bearings on the dance floor, the strobe light sets you reeling for a wall. Easy to imagine this mass of hormones as stoned or drunk - or both.
But when they step into the back room to use the phone (to phone their parents!) I seejust kids, dressed a little unseasonably, maybe - but kids. And when I smile at them as they enter, they say, May I use the phone? and Thank you, and even venture the odd sociable comment, if I speak first.
After a few such encounters, I had a flashback to my own teen days, when the only chemicals I knew were in the science lab, so adults spent their worry energy obsessing about us getting drunk. On one memorable bus trip, my band buddy and I became increasingly loud and uncontrolled, till we collapsed in a fit of hysterical giggling. Looking back on that scene from my judgemental adult place, I see clear evidence of inebriation. In fact, my buddy and I had ingested nothing stronger than dill pickles. If any of our parents had seen us that day, they likely would have made a joke or found a light way to check our state of mind and health. But a stranger on the street in that strange town? Probably still remembers the two drunken girls in purple band uniforms.
Thats the image of teens that I dont want to have. And its all too easy to go to that image if we dont know the kids were seeing. The way through this, though, is to act as if you do know them. Make that joke. Smile that smile. We adults have a lot of things to teach, and one of them is how to reach out and include people in our world. So, if kids are blocking the sidewalk, dont call the school or the police. Smile and ask if you can pass through. I bet youll be pleasantly surprised. I know they will.
*The Border radio station periodically uses the Verona Lions Hall for teen dances. The Border hires its own chaperones and brings in a DJ. The Lions provide members on site to be available for supplies and use of the phone.
