Teen Culture

[MEmama]

36 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

I recognize the very real pain and resulting sensitivities/ landmines around trans/gender issues.  And I'm definitely *still processing.* What amazes me about both JKR and the backlash against her, is the *certainty* of the perspectives that seem (? from my vantage point at least) to have calcified in what -- in human/sociological/medical historical terms -- is a startling compressed interval of time.

That certainty is alien to me.  I have no d@mn idea how to parse and process and think about the sharply increased prevalence and visibility of teens in the midst of these issues, or their clearly-real pain. 

I feel like the butt of the joke about the guy at the bar in between two furiously arguing seatmates.  "That's a good point!"  then to the other side: "That's absolutely true!"  then the bartender says, perplexed, "You just agreed with both of them!" to which the guy agrees, "You're right!"

This tentativeness greatly frustrates my kids, who are Very Certain. 

 

What strikes me this morning is: how this one vortex of (absolutely real) issues takes up all the oxygen.  This thread is "teen culture."  Which encompasses a broad net: all the old classics of prior generations (sports, Queen Bees, bullying, pressure cooker college entrance anxiety, anorexia, cutting) plus the newer entrants bound together by emergent technology (gaming, vastly more accessible porn) and/or wider societal ills (ubiquity of school shootings, climate change, polarization/extremism/extreme misinformation among the folks who are supposed to be the adults in their world).

But within a page and a half we've funneled down to just one of those teen culture issues.  Arguably the most polarizing one.

I dunno why. But it's noticeable.

This. It’s why so many of us stop participating.
 

To me it’s the same as reading the comment section of a local newspaper article— invariably there will be one or a couple of people who suck up all the oxygen. They just can’t seem to step off their soapbox and use every opportunity to crow about their singular pet point of conversation. It’s exhausting, and the result is that a full, nuanced conversation can’t occur. I assume that’s the point and I’ve no interest in playing. 

[SanDiegoMom]

29 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

 

That certainty is alien to me.  I have no d@mn idea how to parse and process and think about the sharply increased prevalence and visibility of teens in the midst of these issues, or their clearly-real pain. 

This tentativeness greatly frustrates my kids, who are Very Certain. 

 

Which encompasses a broad net: all the old classics of prior generations (sports, Queen Bees, bullying, pressure cooker college entrance anxiety, anorexia, cutting) plus the newer entrants bound together by emergent technology (gaming, vastly more accessible porn) and/or wider societal ills (ubiquity of school shootings, climate change, polarization/extremism/extreme misinformation among the folks who are supposed to be the adults in their world).

 

It could be because when it comes to social contagion, it can take different forms during different generations to express the same struggle and angst.  Teen girls specifically  are highly susceptible to peers and to how they are perceived by their peers. 

Ethan Waters wrote a book called Crazy Like Us where he talks about a “symptom pool”.  
 

“First: People in every culture experience trauma and stress, but they find different ways of expressing and understanding their suffering—lending it meaning by embedding it in a narrative—based on the “symptom pools” provided to them by their cultures. When a new disorder enters the cultural “symptom pool,” people in distress will begin to manifest the symptoms of that disorder, whether it’s the day blindness of Victorian hysterics or the body dysmorphia of (some) American anorexics. Shifts in cultural narratives will shift the symptom pool, and thereby change the ways people manifest their suffering. Importantly, cultural narratives also shift how people relieve suffering, if and when they do relieve it. When it comes to mental illness, not only the diseases but the cures are culturally-conditioned.” 
 

He talks about how eating disorders spread in Fiji once the television was introduced - late - in 1995.  an article in the NyTimes also addressed it - Within three years 15 percent of teen girls were bulimic, and girls who watched three times a week or more were fifty percent more likely to describe themselves as too big or too fat.  
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/20/world/study-finds-tv-alters-fiji-girls-view-of-body.html

This is why it totally makes sense, in my mind, that the teenage cohort of gender dysphoric kids is very different from the early onset kids.  There has never been in the past a large group of teens presenting with GD, and now suddenly they are the majority, 70 percent teenage girls, and when you dig into the statistics most come out after heavy internet usage. So many detrans or parents of gd teens talk about the hours they spent consuming transition timeline videos before their declaration.  
 

The accessibility of porn is also a huge deal.  If you want it go down an awful rabbit hole, Google hypno sissy porn. But of course porn in all forms is everywhere.  It’s awful, and if I could go back in time I would have limited the internet so much more to a much later age. 

[Pam in CT]

re language of "supposed to" / "not allowed to" as per social media/wider media

33 minutes ago, BusyMom5 said:

I recently read The Great Gatsby with my 16 year old.  We were discussing the themes in the book, the excesses of the 1920s, and the morality of the characters' behavior.  She responded that we aren't allowed to judge people's behavior anymore.  I probed a little more, and she feels as if she is being told by media which opinions she is allowed to have.   You cannot voice opposing opinions, especially online.  Even keeping silent isn't allowed!  You are supposed to like and share the proper meme.  That's pretty profound coming from a 16 year old.... 

...You are told you can't have an opinion other than acceptance.  This generation of young women were not brought up to hold their tongue when men speak.  

I do think this is the most polarizing issue in teen culture right now.  

 

(Jumping OFF this insight, which to my mind is an important one, not jumping ON it.)

 

This language -- of what opinions we are "allowed" or "supposed" to have, has become very common, including on this board, and maybe a little bit on this still-short thread.  And it does indeed seem (?) to be amplified, or at a minimum expressed, on social media.

If I can ask -- did your daughter share with you how she *responds,* either inside her own head or externally on SM or IRL, to the pressures she expressed to you about what views she's "supposed to" / "allowed to" hold? 

Like -- it's a little bit meta, how teens respond to pressure to respond...but no more so than the Just Say No to peer pressure to try drugs / sex that my generation got a good deal of messaging around.

[MEmama]

16 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

re language of "supposed to" / "not allowed to" as per social media/wider media

(Jumping OFF this insight, which to my mind is an important one, not jumping ON it.)

 

This language -- of what opinions we are "allowed" or "supposed" to have, has become very common, including on this board, and maybe a little bit on this still-short thread.  And it does indeed seem (?) to be amplified, or at a minimum expressed, on social media.

If I can ask -- did your daughter share with you how she *responds,* either inside her own head or externally on SM or IRL, to the pressures she expressed to you about what views she's "supposed to" / "allowed to" hold? 

Like -- it's a little bit meta, how teens respond to pressure to respond...but no more so than the Just Say No to peer pressure to try drugs / sex that my generation got a good deal of messaging around.

Yeah, to me the “allowed” and “supposed to” talk just sounds like…well…teenager thinking. Not quite all the way formed or mature. After all, young people aren’t exactly known for using or fully understanding nuance and this sort of thinking sounds pretty representative of a lack of fully developed critical thinking skills and wisdom that can only come from experience and time. 

[BusyMom5]

3 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

If I can ask -- did your daughter share with you how she *responds,* either inside her own head or externally on SM or IRL, to the pressures she expressed to you about what views she's "supposed to" / "allowed to" hold? 

Like -- it's a little bit meta, how teens respond to pressure to respond...but no more so than the Just Say No to peer pressure to try drugs / sex that my generation got a good deal of messaging around.

The 16 year old responds by avoiding all controversial topics if possible.  She is not confrontational and wouldn't say anything to a person if she did feel uncomfortable.  She would tell me later, as she processed it.  I was much the same at her age, never wanting to hurt anyone's feelings.  She is a feeler, she loves to create and write, she says she is still a big kid and isn't ready to grow up yet.  She avoids the news, and says that she is never voting. Its a complicated mix of her strong opinions, but not expressing them.  She is on SM quite a bit, but she tends to stick to younger audience things.  

The older one is in college, and  her response has changed in the last year from one similar to the younger, to now being kinda.... pissed?  Not sure how to explain it, but she's not a feeler and tired of babysitting other people's hurt feelings over ever little thing.  She had a class on Social Justice this last semester,  and it had the opposite of the intended affect.  She felt the class was racist, especially the one about how a white person helping black is racist bc they do it for the wrong reasons.  Ive talked with her a lot about it, trying to soften her a bit, but it feels like to me, as she is interacting more and more with the controversial topics of the day, she is recognizing things like congnative dissonance (religion, trans), double standards (racial and sexist), and her response has been pretty harsh.  She's feeling very constrained by rules she feels are unfair and illogical.  I'm not sure how this will play out. 

The trans swimmer, Lia Thomas is a good example of her opinion of trans issues.  Sure, let her live how she wants, call herself what she wants- but stop pretending like biology doesn't matter.  Adults and people in authority making statements so contrary to what she can clearly see is undermining the movement.   She says she isn't alone.  They do not want to be mean to Lia, or other transpeople- but they aren't the same as natal males and females.  Get a third category and respect natal females.  

 

[1234]

2 hours ago, MEmama said:

Yeah, to me the “allowed” and “supposed to” talk just sounds like…well…teenager thinking. Not quite all the way formed or mature. After all, young people aren’t exactly known for using or fully understanding nuance and this sort of thinking sounds pretty representative of a lack of fully developed critical thinking skills and wisdom that can only come from experience and time. 

Yes, I don’t quite understand the “not allowed to” responses. My Ds has actually been booed in college classes (more than once) for his chosen topic of discussion. The first time was when discussing players kneeling during the anthem and why he also doesn’t stand. The most recent was about trans issues. Students who feel differently than him have had no issue speaking up and discussing how they feel. Ds also has no problem standing up for himself or his beliefs (and doesn’t feel a need to boo someone to do it) so he hasn’t been too bothered by it. It was unnerving the first time he was booed but now he laughs about it all.

[Pam in CT]

re language of "supposed to.." and "not allowed to..."

2 hours ago, MEmama said:

Yeah, to me the “allowed” and “supposed to” talk just sounds like…well…teenager thinking. Not quite all the way formed or mature. After all, young people aren’t exactly known for using or fully understanding nuance and this sort of thinking sounds pretty representative of a lack of fully developed critical thinking skills and wisdom that can only come from experience and time. 

I dunno. 

The *certainty* around particular POV does ring through as still-cooking classically-teenager thinking.  Lord knows I was Very Certain myself when I was a teenager, and 3/3 of mine are paying my karma right back for the Very Certain disdain with which I held my parents' and grandparents' POV.  I am sure I was perfectly insufferable.

But I don't think I ever used the language of, or more to the point ever *felt* on the inside, that I was "allowed" or "not allowed" to hold the POVs I held, however they aligned or didn't with my parents or my teachers (once I got to college -- I was rattled as a high schooler) or other people my own age.  I mean, I *had* my POVs.  I neither expected, nor needed, permission, KWIM?

As well, in today's world, I also *very frequently* notice the language of "allowed" and "supposed to" among adults.  The usage of the language is not limited to teens; and the interior sentiment being expressed seems also not limited to teens.

[KSera]

I find the “not allowed to” phrasing way overused, especially on social media and even on this board sometimes. That usually means that people disagreed with the person, therefore they think that means they’re not allowed to think what they think. Which obviously isn’t the case. I can see some circumstances where certain views really do enter into what could more legitimately be considered “not allowed to” when people are fired or not allowed to do their jobs in the way that seems best to them and/or are doxed or violently harassed due to their views. The job part is sometimes valid and sometimes maybe not. The second part obviously isn’t okay. 

[Melissa Louise]

Anyone doing the head tilt and saying 'but how can this be an issue? I have never seen it', or 'but I should like to find the middle path, unlike these other harpies' ( yes, I'm subtweeting you, Pam)....

You do realise you're suggesting the rest of us are a.lying  or b. hysterical? 

It's all a bit dismissive. Not to mention a highly sexist trope. 

As for recognizing pain on both sides, bullshit. Absolute bullshit. The absolutely startling lack of recognition of how painful it is to go through ROGD with a child, trying to keep as many doors open for them against the absolute weight of social pressure to  affirm - if anyone is congratulating themselves they've ever recognised that pain here, don't.

Because you haven't. You'd rather head shake about 'transphobic voices'. Try to shame women speaking about things that effect their own lives, the lives of their children.

All of this on the back of absolutely nothing, or a few Contrapoints videos for 'research'.

There are some consistently lovely women on these forums. Some agree with me on this issue, and I'm sure some don't. 

But more fool me for spending a long time putting weight on the thoughts of a few of you. I've allowed your lack of recognition and name calling, or your condescension, to make me doubt myself, to feel bad about myself.

Because I placed a high value on your thoughts and attitudes, and when I found myself disapproved of, assumed it must have been my fault. 

Nope. It never was. 

That's a revelation. 

Think I'll wrap that and stick it under my Christmas tree. 

This is an absolutely appropriate topic to raise in the context of a thread on term culture. 

I'd suggest that posters more interested in the topic of teen (sub) cultures than scolding gender heretics might like to get up to speed by reading one of the excellent books on the topic that have come out this year  (and no, that doesn't mean reading Detransition, Baby for book club, and calling it done).

 

 

 

 

[Melissa Louise]

39 minutes ago, KSera said:

I find the “not allowed to” phrasing way overused, especially on social media and even on this board sometimes. That usually means that people disagreed with the person, therefore they think that means they’re not allowed to think what they think. Which obviously isn’t the case. I can see some circumstances where certain views really do enter into what could more legitimately be considered “not allowed to” when people are fired or not allowed to do their jobs in the way that seems best to them and/or are doxed or violently harassed due to their views. The job part is sometimes valid and sometimes maybe not. The second part obviously isn’t okay. 

Yeah, I can't hold membership in the local branch of the party I vote for - Greens - because TERF. That's pretty much 'not allowed to'. I despise them as people for it - I vote for policies. It's pretty bloody unfortunate that the only party taking climate change seriously will remove your membership if you get outed as a woman who knows that sex is binary and immutable. 

[maize]

@Melissa Louise I would be interested in book recommendations.

[Melissa Louise]

1 minute ago, maize said:

@Melissa Louise I would be interested in book recommendations.

I'll message you. 

[thewellerman]

35 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

I'll message you. 

Me, too, please. 

[LMD]

I just want to make clear, I wasn't trying to start a trans conversation and - again - I'm not American or republican or upper class or hateful or whatever other assumptions and insinuations general-you might like to make. I made some observations and comments based on what I'm seeing in regards to the teen/preteen females in my life, because they are really struggling. That people immediately jumped to call me names, instead of engaging in the conversation or addressing points they found objectionable, is pretty revealing and typical of this kind of conversation imo. 

I get that we're all highly emotionally invested in our kids' well-being and I've said my piece, so I'm bowing out now to spend my energy on emotional teens and baking Christmas cookies.

Eta - whoops didn't realise there was a page 3 haha. @Melissa Louise I felt that post 💜 hope you and yours have a lovely Christmas 

Edited December 20, 2021 by LMD

[BusyMom5]

No allowed to- I think you have to remember that teens and college kids are not out in the real world, where they can choose to leave a store if they feel uncomfortable, choose to not use a bathroom they feel is unsafe, or use a different gym if they don't like who is in the locker room. They are in schools where speaking against something can be considered hate speech and have academic consequences.  They do not have a choice of going into a bathroom where penis-possessers are not allowed.  If they are in a sport, and a trans student wants in the locker room, they don't have a right to say they feel uncomfortable bc the LAW has said that a male student can now go in any place he feels he identifies. That means the womens bathroom in your dorm, where you just want to take a shower, regardless of the privacy situation.  Private bathroom is high on my girls list- both would refuse a community bathroom, even if they are supposed to be segregated boys vs girls because trans.

Schools are afraid of being sued. My cousins son was sexually harassed by a student who changed his/her identity from day to day and expected everyone to address him/her as he/she was dressed- using different names and pronouns.  The school refused to do anything bc this kid was ready to sue if anyone said a thing.  In a boy ever said stuff he/she said to a girl, they would be called out for harassment and stalking.  My cousins son was ready to drop out by Christmas- he eventually got an apartment and had no more issues.  Again, the problem is with the school and the laws for sharing spaces.  

This issue is big, and we aren't paying attention.   Its a polarizing topic, and our kids are having to live with it while the rest of the adult world tries to figure out what is fair and what is not.  We aren't even listening to girls when they say they are uncomfortable.  We are calling them names instead.   They are being forced to comply.  So are women in prisons. 

To be perfectly honest, I didn't have much of an opinion until the thread this summer on this board, which happened to coincide with my oldest having to write a paper about a trans bathroom issue in her college English class.  Lots of conversation!  Also lots of research on both our parts.  It had not been an issue in my life bc I had never had a confrontation with it. My DD had a very different perspective. The issue is facing her head on,  while I'm watching from the side lines.  

 

[1234]

This thread shouldn’t have ended up being about trans issues. There is definitely a lack of recognition of pain that parents go through but it’s equally distributed among both sides. It’s not just me that has been called names on this very board, but also my dc. I do think there is much work to be done but if we start from a place of othering an entire group of people I don’t get how we’re supposed to communicate effectively. I’m not going to stop responding to these threads because I think they’re important but I’m also not going to respond as much as I used to because it’s not worth the craziness anymore. None of us truly involved here are innocent from hurting others and hurling insults, myself included unfortunately, so I’m not going to pretend otherwise. It’s all just sad. 

[bookbard]

This board has been really helpful over the last few years regarding gender. I was recently able to listen and respond (more listening than response I hope) to a woman I know in our community whose child is going through a range of identities at the moment, and I felt like the broad range of discussion that we've had here really helped. 

My daughter is just heading into teenage land. All I can say as this - all her friends are really different, there's such a wide range of being. Just like all ages, I guess.

[Melissa Louise]

1 hour ago, Joker2 said:

This thread shouldn’t have ended up being about trans issues. There is definitely a lack of recognition of pain that parents go through but it’s equally distributed among both sides. It’s not just me that has been called names on this very board, but also my dc. I do think there is much work to be done but if we start from a place of othering an entire group of people I don’t get how we’re supposed to communicate effectively. I’m not going to stop responding to these threads because I think they’re important but I’m also not going to respond as much as I used to because it’s not worth the craziness anymore. None of us truly involved here are innocent from hurting others and hurling insults, myself included unfortunately, so I’m not going to pretend otherwise. It’s all just sad. 

Just to be clear, neither LMD nor I have ever called your children names. 

I hope you are not suggesting that, because it would be untrue.  

Of course, perhaps you are talking about someone else calling your children names. In which case, I hope you reported them to the mods. It goes without saying that name-calling children is unacceptable. 

[SanDiegoMom]

I don’t see how a thread about teen culture shouldn’t be discussing trans issues, when we as parents are reporting what we see affecting our teens and the culture that they are currently percolating it.  It sounds like your dc have had a different experience, reaching the place where they are absent the factors that are contributing to so much confusion in other teens. From everything I have read and listened to, trans is very far from just ONE thing.  Not only are there a myriad of factors leading to the dysphoria and trans identity, but there are also a lot of different motivations (especially when looking at trans activists)  that are spurring the changes within our society. Changes which affect women’s spaces, prisons, and sports.  
We cannot protect an entire group from all blame when the group itself is made up of all different people with all different motivations. Name calling,  personal attacks, and attacks on a group based on their identity is obviously wrong. Pointing out ways in which the newly protected identity based rights of one group are infringing on the sexed based rights of another group is discourse.  There has been a pendulum swing from discrimination and gate-keeping to affirmation- only, and parents who have doubts, or feel the issues are more complicated, or who might be seeing it take over their teens’ friends groups and have concerns, are labeled transphobic.  
 

Edited December 21, 2021 by SanDiegoMom

[Sk8ermaiden]

I agree with people who say that just because your kid hasn't been affected doesn't mean it's not a big deal. My DD is 12 and I try to keep a pretty tight reign on the SM she consumes, but her friends' parents don't. 😑 So she is exposed both through what she sees and what she sees when with friends. 

What I have seen among this group is a huge emphasis on mental illness and sexual labeling. HUGE.

2/3 of these kids are homeschoolers and 1/3 are public schoolers. ALL her homeschool girl scout troup minus one belive they are some form of LGBTQ. As well as half the homeschool gymnastics team, and half the neighborhood swim team in her age group, and all the girls in her grade at her tiny homeschool hybrid school. They're trying to figure out if they're pansexual and all insisting their pronouns are they/them, and I really, really believe that for 90% of them it's just that they've barely even started puberty and haven't even experienced love or desire yet. This is the age when girls of my generation said, "Boys are gross and stupid and I'm never getting married." But girls today are assuming that those feelings mean, "Oop, I must be a lesbian." When my kid told me she thought she might be bi (at *ELEVEN*) I just said, "That is totally fine. But lets not worry about it until you've gone through puberty and dated a few people." 

I am also seeing a lot of girls who assume if they're not a stereotype of a feminine girl, they must be non-binary or trans. My own daughter claimed she might be trans or non-binary, and when I dug into her reasoning it was really because she doesn't like how women are treated by society, as well as not being super "girly." I thought I'd been hammering it home since babyhood, but we had to have another overt chorus of "there's no wrong way to be a girl." 

My only real issue with this is 1) I don't really think it's healthy for children this young to be so obsessed with these topics, and 2) I am afraid that some will become so entrenched in an identity that eventually turns out to not fit that they have trouble backing out later. I've told my daughter to give herself time and space to figure out life and not label herself too rigidly with any particular label until she's figured out a bit more. And that some things will become a LOT more clear once she's out the other side of puberty. 

The other issue is mental illness. I don't think this is something that would affect neurotypical kids on social media, but if a kid has anxiety or depression or the like, they almost automatically get sucked into mental illness social media and it is a long, dark echo chamber. I do believe it greatly amplified the struggles my daughter was having at the time, and when I pulled back her social media even more, it did help her.