Wednesday, November 08, 2006
It's 2006, America. Do you know where your children are?
Oh Happy Day! It appears that America has finally awakened and begun to roar out its disapproval of the Republican leadership, from the President on down. The Democrats have been given a mandate to try to put out the raging fires of war and crisis that have erupted under Bush's mismanagement, and although it's going to be one hell of a task, the sooner we can get down into the bowels of the burning building and shut down the gas valves, the better. Donald Rumsfeld, here we come!
There will be many many pundits talking in the coming weeks about how best to get started on this monumental project, so I'm going to leave that discussion to them for now and turn to a more local matter.
It's 2006, America. Do you know where your children are?
Did you know that your teenager children are not welcome to congregate on the quiet, picturesque and touristy streets of downtown Great Barrington, in Berkshire County, Massachusetts?
Did you know that if they're on the streets of Great Barrington, not only are they likely to be harrassed by the local police and threatened with loitering charges, not only are they going to be watched by surveillance cameras with a live feed to the World Wide Web, but they (along with your younger children, I might add) are going to be subjected to blasts from a "Sonic Youth Repellent" to clear them from the streets?
Are our kids rodents, to be dispersed with such harsh electronic weapons? What's next? A police-enforced curfew for all kids under the age of 18?
When I was growing up, the public service announcement "It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?" used to run on TV every night. The implication, in those pre-cellphone days, was that if kids weren't at home, parents should be concerned about their whereabouts, for the safety of their children.
Now, in 2006, it seems that rather being afraid for our teenage kids, we are afraid of them.
Richard Stanley, the Great Barrington landlord who has taken his distaste for loitering teens to extraordinary lengths, claims that the groups of kids hanging out in his parking lot behind the Triplex Cinema are frightening off his customers, as well as the potential customers of other stores in buildings he owns in the Railroad Street area (you can read more about the issue in The Berkshire Eagle).
I've been in that parking lot at night, and observed the knots of teenagers hanging out, smoking cigarettes, talking enthusiastically and yes, sometimes loudly with each other. Although I am a former Manhattanite with alert antennae as regards the possibility of danger lurking in dark alleys, and a seemingly inborn fear of boisterous groups of young men, none of my warning bells went off in the presence of these kids.
Indeed, there have been no muggings or assaults in the Railroad Street area in my memory, and that may in fact be thanks to the regular presence of so many of our teenagers on the street!
I'm not starry-eyed about the possibility that some of the kids hanging out in town are, among many other activities, engaging in the commerce of illegal substances. It may certainly be true that some kids are buying or selling drugs in town, as some of them do in school, and in the privacy of their own homes. I don't condone this, but I do accept the reality that it happens today, just as it was happening when I was a teenager.
But as a parent of a young teen, I would far rather my kid hang out in the public square, as it were (and although it's a pretty sad excuse for a public square, the Triplex parking lot does serve that function by virtue of its central location in town) than be off in some dark park at night, where he might be at risk of becoming a victim of crime or drug pushing himself.
If you think back to your own teenage years, you may remember the exceptional happiness that could come from simply kicking back with friends and talking about anything and everything. In these academically pressured and media-bombarded times, many kids don't have enough time to just relax and enjoy each other's company, in person, rather than online.
In fact, one thing that's especially positive about the fact that teenagers want to hang out together in town is that it actually provides them with an unusually media-free environment, where the chief form of entertainment is--gasp!--talking with one another, face to face. Isn't this much preferable to the options that are available to most of them at home: playing video games, surfing the Web, watching TV, or chatting endlessly on MySpace?
We should be celebrating the fact that in our little town, a good number of our kids are choosing to make friendship a priority in their lives. And we should be glad that our kids are choosing downtown Great Barrington as their stomping ground--it's good for the kids to be in the public eye, and it's actually good for most of the merchants in town, especially those providing inexpensive meals and--yes, Mr. Stanley--movies.
There will be many many pundits talking in the coming weeks about how best to get started on this monumental project, so I'm going to leave that discussion to them for now and turn to a more local matter.
It's 2006, America. Do you know where your children are?
Did you know that your teenager children are not welcome to congregate on the quiet, picturesque and touristy streets of downtown Great Barrington, in Berkshire County, Massachusetts?
Did you know that if they're on the streets of Great Barrington, not only are they likely to be harrassed by the local police and threatened with loitering charges, not only are they going to be watched by surveillance cameras with a live feed to the World Wide Web, but they (along with your younger children, I might add) are going to be subjected to blasts from a "Sonic Youth Repellent" to clear them from the streets?
Are our kids rodents, to be dispersed with such harsh electronic weapons? What's next? A police-enforced curfew for all kids under the age of 18?
When I was growing up, the public service announcement "It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?" used to run on TV every night. The implication, in those pre-cellphone days, was that if kids weren't at home, parents should be concerned about their whereabouts, for the safety of their children.
Now, in 2006, it seems that rather being afraid for our teenage kids, we are afraid of them.
Richard Stanley, the Great Barrington landlord who has taken his distaste for loitering teens to extraordinary lengths, claims that the groups of kids hanging out in his parking lot behind the Triplex Cinema are frightening off his customers, as well as the potential customers of other stores in buildings he owns in the Railroad Street area (you can read more about the issue in The Berkshire Eagle).
I've been in that parking lot at night, and observed the knots of teenagers hanging out, smoking cigarettes, talking enthusiastically and yes, sometimes loudly with each other. Although I am a former Manhattanite with alert antennae as regards the possibility of danger lurking in dark alleys, and a seemingly inborn fear of boisterous groups of young men, none of my warning bells went off in the presence of these kids.
Indeed, there have been no muggings or assaults in the Railroad Street area in my memory, and that may in fact be thanks to the regular presence of so many of our teenagers on the street!
I'm not starry-eyed about the possibility that some of the kids hanging out in town are, among many other activities, engaging in the commerce of illegal substances. It may certainly be true that some kids are buying or selling drugs in town, as some of them do in school, and in the privacy of their own homes. I don't condone this, but I do accept the reality that it happens today, just as it was happening when I was a teenager.
But as a parent of a young teen, I would far rather my kid hang out in the public square, as it were (and although it's a pretty sad excuse for a public square, the Triplex parking lot does serve that function by virtue of its central location in town) than be off in some dark park at night, where he might be at risk of becoming a victim of crime or drug pushing himself.
If you think back to your own teenage years, you may remember the exceptional happiness that could come from simply kicking back with friends and talking about anything and everything. In these academically pressured and media-bombarded times, many kids don't have enough time to just relax and enjoy each other's company, in person, rather than online.
In fact, one thing that's especially positive about the fact that teenagers want to hang out together in town is that it actually provides them with an unusually media-free environment, where the chief form of entertainment is--gasp!--talking with one another, face to face. Isn't this much preferable to the options that are available to most of them at home: playing video games, surfing the Web, watching TV, or chatting endlessly on MySpace?
We should be celebrating the fact that in our little town, a good number of our kids are choosing to make friendship a priority in their lives. And we should be glad that our kids are choosing downtown Great Barrington as their stomping ground--it's good for the kids to be in the public eye, and it's actually good for most of the merchants in town, especially those providing inexpensive meals and--yes, Mr. Stanley--movies.
