When Being out Is in and Being in Is out . . .
Demystifying Some Questionable Influences in Our Lives
Chuck Jones
It's Saturday morning, and I'm in my living room watching my five-month-old son Charlie gleefully pushing, prodding, and tasting every part of the exersaucer in which he is stationed. Since Charlie was born, my thoughts have moved from what it would be like to have a family to what his future will be like. As one might imagine, I worry for him, knowing the heartaches I have seen befall even the best kids at schools in which I have worked and visited.
When I turn and look out the back window at our yard, I notice (not for the first time, mind you) that in the far right hand corner sits the beginning of a mature oak forest, each tree in a line and reaching for the sky. They seem too skinny to survive the wind and ice on their own. While there are many little differences between each tree in that forest, a casual glance offers a view of homogeneity.
For reasons I cannot quite remember, I had planted a Christmas-tree-to-be on the left side of the lawn. It stands there alone, as cute as can be. I believe that my intention was to use live trees every holiday season and plant them in a row as the years went on, but either forgetfulness or a black thumb seems to have gotten in the way of that plan. In any event, a touch of anthropomorphism makes most people who see this tree think, "Oh, what a poor tree. It must be VERY lonely over there."
However, it is not lonely where it has been planted; it is thriving. Our sub-conscious attributes it to isolation, because we are conditioned to be in or near groups. The famed psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote of humanity's higher order need for love and belonging (you need only spend time in schools to see these needs in action), and we often project these needs onto objects that can't use them (things) and don't want them (people). Thankfully for my son, his needs are pretty simple, and Shea and I are more than willing to meet every one of them at this point in his life. (When he starts asking for a car, I'm sure we will rethink this policy).
What worries me down the road is that our children's needs start intersecting with their newly-internalized wants. Along the way, you and I are left at each set of crossroads wondering which way to turn. Middle schoolers don't need DKNY clothing, but a number of our girls surely want it. Upper Schoolers don't need the coolest SUV on the market, but they want it nonetheless. There is a more effective kind of marketing out there for our kids, and it tells them that they need to be different by wanting the "product of differentiation" that every other child needs to accomplish the same goal. It would almost be funny if it wasn't so transparent. Think about the commercial that exclaims "dare to be different!" to the young masses (and to us, if you look at car commercials). What they haven't figured out is what I will call the "starving v. sellout" theory. Simply put, either one starves or one sells out. We see this most often in the music industry when an artist we thought we were the first to discover finally makes it big and we either feel proud ("I was with them in the darkest hours") or cheated ("they have changed . . . their old stuff was way better.”) In either case, as you look for that one thing that makes you the person you perceive yourself to be, being a long-time supporter of a band that has "made it" eventually becomes a cross to bear when they go platinum.
There are other subtle effects of this advertising phenomenon. A cellular service has a new print ad out to promote "free" calling between users within their network. The ad shows the backs of 10 teens arm-in-arm on the beach looking out at the surf (I have many fond memories of similar activities). They are all different physiques and colors, and they are clothed differently but from the same pre-fashioned set of youth clothing stores that any of us could identify in Hanes Mall (side note: I was with one of our finest eighth graders the other day who was sporting a pair of cargo pants of which he was very proud. I had to laugh when he could not explain to me what the pockets and tie-downs were for. I had no idea either.). In essence, there are 10 kids who look cool and are individuals. The ad then has a big red circle around nine of them while carefully leaving out the one on the right end. The bold letters ask, “are you in?"
There is a lot more of this on MTV and other networks watched so frequently by our children, and the message for the viewer is clear: do what these kids do to be different and, oh – by the way – buy this as well even though you haven't realized that by doing so you will all only be more the same. That's a pretty bleak cycle if you think about it. At some point it pushes individuality to an absurd end. I risk sounding as though I'm out of it and I don't get it, and I really cannot effectively argue that I do. However, I too grew up with MTV way back in the day. (I remember Michael Bolton as a heavy metal artist prior to his joining the John Tesh/Yanni pantheon of I-can't-stand-them-but-I-own-a-CD-and-it's-in-my-player-at-home artists) and until recently I had a subscription to Rolling Stone. What I see and read on TV and in print is bothersome, yet this is about the advertisers who push both their own images and pay for the programming that we find so problematic. I think we best serve our children by encouraging them to cast a wary eye on how others are looking to manipulate them. They know that we are trying to influence them, but they should not think that the rest of the world they know is so innocent.
It also helps to remind them that, like the small pine tree in our backyard, they too will grow, and the distance between the forest and them will not seem so great in proportion. The oaks in the forest may end up being starved of sunlight and die, while still others may gravitate towards the lone pine tree in an attempt to get more of the sun they so desperately need. In the end, today's snapshot may make the pine tree appear lonely, but I feel no great need to move it, dress it up, or plant other trees around it. Soon enough, it will belong to a forest, whether part of the oak grove nearby or a forest of its very own. And soon enough, those trees in the oak forest will come to understand how different they appear when you take the time to look at them more closely.