Teenage Idiots

I substitute taught today at my former high school. It’s a little extra cash while I’m at home, and the work isn’t too bad. But wow, can it take you back. I’m beginning to feel a distinct gulf between my 18 years growing up in rural Indiana and the seven years I’ve been away at college and in the Peace Corps. This is how my Dad must feel when my brother and I can’t remember watching Soupy Sales as kids. The kids in these high school classes were all born after 1990. In fact, they were all born after 1992, and it’s so difficult for me to conceive of that. I was already in second grade when these kids were born. I remember when the first Toy Story came out. It was in 1995. Think about how long ago that was.

It’s funny to observe these students and compare them to representative television high school dramas. Maybe it’s just the ratings, or maybe it’s the fact that I grew up in some patch of corn in the middle of nowhere, but high school kids aren’t that exciting. Instead, to my outside eyes, they all seem so innocent and naïve. Maybe I’m just projecting my own reality on them, the person I was a decade ago.

Wow, a kid just asked another, “Did you ever see the movie Space Jam?” I think, “Like that’s a movie you have to ask about?” I didn’t know anyone who hadn’t seen Space Jam when I was a kid. Hasn’t everyone seen Space Jam? Evidently, Space Jam has gone the way of Soupy Sales.

Whoa. Stop. Things haven’t got that bad yet.

Going back to school has definitely played into the time warp head trauma of living at home. High school is one of those places you shouldn’t ever have to step foot in again once you’ve left. I wasn’t one of those who were desperately in love with high school. I was quite willing to leave it all behind, the sooner the better.

I think one of the reasons is because I never really fit in to the machismo that’s inherent in high school boys. It’s funny to see it here from a position of authority. There’s an easily identifiable jockeying for position among these guys. It’s an opportunity to be stupid, challenge for position, question authority, and maybe get the attention of one of the cuter girls. It’s kind of like watching the chimps at the zoo.

It actually reminds me a lot of Niger. The one group that I didn’t really spend a lot of time with was the teenage boys. They were the biggest pain in the ass in the entire village. It was the same kind of stuff too. They hung out in groups, cocksure but really not all that confident, the act of immaturity and bravado without that much power. Teenage girls didn’t fall into the typical categories. The typical girl in Niger is married by fourteen and pregnant by sixteen. They’re forced into maturity rather quickly. The guys, on the other hand, usually have to make something of their futures before they can marry. They need to have property of their own to afford a wife, so they’ll usually keep farming the fields or go off to the coast to look for work.

It was always marriage that put the clamps down on these young guys. As soon as they found a wife, they settled down and became respectable members of society. You could hang out with them, play cards, talk about the weather just like the old men, but until they hit that age, they were the most infuriating trial of the day.

It’s amazing to watch the transformation. I feel like it must be something to do with the relationship with elders in a community. In Niger, a man isn’t a man until he’s married. Believe me, I heard this a lot. “You’re not married? But you’re 25? You must not have a penis.” Unmarried men were not yet adults, but they obviously weren’t still children. The gap of adolescence is much smaller in Niger, so men above the age of sixteen fall into this strange gap where they have no real identity in society. They’re no longer dependent, but they’re not really a productive, contributing individual. Men, I wouldn’t say regress, but I can’t think of too many other terms for it. It becomes their own little social circle, subject to its own power struggles but still subservient to the elders in society.

Is it like that with American boys? I remember high school as kind of a, well I shouldn’t write it, but it involves a bunch of guys and a circle. Among the guys (and I’m sure among the girls as well, I don’t know, I wasn’t part of that circle) there was more posturing than personality, more stupidity than substance. I never fit into that, and I still don’t when there are guys of that age about. I don’t think I ever grew into or out of it. I found my own group of friends and tried to ignore the stupidity at large. Of course, we as high school boys still did stupid things, but we kept it in check and didn’t try to dominate others. Must be something with the hormones; whatever we did, we needed an outlet for idiocy.

I might write more about this later, but honestly, I’m not that in to reliving my past, as least not the parts that I’ve tried to leave behind. Just another reason to break out of this box…