Ribadnereira, D. Teenagers expect future to be no American dream. (1993, January 1). The Boston Globe.

OVERVIEW

Like many young people around the country and world, teenagers from the northeast United States may share doubts about their future. Similar to few previous generations, they have no illusions of a better life than their parents.

Not many high school students preparing for college spend much time reading the "Help Wanted" pages. But that is the way Courtney Bell, a 17 year-old Swampscott (Massachusetts) High School senior applying to New York University, looks to the paper each week for guidance. Courtney says, "I always rifle through the help wanted ads trying to figure out where the jobs are. I don’t want to find myself in a dead-end job or in an industry that will be disappearing."

Security is a rising value in young folk of the 1990s. It may be mixed with generous amounts of idealism and hedonism, but it seems to be a bottom line for most. Steve Heron is a 16 year-old sophomore at Chelmsford High School who wants more than happiness. He shares, "Whatever I choose has to be something that will support me and my family. Being happy has fallen lower on my priority list."

Young people are ambivalent about college:

I know people who didn’t go to college and right now they are making $4.80 an hour working at a clothing store. If you figure that out it comes to below the poverty line.
—Caroline Angel, 17, senior, Swampscott High School

My father didn’t go to college and he was able to do well. But my father tells me all the time that he wants me to go to college. He tells me that it will make it easier for me. And I know he’s right.
—Tano Barletta, 15, sophomore, Swampscott High School

It used to be when you went to college you were almost guaranteed a job. But now I wonder, if I go will it be worth it? Will I get a job? After all, there are people out there with college degrees who still can’t get jobs.
—Katie Michelmore, 16, junior, Foxboro (Massachusetts) High School

I had two older brothers who had to stop going to college and take leaves of absences because of financial reasons. They had to come home to work. That’s a major concern in the family. I’m now the priority for going to college over my brothers. One of my brothers was able to go back, but money is definitely going to be the big worry for me in college.
—Cheryl O’Connell, 17, senior, Rockland (Massachusetts) High School

Young people wonder about what kind of job might be best for them:

When you see a place like Digital computers laying people off it sort of makes you nervous because if a big company like that is doing bad now then what’s it going to be like when we’re ready to enter the job market? I mean, I want to find a job that has growth potential, not one that’s going to get me laid off. But how do you know what job has growth potential? The whole job situation seems so uncertain.
—Michelle Monstur, 17, senior, Hudson (Massachusetts) High School

I wanted to be a teacher (until she heard of an acquaintance who had looked five years for a full-time job teaching first grade). I don’t want to go through that. Plus there isn’t a lot of money in education. (She is now interested in careers in psychology.)
—Susan Schubach, 17, senior at Chicopee High School

Teenagers of the 1990s seem to be reevaluating their attitudes toward money. They seem to be coming to terms with the changing times, and even the probability of reduced lifestyles.

I used to be the kind of person whose attitude was buy, buy, buy. I never used to think about money. But now (since her father’s construction supply company went bankrupt) it’s totally changed. Now I know what it means not to have very much money. When I get to college I’m not going to waste any money. I’m going to save as much as I can because you never know when the roof is going to cave in.
—Susan Schubach

Supposedly we will be the first generation that won’t do better than our parents but hopefully we’ll be happier. So much of the focus in the 80s was on money and materialism and that didn’t necessarily make us happier. So maybe we won’t make as much money as our parents. But maybe we’ll learn how to be kinder, how to care more about ourselves and the world around us.
—Mary McHahon, 17, senior, Westfield (Massachusetts) High School

Doing better than your parents won’t come automatically or as easily as maybe it once did. But you have to be hopeful.
—Yajaira Fuentes, 17, senior, Gardner (Massachusetts)High School

We know what’s out there facing us. We know what the economic challenges are and they are not going away any time soon. So it’s not a question of whether or not you’re going to make a good life for yourself but how.
—Lynn Homan, 16, senior, Leominster High School

Though many teenagers are undaunted by the uncertainty of our changing times, others feel the stress. Personal decisions amidst a sluggish economy, changing job markets, and family concerns are giving high school students a lot to think and worry about. Eliza Petrow, a fifteen-year-old sophomore at Watertown (Massachusetts) High School, is concerned:

There’s a lot more pressure on us, I think than there was on other generations in the past. There are a lot more obstacles for us out there and we have to really think hard about what we have to do to overcome them.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. What impresses or surprises you most about these young people? Has a concern about the future always been a part of teenagers’ thinking? Do you sense any current changes in their thinking?
2. How culturally aware are some teenagers? What aspects of the culture, do you think, they view most accurately? Does one begin to get a sense of culture in the 1990s from reading their thoughts?
3. How is the image of the "American Dream" changing? How are young people changing?
4. How would you summarize the general concerns from the young people above? What issues are voiced? How can you, as one who works with youth, help or support them?

IMPLICATIONS

1. Leaders among youth should help them in their profound critique of past generation-especially of what they see as the materialistic 1980s.
2. Youth leaders and teachers have always been called to foster dreams. In many ways, modern society (and especially since 1980) has stripped young people of their dreams and proposed fantasies to fill the void. Attention must be given to redefining the American (or any cultural) dream and helping each young person establish a personal dream.
3. Each young person above, and each one you know, deserves to be heard and supported in his or her life quest.
4. For people of faith, the statements above call for something in which to believe and something to guide us through very complex times.