Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [47]
The diversity of mainstream culture puts pressure on teens to make complicated choices. Adolescents don’t yet have the cognitive equipment. Young adolescents do not deal well with ambiguity. If the parents are affectionate and child-centered, teenagers are comforted by clarity and reassured by rules. Teens like Jody are protected from some of the experiences of their peers. Jody had challenges that she could be expected to meet—challenges that had to do with work, family responsibility and sports.
But there were costs. Jody’s family had limited tolerance for diversity. Obedience was valued more than autonomy. Jody hadn’t been encouraged to think for herself and develop as an individual. As an adolescent, Jody looks stronger than her peers, who are at odds with their families and overwhelmed by all the choices they must make. I wonder how she’ll look in her mid-twenties. By then teens raised in more liberal homes may look as strong as Jody and they may have even more creative and independent spirits.
ABBY AND ELIZABETH
One of my favorite families was the Boyds. Bill was a warmhearted man who played the ukulele and had formed our state’s chapter of Men Against Rape. Nan was an organic gardener who brought extraordinary dishes to political potluck dinners. Once she brought a casserole made of nettles, once a salad of morel mushrooms and wild onions, and another time a mulberry cheesecake.
Bill and Nan were community organizers and political activists who drove a beat-up pickup and spent their money on good causes. I saw them at marches for human rights or the environment, at peace workshops and at tree plantings. They had lots of company—foreign exchange students, friends of friends driving through our state, relatives and political allies. Every summer they took their daughters on month-long camping vacations.
Bill could make anyone laugh. He could cut the tension in a room of angry people with a joke or a song. He gave everyone nicknames they wanted to keep forever. Even though he was a socialist, Republicans liked him.
Nan’s vegetables took over the neighborhood in late July. She traveled door to door begging neighbors to take her zucchini and bell peppers. Once their cat Panther had a litter of six black kittens whom they named after their friends in order to entice them to adopt. Not surprisingly, it worked.
Abby was blonde and willowy, the most serious member of the family. In elementary school she won the statewide spelling bee. Elizabeth was shorter and red-haired. As a girl, she was the leader of a pack of adventurous pranksters we called the Crazy Kids. Abby and Elizabeth were involved in everything—politics, drama, music, sports, camps and their church. The family had parties—for the first snowfall, the first day of spring, a straight A report card or May Day. Their parents were loving and low-key. Problems were handled by discussion. Neither girl had ever been spanked. The parents trusted Abby and Elizabeth to make their own choices. They had the freedom to grow into whomever they wanted to be.
Both girls had trouble with adolescence. Abby got depressed in eighth grade. She missed weeks of school because of allergies and stomach ailments. Her grades fell and she dropped out of activities. She skipped the family parties and no longer marched beside her parents at demonstrations.
Much to her parents’ consternation, Abby dropped her neighborhood friends and joined a group of “druggies.” She became secretive about her whereabouts and locked the door to her room. Her parents wondered if she’d been drinking or smoking. Once she came home red-eyed and confused and they took her to an emergency room for a drug test. It was negative and they never tried that