The Kids Are Not Alright
In 2000, I took a third-shift position at a teen shelter and crisis line. I had been working with kids in inpatient settings and needed a break. On average, we'd get maybe two calls an hour. Some of them required intervention from Metro Nashville's Juvie Division. Most of those calls consisted of urgently whispered confessions of bad report cards, lapses in family mores ("I took a sip of beer at my friend's party!") and the occasional need to blow off steam. ("Mom won't let me camp out for Star Wars tickets! What is wrong with her?!?!?")
Then 9/11 happened.
I got off work, drove home, and had the last peaceful sleep I would get for a long time. My mother woke me up at ten in the morning. She was banging on the front door and screaming that America was under attack. The world flipped upside down and I slept through it. Unfortunately, most of the children didn't. While commercial flights were grounded, military and medical transport helicopters were busy. All night long, the roar of rotors rattled the windows of the shelter. Residents asked to sit up where they and my shift partner sat glued to the relentless coverage from CNN. Every time I walked into the community room, footage of the WTC collapse was being played. As little as I saw it, I am sure it was etched on the minds of those kids.
Amazingly enough, the crisis line was still calm that first night. Calls usually started immediately after bad news. When Susan Smith drowned her children in 1994, VCAPH's switchboard stayed busy. Most of the callers were tweens and teens trying to understand why a mother killed her sons. When Andrea Yates drowned her children in a bathtub in Houston, kids wanted to know why. They knew what happened, they wanted adults to make it make sense. And sometimes we just can't.
9/12 was no different. Why would someone kill so many people? Many of the kids were calling late and speaking of their fearsss in hushed tones. They were scared for their parents to go to work. They were scared to go to school. They were scared to go to the mailbox. All the while, they wanted to be brave for their parents. There may have been an element of magical thinking that suggested telling them their fears couls gve them shape and form in real life.
This morning. my mother asked how I thought children were handling current events. What she's really asking is if they are as scared as many of the rest of us are. I would say that for the most part, the answer is yes. They see what's happening and they are scared. In spite of well-meaning efforts to restrict access to the video feeds of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, most young people have seen those images, often over and over and over. What may look like morbid curiosity to many of us is an attempt at creating two effects. First, there is the hope that the shock will wear off, that the fear this could happen in our own neighborhoods will dissipate. Second, there is the attempt at making sense of what they are seeing. Healthy people, good people, see good in other people.
Kids know what is going on. They see it is making us sick and fearful. They are rightfully asking why. We owe them a healed, healthy world. There is no margin for error here. We need to correct the course we have set.
Then 9/11 happened.
I got off work, drove home, and had the last peaceful sleep I would get for a long time. My mother woke me up at ten in the morning. She was banging on the front door and screaming that America was under attack. The world flipped upside down and I slept through it. Unfortunately, most of the children didn't. While commercial flights were grounded, military and medical transport helicopters were busy. All night long, the roar of rotors rattled the windows of the shelter. Residents asked to sit up where they and my shift partner sat glued to the relentless coverage from CNN. Every time I walked into the community room, footage of the WTC collapse was being played. As little as I saw it, I am sure it was etched on the minds of those kids.
Amazingly enough, the crisis line was still calm that first night. Calls usually started immediately after bad news. When Susan Smith drowned her children in 1994, VCAPH's switchboard stayed busy. Most of the callers were tweens and teens trying to understand why a mother killed her sons. When Andrea Yates drowned her children in a bathtub in Houston, kids wanted to know why. They knew what happened, they wanted adults to make it make sense. And sometimes we just can't.
9/12 was no different. Why would someone kill so many people? Many of the kids were calling late and speaking of their fearsss in hushed tones. They were scared for their parents to go to work. They were scared to go to school. They were scared to go to the mailbox. All the while, they wanted to be brave for their parents. There may have been an element of magical thinking that suggested telling them their fears couls gve them shape and form in real life.
This morning. my mother asked how I thought children were handling current events. What she's really asking is if they are as scared as many of the rest of us are. I would say that for the most part, the answer is yes. They see what's happening and they are scared. In spite of well-meaning efforts to restrict access to the video feeds of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, most young people have seen those images, often over and over and over. What may look like morbid curiosity to many of us is an attempt at creating two effects. First, there is the hope that the shock will wear off, that the fear this could happen in our own neighborhoods will dissipate. Second, there is the attempt at making sense of what they are seeing. Healthy people, good people, see good in other people.
Kids know what is going on. They see it is making us sick and fearful. They are rightfully asking why. We owe them a healed, healthy world. There is no margin for error here. We need to correct the course we have set.