Clinical Sociology Review
Volume 11
|
Issue 1 Article 18
1-1-1993
Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids
Suzanne M. Retzinger
Superior Courts of California, Ventura County
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Recommended Citation
Retzinger, Suzanne M. (1993) "Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids," Clinical Sociology Review: Vol. 11: Iss. 1, Article 18.
Available at: hp://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/csr/vol11/iss1/18
202
CLINICAL
SOCIOLOGY
REVIEW/1993
divorce more
harmful
to
them,
how
society reinforces
the
idea that women gain
identity
from
parenting
and the
related idea that
the
process
of
pregnancy gives
women
a
closer connection
to the
child. Their clinical
and
research findings
revealed that
"between
4 to 85
percent
of
females
compared with
2 to 25
percent
of
males were involved
in
programming/brainwashing
of
their
own
children.
Furthermore, females were more likely
to fit at the
extreme
end of the
continuum
in
degree
and
type
of
programming/brainwashing"
(p.
155). Though this
is an
extremely sensitive topic,
the
authors discuss
it in a
manner that most will
find
effective.
But, again, this chapter
and
others
as
well would have
benefitted
from
drawing
upon
other studies ranging
far
beyond
the
authors' "clinical
and
research
findings."
This
is far from
being
a
fatal
flaw
but it is a
flaw
nonetheless.
Both
of
these books
are
well worth reading
and
make
a
signal contribution
to
clinical
sociology.
As one who has
practiced
law—including
domestic relations
law—I enjoyed both
books
immensely.
Teenage
Wasteland:
Suburbia's
Dead
End
Kids,
by
Donna Gaines.
New
York:
Pantheon, 1991.
262
pp.,
$23
cloth.
Suzanne
M.
Retzinger
Superior
Courts
of
California,
Ventura
County
Teenage
Wasteland
is
about teenage subcultures.
The
book begins with
a
suicide
pact among
four
teenagers. Although
it
takes place
in
urban
New
Jersey,
it
could
be
Anyplace, USA:
It is a
social-psychological
case
study
of
teenage lives. Gaines
shows
how
"young people
are
still
the
only
minority
without
formal
representation.
.... [They]
suffer
more absolute structural regulation than anyone....
The
larger
societal system seems
to set up to
strip young people
of
their desire
for
self
determination"
(pp. 239–40).
The
book
is
written
in an
experiential, journalistic mode.
A
certain group
of
teenagers called
"dropouts,"
"troubled
losers,"
"druggies,"
and
"burnouts"
are
labeled
and
stigmatized
by the
larger order. Gaines hung
out
with them,
got
their
confidence,
and
went into their lives
and
into their heads
to
know their experience
and
what
it
feels
like
to
carry these labels.
She
shows
the
social psychological
structure
of
their lives,
and the
importance
of
context
in
understanding their
experiences
and
feelings.
She
goes into their experience
in a way
that leaves
the
reader identifying with
the
loneliness
and
hopelessness
of
their worlds.
BOOK
REVIEWS
203
Reading
Teenage
Wasteland,
one
begins
to
identify
with
these
teens
on an
emotional level;
the
alienation they
feel
is
overwhelming, with
no one to
turn
to who
understands their experience.
No one
seems
to
even
try to
understand.
The
"burnouts"
see no
future
in
what
the
world
has to
offer.
This only touches
the
surface
of
their alienation, loneliness,
and
pain.
This book
is
valuable
for
anyone
who
wants
to get
into
the
mind
and
experience
of
our
youths: social workers, probation
officers,
teachers, counselors, parents,
almost anyone. Reading this book allowed
me to
appreciate
in a new way not
only
teenagers taking deviant paths,
but all
young people
of the
80s.
It is a
different
generation than
my
own,
and on the
surface seems
different.
These
young
people
do not
have
the
same
future
opportunities
as
teens
from
the 60s
had; there
are
fewer
and
fewer directions
for
young people
to go.
These young people
are
living
in a
more alienated world
and are
more alienated
from
the
larger community—times
are
harder
and
chances
for
a
better
life
have diminished.
To
outsiders they look
"tough,
scruffy,
poor,
wild. Uninvolved
in and
unimpressed
by
convention,
they
create
an
alternative world,
a
retreat,
a
refuge"
(p. 9).
When
we get
below
the
surface,
we can all
relate
to the
experience
of
these
people;
the
underlying emotions
are the
same
for
all
of
us—shame, humiliation,
and
anger.
Often
"dropouts,
losers,"
and so on are
condemned
for not
wanting
to
read,
for
going through
the
motions
of
getting
an
education,
for
being apathetic,
for
taking
an
alternative route. Condemnation only increases
the
abyss.
Hopelessness,
anger,
shame,
and
fear
remain.
For
"burnouts"
or
gangs, alienation
is the
common bond—this
is the way
they
survive
the
pain.
But in
some ways they
are one
step ahead
of the
adult world;
at
least they
are
aware
of the
alienation. They reject
a
dysfunctional
society. Adults
are
simply alienated,
and are
oblivious
to the
lack
of
bonds; adults
are
frightened
and
annoyed
by
kids hanging out,
by
green hair
and
skin
heads, earrings—without
dealing with alienation
or
feelings.
After
reading
Teenage
Wasteland,
you
will
not
blame
the
teenagers
for
moving
away
from
the
mainstream. Many
ask the
question, "What
is
wrong with
the
burnouts,
the
dropouts,
the
druggies?"
But we
seldom
ask
what
is
wrong with
the
conformists
who
tolerate
the
alienation,
who buy the
world
as it is and
accept
injustice—who
become adults
who
perpetuate
the
system. "They
can
easily live
in
their
own
world, sleepwalking through stale
family
life,
boring
school,
and bad
jobs.
The
dullest, most apathetic students will come alive when
left
to
their
own
devices"
(p.
99).
"Their
way of
fighting
back
is to
kill
themselves before everything
204
CLINICAL SOCIOLOGY REVIEW/1993
else
does"
(p.
103). Some
of the
young people
do not buy the
alienation
of the
adult
world,
but
there
is no one to
turn
to,
nowhere
to go,
fewer
resources.
Viewing
the
anger
and
alienation
of
teenagers
as
simply
a
personal problem
removes
the
event
from the
social context
and
insults
the
person
further.
Alienation
continues. Gaines keeps
the
issue within
its
rightful
context.
What
I was
left
with
from
Teenage
Wasteland
is a
system
of
unacknowledged
emotion which leads
to
blame: adults blame
the
kids
who
blame
the
adults
who
blame Heavy Metal,
ad
infinitum.
I see a
system where everyone
is
oppressed,
some
worse
than others, some more aware than others.
We are all in the
boat together:
our
name
is
Alienation.
The
fundamental
question that
I
went away with
from
this book
is
about alienation
on all
levels,
within
and
between persons
and
groups:
How do
we
communicate
to
bridge
the
gap?
How do we
manage
our
human bonds?
Scheff
and
Retzinger,
in
Emotions
and
Violence:
Shame
and
Rage
in
Destruc-
tive
Conflicts
(1991), discuss
the
nature
of
human bonds
and how
communication
works
to
increase
or
decrease
alienation.
Braithwaite's
Crime, Shame
and
Reintegration
(1989),
on
reintegrative shame,
may
give
law
enforcement
officers
a new
perspective
on
dealing with teenage subcultures
in a way in
which they will
be
heard. "The police would
not
release
the
suicide note
. . .
most young people
watching thought this
was the
worst insult. Even
in
death,
the
parents
won
out.
The
dicks wouldn't even
let
them
get
their last word
in.
Denied
to the
bitter end"
(p.
27).
Alienation
goes
on, but it
need not.
The
Social
Costs
of
Genetic
Welfare,
by
Marque-Luisa
Miringoff.
New
Brunswick,
NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1991.
210 pp.
William
D.
Davis
Coastal
Carolina College
Miringoff
identifies
an
emerging viewpoint associated with genetic intervention
and
reproductive technological capacities
in the
medical arena
and
labels
it
"genetic
welfare."
For the
most part, such gene tampering
is
viewed dysfunctionally.
Disabilities will
be
identified
and
rectified before
a
person
is
born.
The
importance
of the
mother will
be
subordinated
to the
rights
of
the
fetus. Biological determinism
and
eugenics once again become issues when
the
elite (physicians
and
scientists)
make policy decisions
as to who
will
and
will
not
undergo genetic counseling
and
who
will
and
will
not
benefit
from
genetic intervention.
For
those
who do
not—the
poor,
minorities,
the
disinherited—the
old
stigmas that
the
disabled have slowly
been shedding
may
again
be
heaped upon them many-fold.
