Rites of Passage – Into manhood or a jail cell

  

How many times have you heard the following story or a similar one to it? ABC News reports that a fifteen-year-old male lead police on a car chase through the city streets today. The teen struck multiple cars and exceeded 100 miles per hour during the chase. The teen crashed the car, which was stolen into a building and was caught after a brief foot chase with police. Witnesses at the scene stated the teen was smiling almost gleefully as he commented, “Now I am a man, I got my first felony!” Although his actions are target and his attitude reprehensible, it is not uncommon of many of today’s youths. The lack of rites-of-passage available to today’s youths contributes to at-risk behaviors as youths grow from childhood to adult hood. Rites of passage are steps, rituals, cultural or possible religious procedure or ceremony, which marks the passage from on stage of life to the next.

In the early 1980’s criminal justice experts stated that as youths mature in today’s society a new era of crime would be unleashed upon society. The so called experts believed that with overcrowded prison systems, inadequate schools, lack of social services and the increased availability of firearms would be a melting pot waiting to boil over as the juveniles grew into adulthood. It would appear true with the events that unfolded in the 1990s, if they were closely examined.

In short, a wave of gang-related drive by shootings terrorized inner city neighborhoods all over the country. These gang-related events became commonplace, almost daily occurrences on the television news with younger and younger offenders and victims appearing. In Chicago, in the mid - 1990s a almost horrifically unbelievable act of human deprivation could be shown when two brothers dropped to his death a boy from 15 story low income housing project in the Chicago Housing Authority. The youths were attempting to rob the young boy of his candy. When he did not turn it over, they dropped him out of the window. The victim’s younger brother witnessed this and ran down the steps in the futile attempt to catch his brother.

In the later part of the 1990s, we as society saw a new phenomenon appear in rural suburban America. Commonplace in the city, but in the heartland it began to resound the bell of death, school shootings. From the 1993 shooting at a Luby’s restaurant in suburban Texas, to rural American youth’s with “problems”, picking up guns and shooting their classmates, friends and even their teachers. The depravity continued across the nation, the names ingrained into our memories of Paducah, Kentucky; Jonesboro, Arkansas. In Jonesboro, two boys ages 11 and 13 opened fire in military fashion on their classmates killing five people, including a teacher, injuring scores of others. The coup-de-grace was the military precision assault of a high school in Littleton Colorado, where 12 students and one teacher were killed before the offenders, students as well committed suicide. One would think that America’s youth are all obsessed with death. Some may simply as some experts believe, obsessed with bullying. Some may even view bullying as one of their rites-of-passage.

However, it is the belief that the vast majority of these events and the ones that have not been mentioned may be the very result of youths lacking certain rituals, procedures or events that bring youths into adulthood without harming others. In every culture, religion and race across the world rites of passage for their people exist. These rites-of-passage, some of which are universal across all cultures, others are culturally specific.

Rites-of-passage could be extremely simple in small display or painfully time consuming, detailed and intricate. The value is not in the event itself, but in how the participants partake upon the rite-of-passage. Many adults automatically view teenagers as rude, obnoxious, and discourteous. Of noted interest, the same people are also repeatedly heard that “children live what they learn,” but they never apply it to their own attitudes towards teenagers. For example, an eight year old who proudly pays for his purchase with money he has saved, only to have that change handed to his father.

An example of an extremely intricate rite-of-passage is the Japanese Tea Ceremony. This tradition passed down from one family member to another over centuries is so intricate that they very observance of the ceremony is more pleasurable than the actual sipping of the tea.

Other examples of rites of passage, less refined as the Japanese Tea Ceremony, would be learning to play catch, or taking time alone with your father or mother to learn to catch a ball. Many would say how is that a rite-of-passage? It is a rite-of-passage in its simplest form. It is a young person going through trial and error guided by a trusted adult, sometimes frustrated, upset, and angry and mad, only to know triumph, pleasure, confidence and pride when the mastery of the catch is made. To observe the pride and joy in their mother or father’s eyes, reminding them that their child is growing up.

A story comes to mind; children’s story from the Franklin the Turtle Series. In the story, Franklin’s bicycle has training wheels, along with all of his friends. To Franklin’s amazement, his friends all begin to learn to ride their bicycles without their training wheels. Franklin decides to try himself and fails. So upset is Franklin that instead of asking for help, Franklin becomes, angry, withdrawn and makes every excuse not to ride his bicycle with the training wheels out of embarrassment. However, Franklin’s mother notices this and tells Franklin that not everything is as easy as it appears to some people. Franklin’s mother reminds Franklin that he can swim very well, but Fox cannot. She reminds him that Fox, can hit a baseball very far, but Bear cannot. Therefore, Franklin with coaxing form his mother gets upon his bicycle and with his mothers, help begins to pedal. After each fall, he gets right back up and eventually he rides without his training wheels. He feels triumph, jubilant and proud over his new found skills. Franklin learned this particularly simple rite-of-passage taught him many lessons. It taught him to rely on his parents for guidance and help. It taught him never to give up. It also taught him that by facing his fears he could overcome them.

Yet, many youths do not have those simple rites-of-passage in their lives. It could be that their parents are all too busy and have little time for simple interactions and life-lessons like the ones previously mentioned. It may possibly be that today’s youth have learned through their immediate access world are those things that they value, regardless if the perceived value and the real value of that rite-of-passage are not the same.

Many years ago during wartime, military recruits would get tattoos as a sign of their manhood and entry into adult society. Today’s youth may also view tattoos in a similar light without the toughening of war or death to guide them. Body modifications, piercing or tattooing is becoming increasingly common and accepted in society. Carrol has found that thirteen percent of adolescents age 12 to 18 have tattoos. According to present research, possession of amateur tattoos seems to be associated with increases in dissatisfaction with the tattoo, problem behavior and lower academic performance. What was discovered was that those youths who had tattoos or piercing at an earlier age were a much greater risk of rising drug or other types of at-risk behavior than those without tattoos.

Adolescents, who had tattoos, were 32% higher on the Gateway Drug Index, if they had a tattoo before 16 years of age. [ Carrol ] As their research delved deeper, it found that in areas such as suicide, violence, risky sexual behavior were all increased dramatically because of the receipt of a tattoo or piercing at an early age. To further hammer the argument home, Carrol’s research also found that the later in life some received a tattoo or piercing the lower the risk level for Gateway Drugs, Suicide, Violence and risky sexual behavior. This would seem to indicate that because youth may be using tattoos as a rite-of-passage instead of ones that might be more substance based, and as a result placing them at increased risk for other behaviors that can be detrimental to their health.

The family has always been toted around as a sure sign of the future health of a child. If they family is dysfunctional, or perhaps distracted in some way, today’s youths are more likely to become involved in damaging behaviors particularly those associated with alcohol, drugs, sexual activity and pregnancy. The debate these points may encompass a completely new direction for this article.

However, it is known that along with these pressures, young people lack guidance and support. Their path into adulthood can be described as one of isolation. How often have we heard parents of a way-word child say, “He hasn’t found his path…” “…Maybe it just not his thing.” During these times of isolated behavior emerges that is risk taking. The need to develop self-esteem and inquiring minds among youths is necessary. Martin & Martin related five characteristics of an effective adolescent.

1. Effective adolescents are intellectually reflective persons who have developing thinking skills. They are able to express themselves in persuasive, coherent writing as well as verbally; they know the basic vocabulary of the arts, math and sciences and have learned to appreciate a variety of cultures and languages.
2. Meaningful work. Work is an integral part of a person’s identity. The youths must be knowledgeable about career options. High school graduation is a prerequisite, as well as post-secondary education.
3. Adolescents will be good citizens. Taking responsibility for shaping our world. We need to develop children who are doers, not just sub servers – those that can demonstrate their commitment to their own character, their community and their schools. It is hope that they will understand the basic values of our nation and have appreciation for both the western and non-western worlds.
4. Adolescents will be caring individuals who are able to think clearly and critically, and act ethically. Our youth must recognize that there is a difference between right and wrong, and must have the courage to act on their convictions. They will model values that have been associated with good family development – including integrity, tolerance and appreciation of others.
5. Our youth will understand the correlation between exercise, diet and health. These provide a sense of competence and strength. We must help our youth become proficient because success is directly related to self-image. The effective adolescent will appreciate personal strengths and work to overcome weaknesses.

In today’s society, adolescents are growing into adulthood alienated from others and with low expectations of themselves. In the troubling times of today’s world, there is a greater likelihood that they will become unhealthy, addicted, violent or chronically poor. Of more important note, youth from more affluent communities are displaying similar problems. Students are dropping out of school, or participating at minimal levels, in staggering numbers. If these youths graduate, they have few marketable skills and equally dismaying is that their parents are not demanding that they acquire these skills.

In recent years the affluent have seen their children delivery into at-risk type behavior in greater numbers. Parents in affluent homes send mixed messages, their lives are too demanding and at the same time because of their affluence, the parents do not see the need of their troubled teenagers. When these problems do hit home, parent’s reaction is often shock or dismay.

Consequently, families that are less advantaged in struggling to make a living do not have the time to build family relationships. In a time of great change, many parents are confused about their roles and relationships and are less aware of the new temptations faced by their adolescents.

Further research into the rites-of-passage in traditional cultures that as children grow up and pass through adolescents to adulthood, that the spiritual side of their life is highly important. Virtually every re-industrialize culture provides rites of initiation, led by adults, who help young people, navigate the dangerous waters between childhood and adulthood. Without such rites, today’s teenagers have created their own badges of adulthood – from driver’s licenses, proms, and graduation ceremonies to the dangerous rituals of binge drinking, first baby or first jail sentence [Kessler].

What has been found that as youth violence spreads across lines of geography, class and race and as society witnesses each devastating school yard massacre, educators are asking urgent questions about what could be the underlying cause in the development of conscience in our students? The bonds that transmit basic human values from elders to the young are unraveling and rending, when children are not bonded to caring adults, conscience fails to develop and the transmission of values is distorted or aborted [Kessler].

Because there are such a variety of meaningful rituals or rites-of-passage, such as confirmations, bar mitzvah, La Quinceaera ceremonies in the Mexican community or initiation journeys offered by Buddhist and African American communities, most of our youth today have no opportunity to be guided by responsible adults through the adolescent journey. Kessler warns that the consequences are significant: Because of the unhappy loss of this kind of initiatory experience, the modern world suffers a kind of spiritual poverty and a lack of community. Young people are feared for their world and dangerous energy, which is really an unending longing for initiation.

Young people as they grow into adult hood have “raging hormones”, although dismissed by many experts, these powerful feeling if improperly directed might result in depression or violence. If however, adolescents are guided by, caring responsible adults, young people can develop with character, compassion and the capacity to make decisions that serve their own growth and the health of the community.

Looking at the principles and practices that are common to initiation in many cultures, we see that a rite of passage is a structured process, guided by adults, in which young people learn the following:

• become conscious about the irrevocable transition that they are undergoing;
• Are given tools for making transitions and separations;
• Are initiated into the new capacities required for their next step; and.
• Are acknowledged by the community of adults, as well as by their peers, for their courage and strength in taking that step. [Kessler]

In the African American culture the homicide rate for black youths ages 15 to 25 jumped from 96.2 per 100,000 in 1984 to 14.8 in 1989, the rate for white youths the same age rose from 11.2 per 100,000 in 1984 to 12.8 in 1989 [National Center for Health Statistics, 1994]. In comparison to the risk factors that contribute to these dramatic differences in rates for black and white youths, African American youths in general use alcohol and drugs far less than white youths, although substance abuse is epidemic in poor black neighborhoods [Harvey & Rauch].

As research continued into why youths had such dramatic statistical increases in violence, suicide and risky sexual behavior among the African American community, it was believed that the inability to engage or even successfully complete a rite-of-passage could be a contributor to at-risk behavior. As a way to address problems within the African American culture, social workers began looking into ways to address the health issues, found that in order to address the problems, it was found that cultural incapability, biased by the dominant group is superior and is paternalistic toward populations perceived as inferior. [Harvey & Rauch].

It was found that the African concept of life is transitional. Among the African community rites of passage are used to show transition and provide a guide to adulthood. The African community guided youths over periods of times to provide them with the necessary skills to adulthood. In the African American culture, these skills were lost among their culture, leaving whole groups of youths without any guidance towards adulthood. A program called MAAT, which is a play on the Egyptian word Ma at, which means ethical way of life, uses a nine-month rites-of-passage for African American youth to transition from childhood to adulthood. The program stresses parent and caretaker involvement. This is an attempt to bring back the “it takes a village to raise a child” concept so popularized in the 1990’s. The results of this program are not yet known as it is still too early to tell long term benefits, but the very attempt of such strength based program must surely illicit positive results.

In conclusion, within every culture there are rites-of-passage to be performed. Without these rites-of-passage many young people lose sight of their culture, their background and their own identity. This lack of identity, which builds self-esteem, character, values, morals based on the particular young person’s own culture is paramount to their very development. In the last several decades, we have seen a blending or a neutering of many cultures to the point where it is almost impossible to tell for some young people that the loss of this is a contributing factor. The lack of rites-of-passage available to today’s youths, contribute to at-risk behaviors as youths grow from childhood to adulthood.