Very good post.
I think there's more to it, though.
A few generations ago, most teenagers either lived on farms, or had parents who worked in factories or owned small businesses.
The teens on farms frequently got married at sixteen, and sometimes as young as fourteen. Rural girls sometimes got married as young as twelve.
The young marrieds, on farms, would then be living *sometimes* under parents' roofs, but more often in a very small house, shack really, that family had helped build for them.
If the family was in a mining town or a factory town, the young man would go to work. Getting to continue school or work part time after school was lucky. The young woman would too, if she didn't marry right away.
Sex wasn't so much a problem because they were married and having it. They didn't have to go looking for it clandestinely.
Drugs were legal, but teens were working and just didn't have *time* for them--except the cocaine in coca cola, a beer or few after work, tobacco if they could afford it or grow it, marijuana only for the most part during prohibition because it was legal and alcohol wasn't. Marijuana was generally socially not as desired as beer.
Teens really didn't have to rebel to separate from their parents. They just had to get married and go to work. But they could see around them what the lives of their peers were like and could make their choice of what best suited them--if their parents would let them remain in school.
If your dad owned a small business, you'd work there at least when you weren't in school. If your dad owned a farm, you'd been working there from the time you were old enough to sweep a floor or make a bed or milk a cow. Same with the small business, really. And been getting spare cash from extra work you did for neighbors when your own chores were done.
If you wanted to move out, you could. If you wanted to marry, you could. If your parents didn't want to let you marry, well, all you had to do was get pregnant together and they'd change their minds real fast or lose all respect from their neighbors---and you couldn't function without the respect of your neighbors.
The man, and his wife, could work for her parents or his parents (or anyone else who'd hire them)--whichever the young marrieds thought was most reasonable. All you had to do to get out from under bad parents was pick a mate with good parents. Or if you were a girl, a slightly older or much older and financially established mate.
"Had to get married," was a tool the teens could use to turn it to, "Parents had to let them get married." And if one set of parents was too strict, the community generally approved--as long as the new adults were hard workers and went to the local church and only had sex with each other and didn't drink too much, the community would forgive a lot.
The point of my reminding people of this is to emphasize that our generation (and our parents') infantilizes our teens.
Our teens get into trouble because they just don't have enough to do, and don't have the outlets they used to have to get out from under really atrocious parents.
Since the percentage of atrocious parents certainly hasn't improved, we have desperate teens reacting like the immature and inexperienced adults they are to unliveable situations.
Most Program parents *are* the atrocious parents their teenage adults would have married out from under, with the community's support---but the price of that continuing support would be demonstrating at least moderate sobriety, at least moderate piety, sexual fidelity, and hard work.
We have a broken society, and the Programs are no solution.
What we need to do is make classrooms a matter of educational level you can move up freely through, with subjects taught at the same period throughout the day and kids ahead changing classes (and kids at an even level staying the same place all or most of the day) to match their level in their various subjects, we need to offer summer term as more than remediation with the option to take the next class or classes up and devote as many class periods as desired to their lowest level subject(s)--or all separate if they're pretty well rounded. Including subjects aimed at special talents like art, music, and PE.
Then we need to make summer term something the kid goes to if *either* the kid or the parent signs up for it. No need for parental permission for more education, no ability for parents to opt the kid out of art, music, or PE if the kid signs up for them as long as any behind-level-for-age subject is covered.
Advancement to the next level should be controlled by standardized tests that students can take at any time with a minimum of one month interval before retesting for the same subject, but the ability to skip levels in testing for a subject if the kid requests it. (ie--you tested for 3.5th grade math a month ago but believe you're ready to pass the test for 5.0th grade test now. You get to take it, and if you flunk it, get to take the 4th grade test immediately after--no wait--regardless of what your parents say. You *have* to test at least once every half-school-year, but you *can* test sooner and your parents can't stop you or slow you down.)
The kid should be able to sign up for an added two hours of independent study after school, as long as he/she is completing his/her homework before other study, regardless of what the parents want.
Private schools above the 3rd grade should have to *offer* the tests and individualized advancement and homework study at school options, and either offer summer term *or* the kid gets to sign up for summer term public school---if *either* the kid or the parent signs the kid up.
The kid should have the right to choose public school over private, even over parental objections, so long as the kid is progressing at least half a grade level in half a school year in every subject.
All schools should have to offer full school libraries across the entire required curriculum up to at least two grade levels above and below (not for K, obviously) the level of students they teach, and the kid must be allowed to advance schools if he tests out to beyond what the school teaches in every required (for the leaving cert) subject. Access to the materials of the full school library must be made available to the students in after-school homework study.
Then we need to make minor emancipation happen, if the minor requests it, either at 18 *or* as soon as the minor can obtain a job that pays 150% of minimum wage *or* as soon as the minor completes the 12th grade level of school and passes the leaving-cert test--whichever comes first.
RTC's must not be allowed to prevent the child from attending the local public school or a completely independent local private day school *if* the child requests it (child must be produced to social worker in social worker's office, informed of rights, and asked), may not be expelled for absences or tardies that are the RTC's fault, but the RTC should be fined or owners/executives subject to criminal prosecution for interfering with attendance *provided* the kid doesn't get himself expelled for bad conduct including but not limited to leaving school grounds to skip school. Kids must have the right to insist on the local public school rather than a private school unless expelled from same for bad conduct--and to attend on the same terms and with the same rights as any other public school student.
Kids must have the right to leave the RTC as fully emancipated if they turn 18 or pass the leaving cert. or are offered a genuine job doing any lawful task (full time) for 150% of minimum wage.
Or some alternate or modified set of rules or laws that accomplishes the same thing of ensuring the right to a free public education, year round, to time to do homework or advanced study, and the right to advance towards emancipation as fast as the child chooses to go.
When we do that, the problem will be substantially reduced to the point of ending, because the kids with really horrible parents will know from the time they first start school that they have a legal, legitimate way of leaving home as early as they can swing it that their parents can't stop or even really interfere with.
The difference between generations ago and now is that *then* teenagers had a socially acceptable, legal way to get away from atrocious parents whether the parents wanted to let them go or not.
And in our time, teens do not.
We've created a pressure cooker, and it's no wonder many teens explode in it.
When you have problems with a pressure cooker exploding, you fit it with a steam valve.
For some teens, just knowing they can study themselves out of the parental house may relieve the pressure enough to keep them stable.
For others, they'll use it.
I think my friend who got sent to Swift River would have used it.
Children have the right to a free, public education--regardless of their parents' desires to the contrary.
Teens who complete their education early have the right to be treated as the adults they are.
Timoclea
