Photo credit: Britannica.com
News reports this week forecast the second wave of the recession. September marks the third anniversary of the chain reaction in the markets and financial world that signaled the first wave. In family homes across America, adults wrestle with their financial insecurities, monitoring their employers’ veracity to weather the storm and not lay off workers. In the legislative houses of Minnesota and the federal government, adults attempted to address the uncertainty, but Monday morning quarterbacks all agree tough decisions were deferred.
For teens, this is their only sense of normal. Surely the economy has caused many young people to mature at a rate faster than others. Families in distress, teetering on a mortgage foreclosure, are starting to talk about whether community college is even an option.
Every adult has the chance to ease the burden that may weigh on the mind of a young person. In 1990, the Search Institute created its baseline list of 40 Developmental Assets that contribute to a child’s chances for a successful future. Among them is having support from three adults who are non-parents and also from a caring neighborhood. Neighborhood Nights Out hold this benefit, as does the start of school.
This is a time to affirm and provide hope. It’s a time to listen and recognize that economic uncertainty is on their minds too.
Since 2008, comparisons of this Great Recession to the Depression have been met with grimaces. Richard Florida, in his book, The Great Reset, provides us a history – sociology – economics lesson of similar factors leading up to these two economic meltdowns and the country’s first one. Florida describes how history repeats and changes generations.
Teens who are learning life’s hardscrabble lessons now will carry them into their adult lives, only without the innocence of Great Depression youth. Earnest words written 77 years fill University of Georgia Professor Robert Cohen’s book of letters sent to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. They offer profound understanding of young people experiencing poverty.
In Roosevelt, young writers confided, requested, bargained and justified in order to garner improved conditions for their families or themselves. Young people were asking for used clothing, bicycles (to be used solely for transportation of course), tuition for vocational training or money for health expenses. Depending on a family’s status and decline from upper or middle class, writers sometimes cited peer pressure and stature in the community as stressful. Each writer distilled his or her home situation with detail and brutal honesty.
When a neighbor kid comes to the door selling with a school or activity fundraising sale, it’s a good time to hear about summer highlights or whether they have big plans for this school year. My concern for today’s young people is that there is no Mrs. Roosevelt in whom they can confide, in whom they can garner strength. Be a caring neighbor and offer hope and recognition of the conditions of any and every young person who comes to your door.
