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A TRIBE APART
A Journey Into the Heart of American Adolescence
By Patricia Hersch
NY:A Fawcett Columbine Book:1998
Reviewed by: Lon Woodbury
The author, Patricia Hersch, a former contributing editor
to Psychology Today, took several years during the 90s to
explore the world of adolescents in her home community of
Reston, Virginia. Spending time in their schools, visiting
and interviewing them when she could, she narrowed her study
down to a detailed case study of eight adolescents, which
became the structure for this book. She tried to select typical
adolescents, bypassing those obviously heading for trouble,
or those blatantly trying to shock adults.
Based on her experience, she concluded that American adolescents
live in a world that is almost invisible to adults. She found
a world where adolescents develop their own values and rules,
largely devoid of direct adult supervision. A major cause
of a separate adolescent culture in her opinion, was due
to the significant amount of time adolescents spend on their
own. She found these kids came home to a vacant house after
school, and filled their hours with TV and peer activities,
sometimes at home and sometimes elsewhere. They seemed to
hunger for more direct adult involvement and boundaries set
by adults, but in their absence, they established their own
boundaries and rules, and then were reluctant to share this
world with adults.
This book was quite popular when it was published in 1998,
and has frequently been referred to since then in publications
dealing with adolescents. Of any recent book I have seen,
this one probably provides the best insight into the lives
of adolescents today. The author concludes that we as a society
have been doing a very poor job of raising our children.
She attributes this to the fact that parents are so busy
working to support their families, they have very limited
time for their adolescent children. She sees that the growth
of part time parents is creating a vacuum, and kids are filling
that vacuum by running their own lives, almost as if they
had already become adults, but without the experience that
comes with adulthood. |
