Doing Battle with Teens

This is what happens when you take one overly chatty teacher (me), run a discussion-based class (sociology), then insert a Friday morning...

Somehow, we end up on this topic of food and I mention that my daycare provider and I have had this weird relationship because I gave her a list of foods that I don’t want my son to eat, and she only moderately follows it. So I’m telling them a story about when she was busted for letting her husband share a candy bar with my child (a no-no around here) and the kids are interrupting me every 5 seconds with gasps of shock and disbelief.

“You won’t let your kid eat a candy bar?”

And I say, “Well he’s not even two. Obviously someday he will eat one, but he doesn’t need on now.”

I would assume that most people would see the logic in this statement, but the kids are like,

“Who cares if he’s only two! You are like a sugar Nazi!”

I try and tell them, no I’m really not that crazy. We just don’t want him eating too much processed food: sugars, HFCS, additives, preservatives, etc and they are looking at me like I just announced that I also worship the devil.

I tell them, “for example, he can’t eat hot dogs, that’s not a big deal. We can all survive without hot dogs.” Oh my goodness. All hell broke loose then. I know that Americans love their hot dogs, but suggesting that my child is not allowed to eat them really just pushed them over the top.

 

Picture: Sonic's New Premium Hot Dogs

“What DO you eat?” one girl asks, disgustedly.

“I bet you don’t even eat pizza,” says one boy.

“Haha, she probably only eats VEGGIE pizza,” says another.

Really? Is this how limited the imaginations of our future generations are? Nix hot dogs and candy bars and they are at a complete loss? They continue to survey whether or not I eat the following things:

Velveeta, Kraft Mac and Cheese, donuts, fried food, etc.

I try to explain the concept of “whole foods” to them. I wait a minute for it to sink in.

A student says, in a tone of complete disbelief, “So, do you, like, grow your own vegetables too?”

I pause. Should I answer honestly? I don’t think growing veggies to be controversial, but perhaps they’re setting me up.

“Yes.” I squeak. The class bursts into chatter.

“What about meat?” a girl calls out.

“Organic? Locally raised?” I muster. More chatter.

Seriously, these kids found the idea of a whole foods-based diet to be completely ridiculous and unheard of. They thought that the fact that I cook from scratch most evenings was CRAZY. I suggested that I had an animal cience class in college about the commercial farming industry and that the way our food is produced is really quite disgusting and, literally, their answer was, “Then don’t think about it.”

“Mrs. Villarreal, you’re not supposed to think about where a Big Mac comes from. Just eat it!”

I know that revolutionizing the food industry is a huge and overwhelming task. Even if everyone in the country wanted it done, it would still be a huge and overwhelming task. I also get that these are teens who don’t watch the news, documentaries, or use the internet for anything other than social networking. What I am continuously shocked by is their apathy even in the face of new information. I try and tell myself, “they just don’t know any better,” but then when you inform them they literally say, “so what.”

Case in point. The past two weeks in sociology we’ve been studying the influence of the media and large corporations on our socialization. We watched a couple clips about how magazine photos are air-brushed, how food is altered in food commercials, and we analyzed various ads and commercials for image. We watched the documentary The Corporation (which is phenomenal, if you haven’t seen it). We also read an excerpt from the book Born to Buy by Juliet B. Schor which is all about the marketing to and commercialization of children. The students are currently working on a self-analysis of their own lives: how have you been affected by media/advertising? And yesterday, a very polite and respectful young man says, “I’m sorry, but I really just don’t care.” I pushed him to explain his thoughts and he said that he gets the point I’ve been making and that so much of what we see, do, and believe in is a result of corporations. He said he gets that advertisers are misleading and that these big companies have huge pull with the government. He gets that most of our name brand, over-priced products are made in sweatshops for pennies on the dollar. He gets it. He just doesn’t care. Many in the class nodded in agreement.

I was at a loss.

These are juniors and seniors. These are 16-18 year olds. These will be voters soon. I know I developed most of my politics in college, but I know that hearing about sweatshops would have at least upset me for the moment. I’m not saying this stuff should be radically changing their lives (though it should be), but at least show some concern in the moment.

I think our future as a country should be very interesting to say the least.