Tonight, out of boredom, I ended up watching a TV program, My Life Is a Lifetime Movie. The featured subject in this particular episode was a girl from Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, who found herself both pregnant and at the center of a sexting controversy. My opinions concerning both her pregnancy and her role in the sexting situation are mixed and probably not a lot different than anyone else's thoughts on the matters, so I won't even discuss them. Instead, I'll take a particular quote out of context.
The quote I'll address is this, "There's nothing else to do in Tunkhannock, so young people have sex." We've all heard this quote many times, with many different towns inserted in place of Tunkhannock, and occasionally with other activities mentioned in place of have sex, the most common probably being either drink or do drugs. The other places I've heard cited as places where there's nothing for young people to do are as numerous, diverse and far-flung as Minneapolis, Minnesota, Temecula, California, Salem, Oregon, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Palmetto, Florida, Antioch, California, Sandpoint, Idaho, and Faribault, Minnesota. I'm sure I could think of more communities about which the same thing has been said if I thought for very long.
Perhaps I'm incorrect in saying this and I have no source to back up what I'm going to say next, but I'll say it anyway. My suspicion is that young people have been saying, "There's nothing to do in this town" since before the time of Christ. What is different now is that not just the kids are saying it. The parents, too, are saying it to excuse their children's drug-using, boozing, or sexual activity. (Does boozing really need an excuse, anyway, unless one's draconian religion forbids it? Don't drink yourself into a coma, don't drink while pregnant, and don't get behind the wheel of an auto, aircraft, boat, or whatever after drinking, but otherwise, who really gives a flying squirrel's ass?) If the parents really think the environment in which their children are being brought up is so deprived, perhaps they should either relocate or join together to create a few worthwhile activities, or, at the very least, rent a piano and secure lessons, teach the kid to sew, or at the very, very least, tell the kid to go pull weeds or clean mold from the bathroom shower stalls. Anything would be preferable to using "There's nothing to do in this town" as an excuse for involvement with, booze, sex, drugs, or worse.
I was curious about Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania (know anything about it, Becca?), so I did about five minutes' worth of research. At Tunkhannock High school a partial list of interscholastic sports includes boys' football, boys' golf, girls' field hockey, boys' and girls' cross country, boys' and girls' basketball, boys' and girls' tennis, girls' volleyball, boys' baseball, girls' softball, and boys' and girls' track and field. There's nothing to do in Tunkhannock. By way of clubs, there's a Future Business Leaders of America Club, a Key Club (which is a sort of junior Kiwanis service club), an Honor Society club and some sort of a robotics club. I will concede that the club offerings are a bit slim, but it's a small high school. Marching and symphonic band appear to be offered, as is string ensemble, jazz ensemble, and various vocal ensembles. The school student body produces a yearbook and a school newspaper. Academic offerings range from AP calculus to zoology to physics to vocational training to honors English to Latin. Unless this high school is a paper/Internet mirage, the majority of which does not exist in real life, the faculty and administration are not doing a bad job of offering a quality program considering the size of the student body, which is just over one thousand. Furthermore, nothing appears to be stopping the youth of Tunkhannock from reading a book, or, for that matter, from writing a book, or painting a picture, creating a sculpture, or composing a symphony.
The community itself is small and a bit sparse, with a theatre and a Walmart but no malls, but how much really high-quality promotion of teen education improvement, social improvement, or morality enhancement has been known to occur at malls, anyway?
I didn't research churches, Boy and Girl scouting programs, 4-H, youth club sports, or anything of that nature, but with the town being within thirty-five minute of either Scranton (and anyone who's ever seen a single episode of The Office knows just what a hopping place Scranton is) or Wilkes-Barre, the youth cannot be all that deprived in those departments, either.
Youth of Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, take whatever pictures of yourself you want, and send them to others on cell phones at your own risk. (Incidentally, I'm not criticizing those who took on the District Attorney for having taken what seems to have been a rather draconian stance on sexting.) Have sex at your own risk, though protection is advised. Do these things and more if you must, but you cannot claim with any credibility that you do so because there is nothing else to do in your area. The claim has already been made, and it rang no more true when made by those who claimed it before you than it does when you make the claim.
Adults of Tunkhannock, if the youth of your town make the claim that they are bored and must involve themselves with sex, booze, or drugs (I didn't include rock and roll because rock and roll is good, and your young people should involve themselves with it), allow them, if you must, to make the excuse that there is nothing worthwhile to do where they live, but please don't make the excuse for them.
I realize that I used the word draconian twice in this one entry. I've become rather fond of the word.
The quote I'll address is this, "There's nothing else to do in Tunkhannock, so young people have sex." We've all heard this quote many times, with many different towns inserted in place of Tunkhannock, and occasionally with other activities mentioned in place of have sex, the most common probably being either drink or do drugs. The other places I've heard cited as places where there's nothing for young people to do are as numerous, diverse and far-flung as Minneapolis, Minnesota, Temecula, California, Salem, Oregon, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Palmetto, Florida, Antioch, California, Sandpoint, Idaho, and Faribault, Minnesota. I'm sure I could think of more communities about which the same thing has been said if I thought for very long.
Perhaps I'm incorrect in saying this and I have no source to back up what I'm going to say next, but I'll say it anyway. My suspicion is that young people have been saying, "There's nothing to do in this town" since before the time of Christ. What is different now is that not just the kids are saying it. The parents, too, are saying it to excuse their children's drug-using, boozing, or sexual activity. (Does boozing really need an excuse, anyway, unless one's draconian religion forbids it? Don't drink yourself into a coma, don't drink while pregnant, and don't get behind the wheel of an auto, aircraft, boat, or whatever after drinking, but otherwise, who really gives a flying squirrel's ass?) If the parents really think the environment in which their children are being brought up is so deprived, perhaps they should either relocate or join together to create a few worthwhile activities, or, at the very least, rent a piano and secure lessons, teach the kid to sew, or at the very, very least, tell the kid to go pull weeds or clean mold from the bathroom shower stalls. Anything would be preferable to using "There's nothing to do in this town" as an excuse for involvement with, booze, sex, drugs, or worse.
I was curious about Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania (know anything about it, Becca?), so I did about five minutes' worth of research. At Tunkhannock High school a partial list of interscholastic sports includes boys' football, boys' golf, girls' field hockey, boys' and girls' cross country, boys' and girls' basketball, boys' and girls' tennis, girls' volleyball, boys' baseball, girls' softball, and boys' and girls' track and field. There's nothing to do in Tunkhannock. By way of clubs, there's a Future Business Leaders of America Club, a Key Club (which is a sort of junior Kiwanis service club), an Honor Society club and some sort of a robotics club. I will concede that the club offerings are a bit slim, but it's a small high school. Marching and symphonic band appear to be offered, as is string ensemble, jazz ensemble, and various vocal ensembles. The school student body produces a yearbook and a school newspaper. Academic offerings range from AP calculus to zoology to physics to vocational training to honors English to Latin. Unless this high school is a paper/Internet mirage, the majority of which does not exist in real life, the faculty and administration are not doing a bad job of offering a quality program considering the size of the student body, which is just over one thousand. Furthermore, nothing appears to be stopping the youth of Tunkhannock from reading a book, or, for that matter, from writing a book, or painting a picture, creating a sculpture, or composing a symphony.
The community itself is small and a bit sparse, with a theatre and a Walmart but no malls, but how much really high-quality promotion of teen education improvement, social improvement, or morality enhancement has been known to occur at malls, anyway?
I didn't research churches, Boy and Girl scouting programs, 4-H, youth club sports, or anything of that nature, but with the town being within thirty-five minute of either Scranton (and anyone who's ever seen a single episode of The Office knows just what a hopping place Scranton is) or Wilkes-Barre, the youth cannot be all that deprived in those departments, either.
Youth of Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, take whatever pictures of yourself you want, and send them to others on cell phones at your own risk. (Incidentally, I'm not criticizing those who took on the District Attorney for having taken what seems to have been a rather draconian stance on sexting.) Have sex at your own risk, though protection is advised. Do these things and more if you must, but you cannot claim with any credibility that you do so because there is nothing else to do in your area. The claim has already been made, and it rang no more true when made by those who claimed it before you than it does when you make the claim.
Adults of Tunkhannock, if the youth of your town make the claim that they are bored and must involve themselves with sex, booze, or drugs (I didn't include rock and roll because rock and roll is good, and your young people should involve themselves with it), allow them, if you must, to make the excuse that there is nothing worthwhile to do where they live, but please don't make the excuse for them.
I realize that I used the word draconian twice in this one entry. I've become rather fond of the word.
