“Everything a young person needs to learn can be learned at the dinner table.” –Anonymous
Along with shifting family dynamics, the priority of passing on rituals, traditions and knowledge is being lost. At least in the U.S., there is no set dinner hour anymore. Even if a family is home at the same time, they will often eat at different times. Estimates say that almost half of children and youth have a TV in their bedroom.
This is not really about dinner time but a loss of socialization that can hinder young people. I am focusing on dinner time because, by this time, most family members have completed their duties (school, work, possibly homework, etc). It is here where children and teens develop skills necessary for listening, empathy, continued mastering of language, self-confidence, teamwork ethic, adaptability, etc. Many of these are called soft skills: traits necessary for interacting with people which is directly related to emotional intelligence (EQ). But it is possible for a teen to learn the wrong type of skills from their family as well. The Simpsons are a good example of this.
Positive rites of passage (PRP) have almost vanished from the American landscape especially for urban young men. I believe there may be a direct correlation to absentee fathers as well. PRP helps young men develop their identity and understand who they are in relation to others. Religious groups, social organizations and clubs (ethnic and social) often performed this function. So what happened to them?
I did an informal study (so don’t cite this) of high school students in my Church History class. I asked them to break into groups and write down a student in the school that they would consider a leader. I have 2 classes making up a total of 25 students. (This is a small private school.) I asked them to keep it confidential. I shared the names with the class and asked them for a positive attribute about this person. Before that, I set out some guidelines.
- No emotional reactions to the names
- No emotional reactions to other students comments
- If your name is chosen, you cannot comment on other students comments.
(Teens are notorious for sending their disapproval through nonverbal actions and odd sounds.) They had a hard time coming up with positive attributes. I know if I asked for a negative attribute, it would have been easier for them. I was pushing them to learn to think positive because they tend to have a cynical attitude towards leadership. They gave some very thoughtful answers. This was especially difficult since some of the students who were chosen were in the class.
But then I flipped the question around. The question asked who they believed would make a good leader. But they confided that if the question had been who would they follow, they would have put no one. I knew this to be the case. I used this to make a point about leadership. If you don’t learn to follow, how do you learn to lead? There are those who are born with leadership gifts but everyone has the power to influence. This means that we can ALL lead in some limited capacity.
The urban youth I know don’t view their pop stars as their leaders even if they dress like them. They don’t even view themselves as leaders. They see themselves as individuals. This is what author Brady Goodwin calls the dropped baton. He is suggesting that after MLK was slain, there was a leadership vacuum that was never filled. Although various leaders jockeyed for the mantle of the Civil Rights Movement, the group splintered. (The group was already made up of a fragile coalition. I think MLK’s death exacerbated their differences along with the victories.)
Recently, I watched the Rise of the Planet of the Apes movie and was fascinated by the CGI of course but also how the lead chimp (Caesar pictured above) inspired the ranks. He was the smartest one because his mother was tested with some drug and the effects passed to him. Throughout the movie, this is what I saw:
- Necessity (even though Caesar knew what it was like to live in relation to gentle humans, he was eventually sent to live in a cage like, no pun intended, a monkey. He did not like it and conspired to get out)
- Loyalty (Caesar set a gorilla free so that he would taste freedom and remember who gave it to him. Later, that gorilla died saving Caesar’s life)
- Hierarchy (one chimp beat Caesar in the beginning but later fell in line when he saw Caesar aligned with the gorilla)
- Self Awareness (Caesar was very aware that he was being restricted. Caesar stole the drug that was given to his mother and gave it to the primates)
- Empathy (Caesar made sure that any human that showed them kindness was not killed)
- Vision ( Caesar caught a glimpse of home by swinging in the Redwood trees when he was young. That was their destination)

This movie would not work if there were no leaders. In fact, every action movie shows the rise of some leader, reluctant or otherwise. Yet many young people only appreciate leadership when it is connected to entertainment and money. That is a dangerous sign because leadership should also inspire selflessness and much of the messages coming out of pop culture do not embody that. (Occasionally team sports shows some good examples.)
I believe it is a fallacy to think that we do not follow people. We may not devote our physical lives but I often see people devote their entire spiritual and emotional energy towards a person. (Sometimes they switch to others over the course of time.) What they don’t seem to realize is that the body follows wherever the spirit is drawn. (Ask any sports fanatic.) We typically are the sum total of someone else’s ideas. So, many young people aren’t learning to be leaders and aren’t learning to follow. (Of course, this is not all young people.) Does this say anything about the expectations of the Occupy Wall St. Movement? Could we say this about the Arab Spring where the majority of people who participated in those movements are under 30? What will the world be like when they are running the country and I am 65?
What is the end result if young people don’t want to lead AND don’t want to follow?
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