And You And Me Are Free To Be, You And Me

[dali_muse]

Yes, I'm talking about THAT SONG. :)

ashbet pointed out Marlo Thomas's Huffington Post article about bullying in schools. As someone who grew up with Marlo Thomas, Alan Alda, and Phil Donahue, it saddens me how much we've regressed. My progressive thinking mother bought me the album with the accompanying book. I found it so empowering, even with

Comments

[miamadness15]

Oh my god, I was talking to John about this song and the show just 5 minutes ago!!!! My advisor is doing a history project on the show and its impact on the time. :)

As for the rest of your post, I think that the internet has furthered rather than brought people together. Things have not quite changed. They are just more obvious today than they were back then. The targets are a bit changed (if you think about racism or nativism for example, it was rather bad) but otherwise, things are just cycling.

[ashbet]

To be fair, schools have always been battleground zero for some kids -- I was one of them. But adding cyber-harassment and lack of privacy to the already considerable weight of bullying, and it's just too much. :/

I really, REALLY hope that we can move ahead -- we've made some great strides as a society, but it feels like we're being dragged back into the Dark Ages right now.

I miss the really innocent optimism of the late 70's/early 80's . . . some of it is that I was a kid then, but I also think that today's kids are a LOT more cynical and jaded, in part because of information overload and media TMI.

Hard to explain without sounding like "You kids get off my lawn" . . . it's not that I think kids are to blame, I think that adults are making a society where it's hard to be a kid. And when that kind of pressure is coming down from above, the temptation to close ranks and attack the outsider seems to be a lot stronger.

**hugs** Pardon my migraine-y ramblings -- I'm with you.

-- A <3

[dali_muse]

I don't blame the kids, either, just the environment where this "attack the other" mentally is encouraged and allowed to flourish.

[billyname99]

[dali_muse]

True, this is nothing new. But is the rate of teen suicides increasing or the number of suicides being reported that is increasing?

And those of us who have lived through all this, what are we going to do about it? Should we do anything about it? I know that it's easy to joke: "save the planet, kill yourself", but there's enough mundanes running around for my liking. I don't want the freaky kids taking themselves out of the picture.

[billyname99]

[kambriel]

I think it all boils down to people sometimes fearing what the do not know. That said, greatness doesn't tend to come from mediocrity, so people who had traits in their youth that made them stand out, I believe are more likely to find more interesting paths to walk later in life.