HIS69-415 Growing Up Hard

Foreword

The principal task of adolescence is to gain independence. That is the aim of the most turbulent period in anyone’s life.

Usually the transition to adulthood is made with not too very much difficulty.

But for some it is a passage filled with peril and beset with terror. A boy may be thrust into the world too early, with too few resources to sustain himself as he tries to achieve a balanced and secure posture in his life.

And also, the boy may not be thrust so much as compelled to flee from a situation which is both unwholesome and actively unhealthy for him both emotionally and physically.

But if the boy is not a criminal, is only seeking to make some more acceptable place for himself, he is lost. There are no institutions or organizations to which he can turn without fear of being jailed or being returned to the situation he fled with so much desperation.

Yet he must survive. Somehow he must make do, must get a living. And he must survive. Somehow he must make do, must get a living. And he has only his own self to offer to an industrial society. No legitimate jobs are open to him unless he is at least sixteen, and preferably eighteen. And he has not had time or opportunity to learn any saleable skill.

The result is that he must, through lack of any viable option, turn to the illegitimate sources of income. Must, in short, sell his body—his only asset.

Inevitably, he is exploited. His flesh, his youth, his innocence are seen as valuable to others, seen as worth cash by people around the boy. And he is taken and used. Used badly, harshly, cruelly.

For the boy, there is no escape. Not from the reality of his situation. But drugs and alcohol and sex can provide relief from his fears, give him some escape, however transient and unsatisfactory.

He becomes hopeless entangled in the currents of vicious interplay around him, currents generated by older, more adept people. People who control him completely.

He can only flee again. Flee into much the same world as that he is trying to escape. A world not of his making and not of his wish.

He is, like so many of the rest of us, a prisoner in a place he would not choose.