Friday, April 22, 2011

Day 124: Just a boy

I don't know the last time you've visited a high school, but some of the current fashion trends are a bit shocking. Despite attempting to maintain some decorum, I've seen some children dressed in ways that stop me in my tracks. We have a boy with a zebra light up wheel chair, totally cool. We have a boy who dresses like a trendy Asian girl who's wardrobe is disturbing on so many levels. We have young ladies who like to wear tops so low the girls are not just visible, but jumping out to say "Hello!"

One of the current trends is called EMO. It is an abbreviation for emotionally disturbed. I'm not sure what point these kids are trying to make, but they dress and act like they want everyone to notice how damaged they are, how angry, hostile and unapologetic. The kids wear dark clothes and strange hairstyles. They often have piercings and large gauge earrings like the one in the picture right. They look angry, upset, despondent, vague.

These children dress for shock value. They wear their hair standing up in fans like peacocks. They wear garish eye liner and ridiculously skinny jeans (boys too). They are a walking sign screaming, "What? gotta problem with the way I look?" They want to be confronted, challenged, mistreated for their appearance because it reinforces their negative opinions of themselves.

Even understanding where this behavior comes from, I find it hard not to be put off by their appearance and attitude. It is hard to remember for all their bluster that they are still children. But today I was leaving for the weekend and watching kids waiting for their parents to come get them. I passed a boy standing in a partially enclosed corner. He dressed in the skinny pants and biker gloves and crazy hair cut, but for just a moment, I saw the tiniest flicker of something else in his face.

I saw him straighten a chunk of hair that was blowing in his face and tuck it behind the ear with a large gauge hole in it. The way he smoothed his hair erased years from his face. He looked up at a car rolling past with a tiny bit of hope in his face, like any another kid waiting for his mom to come pick him up.

For all his hostility and bluster, he is just a little boy still in so many ways. If I had said something to him, he would have denied it and probably been a little put off or confrontational, but for a heartbeat, I saw a little boy wanting to belong, have friends and go home for a weekend with his family.

He probably suffers from a type of minor personality disorder like depression; very few people rebel this strenuously against societal norms without suffering from some sort of personality disorder. Or is rebelling from super strict parents. But we don't often get a chance to see the wounded child behind the emo kid.

He is, at the end of the day, just a boy, a boy so worried that people won't like him that he goes out of his way to exclude himself from his peers using his appearance, but wishing for respect and inspiration, hope and understanding.

A good reminder on this Good Friday that we can't judge people based on the outside: skin, hair, ethnicity, occupation. A poor Jewish carpenter once went against the crowd and saved the world. While we can't compare an Emo kid to Jesus, they are both lessons in looking past the cover before judging the book. His pain and need were so obvious for just a second that I could imagine the boy he used to be and wanted to hug him.

1 comment:

  1. So rightly true. You would never believe it, but I used to be EMO in high school -- not during my year in your class. I think everyone has an issue that they battle throughout their whole lives. Mine is depression, but I know God is always there to block those depression blows from Satan that seem to inevitably be aimed in my direction.

    Also, I think it's very unfair to judge a person by their outer appearance when it is the heart that truly matters, since that is where the truth of the person really is.

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