Megan: A Profile Of A Post-Modern
Youth
Written by Glen Dawursk, Jr.
Please
do not duplicate or re-create this material without written permission. Thanks.
Megan is a 15-year-old Caucasian girl
from a Midwestern middle class family.
Her father and mother both have college degrees and would be classified
as “workaholics.” Their goal is to
retire early and reap the benefits of their success. They are so involved with themselves that
they fail to really see who Megan is.
They think they are great parents because they desire to be “friends”
with Megan and her 12-year-old brother Matthew.
They are permissive and have in their own words, “given their children
room to grow and explore life.” Megan
and her brother would be classified as “latchkey children” and often times she
is responsible for preparing dinner for her and her brother. She has little intimacy with her parents and
she is starved for closeness. Recently,
after years of marital strife, Megan’s parents started throwing out the
“D-word” in front of her and her brother.
Her father has even stayed away several nights from home, a sort of
self-imposed separation, and her mother’s friends have encouraged her to
seriously consider contacting a lawyer to make the separation permanent. However, divorce is not uncommon to Megan, many of her friends come from single parent or
remarried families. Yet, Megan feels
this desire to please them, especially her father, as she seeks his approval
and love.
Megan desires to have closeness with her
peers, but she lacks the skills and discernment necessary to create a
meaningful relationship. Her parents
have not modeled this to her and her brother, so she has turned to the media
for parenting. The media has taught her
images of closeness based upon selfish interests and the desire to always “get
something” out of a relationship. She
prefers small groups of friends rather than large groups and seeks to please
them in order to “fit in.” While she
values friendships and relationships the most, she avoids sharing too much of
her real self with anyone. She hides
behind a facade of compliance, when in reality she is crying to be loved,
validated for who she is, and she craves for any attention. While leery about revealing her true self in
a relationship, she seeks them, as they are the only true “family” to her. For this reason, Megan has a history of
promiscuity. Her friends encourage and
challenge her to pursue sexual gratification.
Her friends echo the media message that sex is inevitable and expected –
and it is safe. Combined with her need
for intimacy, her peer pressures and the media’s message, she condones the idea
that it is acceptable to do anything to feel loved and she has willingly
equated sexual gratification as the sign of being truly loved by someone. She does not evaluate her decisions on the
basis of what is right and what is wrong, but rather on “How will this make me
feel for the moment?” She does not
consider marriage as a pre-requisite for intercourse – in fact, she expects to
“live with a guy” before ever deciding on marriage. The scary part is Megan currently practices
“unprotected sex” with multiple partners and so do her friends.
Megan often lives vicariously through
other people’s lives. She always talks
about a movie romance or the perfect friendship in a novel she has read. She seeks “slices of life” to fill the
emptiness in hers. She says these
“fantasies” help her struggle with her reality.
Commitment of any kind is an issue with
Megan. She prefers short projects with a
foreseeable outcome to long-term projects with seemingly unattainable
expectations. She contemplates over
joining anything and despises being forced into obligations without her
approval. Megan would rather hangout
with her small group of friends and watch TV or chat
on the internet than participate in a food pantry rally, homecoming parade, or
other “causes”. Yet, despite her desire
to work in “small groups,” Megan actually yearns to be independent – not from
people, but from conformity. She wants
to be an individual, but often times is forced to compromise her feelings,
opinions and values in order to be accepted by her teachers, family, and
peers. She has distinct ideas but often
fails to share them. This does not mean
Megan is a “basket case” or a time bomb ready to go off; rather the
opposite. Megan is self-confident and
seems self-sufficient, as she has learned to take care of herself at home.
However, her confidence is easily shaken when she is not offered opportunities
for personal responsibility, a “cause”, or a purpose. The problem is that Megan’s cause or purpose
is based upon the desire for material processions, not on “saving the rain
forest.” She is driven to succeed in
order to buy herself happiness. In the movie “Wall Street”, the main character states “Greed is
Good.” This has become a subconscious
virtue in Megan’s mind and her generation supports this viewpoint. The media and her circle of friends has
taught her that no government, no president, no TV-evangelist, no church, no
teacher, no parent, no one can be truly trusted. Megan has taken on the Nike attitude of life.
She has chosen to “Just Do It” herself – as no one really cares about her
well-being or happiness. Ironically, she
expects her apathy to be her destiny as she is very negative and pessimistic
about her future. So, Megan lives for
the moment.
Megan is open to change, expects it, and
even looks for ways to encourage it. She
loves media, music and movies and looks for the “surround experience” in
everything she does. Especially
music. Megan goes to every
concert that comes to town. She has CD’s
and DVD’s of the latest artists and has played them so often that she can resite word for word the lyrics of the songs. To her, the artists represent the perfect
lifestyle because they are risk takers.
Megan desires to be a risk taker, too.
Through her dress and lifestyle, Megan seeks to show her individuality
while still maintaining a sense of “fad-tion” with
her peers. Brand names are important for
the moment, but they easily lose their flavor as a new one enters the scene. Megan seeks the scene and desires to command
it as it brings her attention and acceptance.
As a “net- kid”, Megan knows what is new and innovative before it ever
hits the streets or the malls of her town.
She anticipates and “lives for” the thrill of change and passionately
seeks the “risk.” The “cool” thing to
her usually is fast, furious, seemingly uncomplicated, always high energy, and
usually involves a bit of risk. Megan
paid extra to do the “bungee jump” ride with her friends last summer at an amusement
park.
While a risk seeker, Megan is very
organized. She plans things out and even
carries a Palm for her “lists of things to do.”
She is able to multi-task and seems to accomplish most of what she sets
out to do. She seems ambitious and exerts
a sincere desire to succeed. However,
the stress and pressure she feels causes her to have frequent mood swings and
miniature emotional breakdowns. While
just 15 years old, she thinks she has to be an adult and society burdens her
with this view.
Amazingly, Megan has issues with truth
while still seeking some sort of “spiritual experience.” She questions the irrationality of truth
(especially religious truth) verses real life and seeks to disguises her
anguish and confusion with temporary spiritual experiences. She is not a “church goer”
and does not want to become a “member” anywhere. Instead, she seeks to find herself through
the ideas of New Age thinking, Miss Cleo, and the occult. She rejects the church beliefs of her
grandparents because they do not “relate” to her life and she sees how her
parents rejected them as well. In her search for a sense of “community” and
belonging, Megan has become entranced by Scientology. She sees herself as being the only one who
cares about her and seeks to gain self-actualization to make herself
feel right with her surroundings. Her
spiritual quest briefly led her to extreme dieting and purging as a way of
making herself feel “right.” She does
not simply want the facts about a God, but rather Megan expresses a desire to
no what it all means. Why me? Why now?
Why? In her search, she lives
outside of the conventional box. To
Megan, there are no boundaries -- no sense of right or wrong. Relavitism is a way
of life; if it seems to have meaning or feeling to Megan, then it must be
ok. If not, then it must be wrong, and
her style of learning reflects this belief.
She will seemingly question authorities
answers, when in fact she is simply testing her lack of boundaries. She demands information and will pursue it to
find her personal enlightenment in the hopes that it will empower her toward
some greater revelation and meaning.
Ironically, this concept may seem similar to the spiritual awakenings of
the 1960’s Jesus movement, but the difference is that Megan is seeking a more
worldly and internalized answer and has chosen to by-pass Christianity in the
process.