College: Counter Culture

Parents: if you happen to have picked up your child’s modern-day eye-opener, or maybe you purchased your own copy and haven’t stopped reading by now, I want you to know that you have no idea how much stress your “projecting” puts on us as children. Your children. As young adults, we have enough going on. Not all of us know how to channel our stress in the healthiest of ways. We may lash out. We may retreat into our minds, and sometimes, that can be the most dangerous place for us to go. Not only do we do our best to please you, but to also please ourselves. To please our teachers with our grades and test scores. To please our friends and significant others. We don’t always take a second to realize and understand that we cannot and will not please everyone. It’s not possible. We will fail at something. There will come a time when we will fall short. It is how we are received, regardless of our shortcomings, that really affects our view of ourselves, and sometimes even our views on life. According to an article from CNN, written on June 18, 2019: “Overall in 2017 there were 6,241 suicides among young people aged 15 to 24, of whom 5,016 were young men and 1,225 were young women… There [has] been a number of things that people have talked about lately. One is just sort of increasing rates of psychological pain or psychological distress in young people—more anxiety and more depression—[it] could also be that family and community structures may not be as tight-knit as in the past, leading to increased risk, or that the use of technology has led to young people spending less time on cultivating rich, in-person relationships…” (Italicize quote) Psychological pain. Psychological distress. Why are the suicide rates among young men higher than they are for young women? Mother, have you ever stopped to cater to the ‘boy’ in the man that is your son? To be an example for the ‘girl’ inside the woman that is your daughter? Father, have you ever told your son, “Men don’t cry” or to “toughen up”? Were you the first example of what true, unconditional, pure love should’ve been for that young woman that is your daughter, or did she have to learn it on her own from other men who were—and always will be—unqualified to fill a roll that only you could have filled? Among many reasons, those are a part of the problem. Men are strong. They are providers, protectors, right? Who would ever think that a man could be broken—weak in his mind? He’s crying out, wishing someone would just hear the words he doesn’t dare utter aloud, or see the tears that he doesn’t allow to fall from his eyes. Dear mother, dear father… please don’t ignore us. Please see us. Please hear us. Please hear ME.