Etiquette: No Interest to 1970s’ Teens

The abruptly waning interest in matters of etiquette by teens in 1971 spurred on one “agony aunt” to publish an extraordinary column which may have caused many a parent of teens concern.

Etiquipedia has posted articles previously on the decline in etiquette which the 1970’s suffered, but no other article has been quite like the following post:

The President's recent Commission on Campus Unrest appeals to all adults to undertake to understand the feelings of the youth of today. The Commission's findings suggest that the dangerous gap in our society is threatening the survival of our nation. Perhaps my teen mail and daily contact with teens will give you a better understanding of youth’s needs of the moment.

Six years ago, when I started answering teen-agers’ questions, few wrote me, and most of those who did had simple matters of etiquette on their minds. Today I get up to 2,000 letters a week. Only a smattering of them are about etiquette. Ninety percent are about sex, drugs, trouble with parents, or some mixture of the three.

I have just finished a lecture tour on which I personally talked to, and listened, to 20,000 teen-agers. These conversations, plus the thousands of letters written to my Teen Forum question- and-answer column in newspapers, tell dramatically where teen thoughts are today.

1. Boy-girl problems, including serious questions on sex - 50 percent.

2. Parental problems, including alcoholic, quarreling, or divorced parents - 25 percent.

3. Vices, including drug use - 15 percent.

4. Grooming and fashions - 8 percent.

5. Etiquette - 2 percent.

When I began "Teen Forum" six years ago, teen boys were interested in how to help a girl into a car; girls wondered about what length gloves to wear. Today both boys and girls are more interested in such subjects as world affairs and sex.

Anyone who says our young don't indulge in sex doesn't know what's happening in 1971. I'm not saying that all teen-agers do, but I am saying that more do than ever before and they don't hesitate to talk about it.

As a statistical example, I recently visited a school in Europe. The school nurse informed me that they had had two pregnancies in the past school year. Upon returning to the United States, I visited a school of the same size in the Southwest. The school nurse informed me they had had 60 pregnancies in the past school year. This is one reason why I'm for sex education beginning at least at the fourth-grade level. I am also concerned that I get the following type of letter each month:

Can I become pregnant at parties where we play kissing games? I think I know how far to go with a boy, but I just want to make sure. -Worried.

People often ask me whether I receive many nut or kook letters. No, I don't. When a teen-ager sits down and writes five to nine pages pouring his heart out, he's not being silly; he's usually desperate. In answering their questions, my philosophy is to tell young people the price they will pay for any of two or three choices - whether the question is about interracial marriage or drugs or alcohol. I believe parents, administrators, religious leaders, and other adults must be honest, reasonable, and free in their discussion of today's problems, so that our youth can know the price of every decision. Then, hopefully, the young people will make sensible decisions about what route to take. Sweeping such issues as pregnancy and marijuana under the carpet will not help us cope with the problems of our time.

Children of divorced or alcoholic parents contribute heavily to my parental hangup mail (25 percent). But even in some of the happiest families. when teen-agers are writing about such mild problems as their hair length, they will add a P.S., “Please don't send me a personal answer. My parents read all my mail!” 

Only a few teen-agers (yet enough to cause me concern) are threatening suicide or running away from home because of a parent-child communication gap. An example of severe communication-gap-itis is illustrated by the following letter:

I have a problem which I think is pretty serious. I hate my parents. It sure isn't a very nice thing to say, but I hate them. I dread liv- ing with them! They are so weird I just can't stand them. All they do is force me to do things. I have been wanting to write to you because they make me so mad, but I always forgive them. But now I just can't stand them any more. How can I tell them I hate them and don't want to live with them? I am so embarrassed and upset about it.- Parent Hater

Recently I was judge at the All-American Family Search. The teens of the 51 families attending were very honest in our forum discussions. They confirmed what my mail says about problems with parents:

• Teens want respect from adults.
• They don't respect an adult just because he's an adult. An adult must do what he can to merit a teen's respect.
• They want their parents to trust them more. Just because a girl broke her parents' trust once, she doesn't want to pay a price for it forever.
• They abhor inconsistent or hypocritical adult behavior - i.e., a father who takes up the collection plate on Sunday but goes out with women during the week or keeps pornography in his desk drawer.

I feel that much of the communication-generation gap could be avoided if we parents wouldn't make such big issues of what are essentially minor problems in the 11-to-13 age group. When a full-blown crisis develops over something, such as when to begin shaving legs, a girl is less likely to come to her parents when she's got a truly serious problem later. A sample letter: 

How can I get my mother to listen to me about getting a bra and wearing make-up? I'm 13, and she still won't let me have or do these things. When I ask her about them, she laughs. I can never have a serious talk with her. – Laughed At. 

About 15 percent of my mail deals with vices such as drugs, alcohol, cigarette-smoking. Drugs are the number-one vice. Most teens who write about drugs have tried them, have already paid a price, and are urging their peers to abstain. Many have had friends who have died from overdoses.

Some letters are from boys and girls with a friend on “Mary Jane” (marijuana) or LSD or heroin. They want to know what they can do to help the friend shake his habit. A few girls, and a few boys too, have friends who drink or smoke too much and wish they would cut down or stop. And of course many, many are deeply worried about drinking parents.

Fashions and grooming have diminished to only eight percent of my teen mail. In this category, however, the number-one question of the moment concerns the midi-length. Ninety percent of the teens I interviewed dislike the new longer skirts (especially the boys). Teens want to wear what they like. They couldn't care less about what New York or Paris dictates. If they tend at all towards the midi, it's for an inexpensive coat to wear over a mini-dress.

One thing is clear: the day when a boy sits down and writes to ask me what side of a girl to walk on is long gone. And this should tell the adults who have their heads in the sand to pull them out. I would make these four suggestions:

• Consider drugs and sex at an early age.
• Listen before saying no-and try to have a two-way communication.
• Endeavor to be honest.
• Show that you genuinely care.

Today's teens are pretty smart. We can't fool them. And, if we try to, we're in trouble. — By Jean Adams for The North County Times, 1971

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia