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June 23, 2005
The brat pack
Spunky, svelte, and generally good looking, smelling good and fashionably dressed, children this side of the bridge do everything with a passion — be it studying for their As and Os, playing at gaming zones, partying, getting into fist fights, driving or even arguing with their parents.In braces/retainers, considered more a fashion statement than an orthodontic contraption, listening to music on a matchbox size MP3 player, they keep themselves entertained and continuously text their friends on cell phones or change their ring tones.
Ask teenagers to define their breed and they will be far harsher and very stingy with compliments than their parents.
“Noisy, loud, obnoxious, out of control, spoilt brats. They think they know it all, but actually do the stupidest of things,” says 14-year-old Ayesha condescendingly, who ironically belongs to the same brat pack.
“Fake and materialistic,” are added by an 18-year-old, to Ayesha’s list of attributes. And how do they define their parents? “They are from a different planet altogether!” says Ayesha. “Simplistic” is what comes to mind of a 17-year-old immediately.
Even the kind of clothes these children sport are weird. Boys wear their pants or jeans far too low and far too baggy for them to be comfortable in, and their female counterparts wear tight, low-waist jeans, long and un-hemmed worn over cropped T-shirts showing their midriff, or shirts that are way too high.
For accessories, the latest fad is wearing long chandelier earrings. Hours are spent on styling hair, painting nails, applying way too much kajal around the eyes and lip gloss, making them look twice their age.
The footwear, chappals or slippers, are worn a size or two big — the bigger the better — and they serve all occasions. Try telling them to wear something a little more decent and the eyes will begin to roll. They like to spend hours in front of the mirror till they are satisfied with their image.
Their regular food is kebab roll, shwarma or biryani, as they are forever short of funds and settle for the cheaper, greasier fast food variety. They hate home-cooked healthy food.
For drinks it is diet colas in cans, or forcing their parents to load their refrigerators with energy drinks during exam time, and the increasingly popular hangout are the sheesha cafes fast mushrooming in the city.
An interesting aspect of these young ones, more among girls than boys, is that all speak in English as if it were their native language, and with a heavy American accent.
When they are with their parents, they shrug their shoulders or roll their eyes as if their patience is being tested all the time. Sometimes you can see them looking at their designer watches, peering at their French-manicured nails, fingers going through carefully styled hair or even reading old text messages on their cells. Their eyes, when they are not being rolled, have that distant, blurry look.
Meet today’s teenagers — a far cry from the teenagers of yesteryear — from us to be precise and all the generations before us, who went through an agonizing period of hiding the acne-ridden face and were forever tongue tied in front of the opposite sex.
“Yes, they are so different — in terms of exposure and reach. They are empowered by an attitude that comes from franchised food, western TV shows, films and values,” says Fozia Mapara, mother of 14-year-old Ayesha.
Asked if today’s Pakistani youth is influenced by the western culture, Ayesha nods vigorously although she is not too sure if that is good or bad.
Her mother, on the other hand, feels: “Yes, it is bad because they have no identity and that is where the rebellion is coming from, this is where the contradiction between parents and teenagers begins.”
Ayesha has her point of view for this rebellion. “It’s also the pressure of culture and religion which can cause depression or the rebellious streak.”
Not quite agreeing, and taking religion and culture as a take off point, 17-year-old Ali says, “Religion and culture are things that are seen as rituals not as a code of life to be followed. I think today’s teenagers lack moral values which their parents have and tried to inculcate in them.
“I know of young people doing those things most parents would consider immoral. And yet they’d be performing religious rituals like they were the best of Muslims in the world.” For most youngsters religion and lifestyles don’t gel and are kept in separate slots.
These socialites fear being called losers for staying home for more than a couple of hours on any given day (test or no test), or for spending time with parents. They like to chat incessantly on the net or the phone, stay awake till well after midnight, watch too much television, are in a big way into the desi pop scene along with MTV or the American Idol. Orkut (an online community website) is their virtual companion, where they meet hundreds of clones who believe in the same philosophy of life as theirs.
“My children look at me like I’m from another era when I tell them that we would come from our friends’ house before sunset,” says Zarmina, a flustered mother, whose 17-year-old son, Rehan has to keep a curfew time of midnight.
“Nobody comes home at that time, that’s when the party really warms up, and no thanks to my parents, I have to leave,” he grumbles, giving his mother a scathing look.
“Who are these parents who let their children throw a party and at ungodly hours? I have no problem with youngsters hanging around, jamming etc. But why cannot these children have the same kind of fun if they start at seven and go on till 10 or 11 pm?” says Zarmina.
Why indeed? “Because when a party finishes off before 3 am, then it means it’s been a flop. And nobody wants to come to your party at seven, when it’s still daylight,” explains Rehan.
His perpetual complaint is that he’s never allowed to go out enough, for an unlimited, unspecified time period and is not even allowed to drive when everyone he knows has not only access to the family car for an unlimited period, but is also allowed to sit behind the wheel.
“And why don’t they serve food or snacks at parties anymore? My son says they only have drinks, chips, dips, popcorn and the infamous sheesha,” says Zarmina.
She is also quite exasperated by the fact that the nazim has so far not taken the sheesha café owners to task. “It’s like under age smoking, so why are they going about business as usual and why is everyone else keeping quiet?
“I tell them we went visiting relatives, were never given a choice to stay home, colas would be a special treat not an everyday drink, that we’d get up, out of respect, whenever an older person would enter the room. I also teach them not to watch a channel they think an elderly person would find objectionable.
“I ask them to lower the volume of music and offer the elders the remote, or offer help when they see an older person carrying something. I wouldn’t say they refuse to do it, but they never seem to take the initiative. They never seem to remember,” says Saadia, a mother of two teenagers.
Both sides agree that even in today’s time, there definitely exists a gnawing vacuum, famously known as the generation gap. “There is not much in common since both have different ideas about everything and a different set of values. “But,” emphasizes Fozia, “What should be common is a sense of space and compromise between both parties.”
“Yes there is a gap,” says 17-year old Ali, “But,” he adds, “one finds the same gap between us and, say, a 14 or a15-year-old. The gap between our parents can be attributed to the communication’s revolution that has taken everybody by surprise. While we’ve managed to survive, our parents have not been able to adapt and thus feel left out.”
So what kind of a relationship do parents of today have with their teenage children? “I work hard on a relationship whereby I am close to her like a girlfriend. So we get to share good and bad moments, trials and triumphs. I give her advice like a friend. I do not expect that all will be listened to, and I think that it is important to have realistic expectations from teens that they will not listen to each and everything.
“They are under a lot of pressure and temptations plus the hormonal frenzy influenced by the glossy media so they should be handled carefully, softly and given considerable freedom to express themselves. We must, as parents, realize that in years they will become like us but not right now. We should not expect them to be like we were in our childhood because we had different pressures,” says Fozia, who sounds just right.
Ali, speaking for the many teenagers, feels, “I think trust is an invaluable ingredient that seems to be missing here. I also feel the relationship needs to be nurtured and both sides need to work on that.
“Parents must give their children the space and let them make mistakes, yet monitor them. And children should be comfortable in the fact that even if the mistake is grave, they can always look up to their parents for forgiveness, which I think is there now but didn’t exist in the relationship our parents had with theirs.”
Ali feels that most teenagers will not tell everything parents want to know, yet it is the job of the parents, and a very important one, too, to somehow get it out of them. And that comes from communicating, whenever there is the opportunity.
There is a seedy side to the teenagers of today which must be taken seriously. This includes activities which are inappropriate for their age.
Says Aamir, a 15-year old, "Most teenagers, in Karachi, smoke, drink, indulge in substance abuse and do so in gangs who get into fights for the fun of it."
THE irony is that they are not street children, but are rich youngsters studying in elite schools. They have got everything too easily and have seen too much too soon, and in the process have lost their innocence.
"They get into fights at places like Devil’s Point (Seaview) and wield guns, knives and knuckle clips. It's usually a fight over a girl or for ‘showing attitude’ — a local lingo denoting all negative characteristics.” — Z.T.E.
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