Our Town: '... Children will listen' Our Town: '... Children will listen' (December 17, 2003)

by Bill D'Agostino

Careful the things you say, children will listen."

Stephen Sondheim's song, "Children Will Listen," from the musical "Into the Woods," popped into my head as I was sitting through a meeting of the Palo Alto Youth Council in early December.

Student leaders from the city's two high schools were -- somewhat awkwardly -- banging out the details of a flyer they want to distribute to parents. The flyer will relate the constant anxiety they feel.

Teen stress is not a new topic in Palo Alto. It has been discussed at least 25 years, and there was a time in the early 1980s when stress reduction was taught in P.E. and other classes. But with the second suicide in 13 months of another member of Palo Alto High School's class of 2006, it has taken on a new urgency.

The Youth Council felt the appropriate response was to put out a small pamphlet, telling parents to lay off, to see kids as more than the sum of the grades on their report cards. One girl mentioned -- perhaps jokingly -- that her mother flipped out when she brought home an A-.

"We're trying to offer them perspective," council President Peter Ahn said of parents. "If we do that, then their treatment towards their kids will change."

Ideas for the pamphlet include having quotes and stories from students who battled stress, statistics about teen depression, and -- most tellingly -- a list of all colleges in the United States. Palo Alto parents, the teens say, sometimes act as if there are only 10 colleges in the country -- the top ones, of course.

The title of the flyer is another indication of how the council members feel -- they thought about tricking parents by titling the flyer, "How to get your child into college." That way, someone said, the pamphlet was sure to be picked up and read. The title the group ended up with, "Under Pressure," a reference to a popular song by the group, Queen, and David Bowie.

In a much less cool song, "Children Will Listen," the Witch (of classic children's-literature fame) bemoans how her child, Rapunzel, has not turned out the way she expected -- that her long-haired runaway daughter heard messages that were both intended and unintended.

"Children may not obey, but children will listen," the Witch sings.

I suspect that when Palo Alto parents place bumper stickers on their SUVs reading, "My child was a student of the month at..." they feel they are sending a message of support. They mean to say, "My child is beautiful and wonderful and smart."

But there is another message stuck onto that bumper sticker, an unintended one. That darker, slightly narcissistic message could be interpreted as boasting how their child is a gleaming, successful prize they have managed to bring about through their parental efforts.

Maybe it should be no surprise that our commodity-driven, Silicon Valley culture is producing commodity-driven children who feel their parents' love is conditioned on their getting into an Ivy League school, or an equivalent institution.

The deaths of two boys provides a stark counterpoint to the message. Palo Alto children should be the happiest on earth. They're not -- at least not all of them. To hear Youth Council members tell it, it's because we're somehow letting them believe that their worth is measured by their accomplishments.

It's not a message parents intend, of course. But somehow teens hear it through the fog of pop culture and the haze of family fights or discussions about money and grades, and the subconscious desires to own the biggest car, or house, in town -- and on and on.

Watching the gawky youth talk about boys, AP classes and makeup and grades and sports, I was reminded how we need to hear -- as in heed -- the messages they're telling us, or risk watching another child fall into despair.

I hope every parent reads the pamphlet the Youth Council puts out. I hope it sparks continuing family conversations about success, and the measure of a person.

"If this simple thing protects one person, it's worth doing," said Christine Rogers, a Paly sophomore and a classmate of the two boys who killed themselves.

"It's really, hopefully, going to be an eye-opener," Paly senior Aaron Spolin added.

If we are taught anything from these tragic suicides, we must learn to be careful. And we must learn to listen.

Bill D'Agostino is a staff writer at the Weekly. He can be e-mailed at bdagostino@paweekly.com.

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