Make a friend of a Librarian

First Grade

That may sound corny, but it’s really good advice. Librarians are usually very accessible personalities. Just go down to the public library and look around at who is working the floor.It is probably a Reference Librarian and, hopefully, a Children’s Librarian; these people are there to answer your questions. Period.

Well, no, that good sentence goes on... Librarians are there to answer your questions and they are “neutral providers of information”. In other words, librarians don’t give you any attitude.

But don’t just take my word for it. You might be in a library right now and on one of the library’s computers, reading these words. If so, look around and find a librarian working at the Reference Desk or the Children’s Desk and bring that librarian over and show him or her these words and ask if this is true or not true. (Make sure you get one that’s not super busy because you’re going to want this person to take some time to evaluate all of this, and you, too.)

Librarians don’t just help you to find good books-although that’s important enough-but they help you to find whatever kind of information you need. You need to find out about a problem? Big problem, small problem? Lack of love and understanding? Feeling alone? Abused?

A librarian will probably understand, and a librarian will probably help. Librarians are highly educated, professional people. In the course of their daily work they run into a lot of different people with a lot of different problems, and their professional code of ethics, as defined and upheld by the American Library Association, is to be “neutral providers of information” to anyone who approaches them in the library.

A Good Book

Fifth Grade

A librarian can provide you with a good book. A book can be a friend. You can cuddle up with a book and read the same sentence or paragraph or page or chapter all night long, if you damn well want to. Books for young people, particularly, can be helpful because the authors of these books are trying to help you to understand the adult world as well as the kid world or teenage world-which are, in fact, three different worlds that are always colliding. You can learn a lot about how to keep your own sanity by reading a good book that has to do with your particular problem. And a librarian can help you find that good book, and the librarian is supposed to know to keep his or her mouth shut about it.

A word of warning about librarians, however. You’ll find for the most part that librarians are very friendly, understanding people, but if they find out about a case of abuse, then they are bound by law to report it. That may bring in the police or various other social services available in our society. Maybe you think your own problem doesn’t merit police interference? That’s going to be up to you to decide, but you’ve got to decide it before you expose abuse to a librarian (or teacher, or principal or other professional adult working with young people, who are all bound by the same law to report abuse.)

Abuse

It’s a fact of life that some kids have a better or worse living situation than other kids. Some kids are born smarter or wealthier or better looking or more athletic or just better at certain things than other kids. So what? We’re all going to live and die on the same planet, and so we need to muddle our way through our own personal situation in life.

Some kids face abuse, and abuse comes in a huge variety. It may be verbal abuse, physical abuse, or sexual abuse. Abuse may come periodically, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly. It’s different for everybody, but you’re going to face abuse at least a few times in your young life, for whatever reasons, and by whomever. Some of it is easy to shake off; some of it you may never shake off.

Verbal Abuse

The best thing to do is just shake off verbal abuse. It’s only words. Don’t let the words hurt you, and don’t let them define you. You are in charge of the words; the words are not in charge of you. Abusive language comes from other people who are probably pretty stupid and pretty mean. At the very least, those people are insensitive, and you probably don’t want to be like those people. So just shake it off and walk away free.

Verbal abuse from parents and teachers and other adults is sad, sadder for them than for you because they’re old enough to know better. They should have found out by their adult age that there are so many better ways to treat kids and help them to learn than to abuse them verbally.

Verbal abuse from your peers is more understandable because kids, while growing up, go through a lot of changes that can sometimes make them pretty mean and irrational. That’s why it’s best to just shake it off. You might even try to be friends with the other kid who is being abusive. Sometimes it’s just that that kid is having troubles of his or her own and is trying to take it out on the handiest scapegoat, which may be you.

Physical Abuse

If abuse becomes physical, with pushing, hitting, kicking, threatening with weapons, then you really must report it. It will only get worse if you don’t. And physical abuse you can’t shake off. You could be hurt for the rest of your life. Best advice, go to a librarian first. The librarian might get in touch with your parents, or your school, or your teacher or your principal, or even the police. The librarian may not even know you personally, but the librarian does know the best place to go for help because sometimes the abuse might even be coming from a parent, or a teacher, or a principal. But remember, you absolutely MUST stop the abuse before it goes too far-and it most probably will.

Sexual Abuse

If abuse becomes sexual, with inappropriate fondling, unwanted advances, even rape, then again you really must report it. Otherwise it will no doubt continue and get worse. Abusive people don’t just stop their abuse. You are the one who has to stop it.

Again, I would go to a librarian. A librarian probably will not have a prejudice against you, personally, as a teacher or parent might have. A librarian will recognize the real you, the person who is in trouble and looking for a way out. A librarian is not intricately involved with your everyday life; therefore a librarian can think more clearly about what’s best for a person like you in a situation like your own.

Gay Teens

Tenth Grade

When I was talking at one high school about The Mayday Rampage a guy named... let me see, perhaps I’ll call him Clayton to keep him anonymous, but he will know who I mean... named Clayton waited on the periphery of the crowd after my talk until after everyone had gone on to their next class, and then he approached me. “Can I talk to you privately?”

Well, gee, I was at a loss. “Don’t you have another class right now?”

“Yeah, but the teacher will give me permission if I’m talking to you.”

Well, gee, where could we talk? The sex-ed teacher who had invited me to talk to her classes suggested Clayton and I go out to this courtyard where there were picnic tables. It was like a fishbowl out there because all the other classes in session had windows facing onto the courtyard; everybody could see us, but at least no one could hear us.

I was pretty sure that the reason Clayton wanted to talk to me privately was because of a sexual problem, and I was pretty sure that that sexual problem was going to be homo-sexual. I was also pretty sure that every other student in that school, watching us through the windows, also knew that we two Claytons were talking about homosexuality.

Clayton was trembling as he launched in. “See, I’m gay. And I know I’m gay. And I’m not bi, or anything else but gay. And I’m never going to be anything but gay. I’m gay.”

I listened to him go through his personal problems, and I hope I offered Clayton pretty good advice. He was having troubles with his boyfriend, and with his father, and with a lot of his peers, but mainly he seemed to be having trouble with himself. When I found out he was a junior, I told him, “Don’t worry too much about all this now. I know that two years seem like an eternity to you right now, but these two years are going to be over pretty soon, and then you’re going to be out of here, and you’re going to find your own friends outside of high school, maybe get an apartment downtown, maybe go to college, and life is going to bloom for you. You’re going to have fun. You’re going to find yourself. Meanwhile, don’t let these people get under your skin. You are who you are, and you want that to be the best possible thing that you can be. And that really has nothing to do with them, unless you allow it.”

Twelfth Grade

Clayton seemed to understand it all, and he seemed to appreciate what I was saying. There weren’t any specific answers to any specific problems, but just a general point of view about life and living happily that seemed to make sense to him. I hope so.

The highest suicide rate in our society is among gay teens. Did you know that? Pretty dismal statistic. High school can be a rough society, and you’ve got to protect yourself throughout at the same time that you try to find every possible way to enjoy it and benefit from it. Remember, all you have to do is survive; treat it like a “reality show”.

Gay Marriage

And, cheer up. Things are getting better all the time for young gay people in our country. As our nation has begun to face head-on the issues surrounding gay marriage, there has been a huge step in understanding being taken by our entire society, together. As all manner of loving gay people have come out and been splashed onto the front pages of our newspapers and all over our TV screens as they have sought to do a really decent thing—marry someone they love dearly—our society has finally had the opportunity of seeing the good, human face of homosexuality. And people are changing their attitudes because of it.

Previously most people learned about homosexuality by only the most negative of stereotypes, either on the streets or in films. To our society, gay people were at best “weird” but mainly gays were portrayed as sexual predators of the young. Our society has been ignorant.

Peace Corps, Liberia, West Africa

One of the most hopeful aspects brought to light during this controversy about gay marriage is that young people are far more accepting of the idea than older people. In fact, teens are more accepting than 20-30 year olds, while 20-30 year olds are more accepting than 30-40 year olds... and on up the line, with the oldest people in our society being least accepting. That makes sense. But guess what, those older people—who are not as likely to change their attitudes as younger people—are going to die off sooner than the younger people. That, unhappy to say so, will be a very good thing for gay people.

Our society is evolving. When you’ve been alive as long as I have, you can actually see the evolution and measure the steps of change. Those steps are getting huge, even though it may seem that we are advancing very slowly. If you are a gay teen, I hope that you will be a positive force in shaping our evolution.

Social Services

Rather than list the various social services to which you might turn for help, I’m just going to suggest using your local Yellow Pages. But where to look in the Yellow Pages? In the front pages of every Yellow Pages book, you’ll find green pages that are the index. When you don’t know the correct word to look under in the yellow pages, look in the green pages first. For example, I just looked in the green pages under “abuse” and found “Abused Persons’ Aid See Crisis Intervention Services... 459.” That means turn to page 459 in the yellow pages and you’ll find about two dozen organizations that will help you, including WEAVE—Women Escaping a Violent Environment; Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous; Pregnancy Hotline; Volunteers in Victim Assistance; 24-Hour Crisis Line.

I looked in the green pages under “gay” and found “Gay and Lesbian Organizations”, leading me to nearly a dozen listings, some of which I had heard of before, including “Men’s Chorus”. Wow. A chorus of gay men. Cool.

In the green pages, I looked for “teen” and found “Teen Violence Intervention” with two separate referrals, “Crisis Intervention Services” and “Social & Human Services for Individuals and Families”.

Help is available, and an initial phone call is anonymous. Investigate your options. Good luck. Good life.

Maxims To Live By

There are a couple of maxims by which my dad lived, and even though they are as old as the hills, I offer them to you here as the best way to get through our society’s pitfalls, to keep in mind in every crisis and at every decision point in your life:

Land’s End, San Francisco

“Live and let live”.

“Say and do to other people as you would like them to say and do to you.”

“Fight the good fight; live the good life.”

“Smile. Be happy.”