Some growing pains of adolescence -- mood swings, rebelliousness, and voracious curiosity -- have long been real pains for parents, teachers, and other adults. Young people were bucking authority before the word "teenager" entered the mainstream American vocabulary in the 1940s. A look through the Gallup Brain, Gallup's online public opinion database, reveals that teens' misbehavior has been part of the national dialogue for almost as long.
Fifty years ago, Gallup asked Americans why teens get into mischief -- and their reasons sound painfully familiar to those commonly offered today. In 1954, Gallup asked Americans: "There's been a lot of discussion recently about our teenagers getting out of hand. As you see it, what are the main reasons for their acting up?" Some of the most common responses were:
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- parents not strict enough/not enough discipline/don't exercise enough authority
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- parents' fault/improper home life/no home training/don't set proper example/broken home/lack of supervision
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- parents have outside interests/not enough interest in kids/not home enough/neglect/lack of parental love
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- children have too much freedom/late hours/freedom too young
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- children have too much money/too many material possessions/pampered/too many places to go and too much to do
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- parents both working
A Teen Is Born
Before World War II, Americans went from childhood to adulthood in short order -- children were considered fit for work and marriage once puberty was complete. But with the great surge of prosperity after the war, most middle-class teens did not need to work. They had more leisure time and more money to spend.
Television brought the world into everyone's living room, and along with it, ads for all kinds of new products, many of them targeted specifically to teens. Advertisers coveted them; rock and roll defined them, and sociologists began to study them. A distinct youth culture was born, and the American teenager was here to stay.
Crime and Punishment
With the intense focus on teens, examining their behavior -- both negative and positive -- took on new importance. To help discern the reasons for teens' rebellious behaviors, Gallup questioned Americans in 1954 about their own teen years: "Looking back to when you were a teenager yourself, what kinds of punishment seemed to work best on children your age who refused to behave?" Forty-three percent said "physical punishment" and used words like "beating, shellacking, strap, stick, and spanking" to illustrate the point. Twenty-seven percent mentioned depriving children of things they like, and taking away privileges.
Physical punishment as a remedy for bad behavior continues to resonate with a majority of Americans. In 1997, Gallup asked U.S. parents if they approved of spanking children. Sixty-six percent said yes, and 82% said that they had been spanked as children. In 1946, 74% of parents said they approved of spanking. In the same 1946 survey, 84% of parents said they had been spanked as children.
How to Solve the Problem
In the 1950s, Americans had definite ideas for solving the problems of teenage misbehavior; most of them are still commonly heard today. Gallup asked in 1954: "Well, as you see it, what do you think is the best thing that could be done to cure these conditions among our teenagers?" Americans responded:
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- more supervision at home/pay more attention to teens/parents teach them and make them aware of their conduct
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- stricter rules of discipline/cut out kids' freedom/stricter laws/parents should discipline them
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- closer home ties/more understanding at home/happier home life
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- parents stay home more/mothers stop working
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- more group activities/YMCA/teen clubs/community clubs/educational programs
Misbehavior and Media
Along with the growing ranks of affluent, middle-class teenagers, the mid-20th century also brought increasing teen crime. In the 1950s, Americans were very concerned about the factors contributing to teen crime; the U.S. Senate even assigned a subcommittee to study the problem.
"The child today in the process of growing up is constantly exposed to sights and sounds of a kind and quality undreamed of in previous generations," stated a preliminary report for the1954 Senate Investigation of Juvenile Delinquency in the United States. Some of the "sights and sounds" referred to in the report were comic books, television, and radio. In 1954, Gallup asked, whether any blame for teenage crime could be placed on comic books and on television and radio. Seventy percent of Americans agreed that blame could be assigned to these, with about one in four saying a great deal of blame was in order.