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22
ings, and the disease, mental aberrations
and even death that may result from
them. Nor have they really been taught
how most hippies live their daily lives.
Parents generally don't understand
how desperately their youngsters need
proper ethical, moral and spiritual
teaching. And if youth fails to get it at
home, they will seek solace elsewhere.
The pressures to conform to peer groups
are tremendous. Even
PROPERLY
guide~
.•
teens have great difficulty resisting.
It
is
all but impossible for youth to fight the
pressures.
Over and over again runaways say
they were
c11riom
and wanted to see
what hippie life was Iike. They were
infatuated with the "whole scene."
Running away became sort of a fad.
Many, especially the boys, are seeking
advent11re
(is it because they have so
little at home?), only to see the whole
escapade become a nightmare.
Runaways are
searching.
They don't
like this wocld - they're looking for a
better one and haven't found it.
World "Turns Them Off"
Runaways commonly express pity for
their parents. They see them caught up
in the rat race of
materialism.
They
want no part of it.
The more materialistic we become,
the more bored our teen-agers are with
this life. One runaway remarked: "l'm
terribly bored with this life." Society
is
simply consumed by greed. Greed has
led
us away from many of thc good
values our forefathcrs held.
Teen-agers are sick of horrible family
failures - sick of the immoral wocld
adults havc created.
And there is always the ever-present
nightmare of the bomb, which douds
their entire future. This has been hang–
ing ovcr their heads like a sword of
Darnocles all their lives! They want to
live it up fast
there may be no
tomorrow.
They have rejccted the past and are
horrilied by the future. They livc only
for the present, sclfishly groping for
kicks and thrills (usually the wrong
kind). This is about all they have been
given to live for!
As a result, many run away from
Ambouodor Col/ege
Photo
CURIOSITY TRAPS THE TEEN- AGER -
Hippie life as in the 1969 rock
festival, above, is pictured as fun, porties, and excitement. But seldom is the
seamy side revealed- death from drug overdose, venereal disease, general
filthy living conditions, exposure to sex deviates.
home and school m anger and disgust
searching for a more meaningful
life.
Running Away
Is
No Solution!
Many runaways left home to be free,
only to find themselves enslaved. They
entered a "street scene" that often
became a chamber of horrors.
If
they
were going to join the group, it usually
meant forcgoing their own
will
and
gtvmg m to stealing, drug-taking,
repulsive scx practices - crimes of aU
sorts.
One ruoaway said, "Even right here
in the Village (Greenwich Village in
New York City], where they preach so
much love and everythiog, it's really
crummy because they bave their little
groups. There's so much
hale
here, it's
iocrcdible ... !"
Runaways lind that, as a group, hip·
pies and other inhabitants of these arcas
don't really practice love, often it's just
sex
sex worship. A runaway
remarked: "The hippies are hypocritical
too. They don't really
care
about other
pcople."
What, then, should teen-agers- dis–
illusioned with family, friends and