Plus and minus
Bad news first:
I went to the beauty school to get my hair cut (because I’m too cheap to pay over $15 for someone to trim my hair, even though the results are decidedly uneven). The young apprentice assigned to me went through the motions of small talk, asking me questions like, “Do you go to U of M?” and “Do you have a boyfriend?” (hrrrm). I told her I was a social worker and she said, “I’m not exactly sure what that is.”
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said the floor supervisor, who was watching over her shoulder. “Social workers are nosy. They come into your house and tell your mom to do this and do that, and threaten to take the kids away if she doesn’t. They have to write these reports on how you’re doing and they ask you a ton of questions about your life that are really personal, like whether you’re being touched and how you’re doing in school.”
The salon student said, “Oh. Is that what you do?” I explained that there are many different types of social work, from non-profits to labor organizers, but her eyes kind of glazed over, so I tried to sum up my job duties in language a 19-year-old would understand. The floor supervisor, who was listening the whole time, then said, “You know, that sounds really good. That’s why I’d really like to be a psychiatrist. I want to work with low-income children who have abusive parents and help them go to college and stuff.”
“You sound an awful lot like a social worker,” I said, while simultaneously the following two thoughts were running through my head: 1) So…you want to do the exact same thing that you just lambasted Child Protective Services for? and 2) You may be sorely disappointed to learn what psychiatrists actually do. However, the floor supervisor’s reaction was immediate: “No. No. I don’t want to be one of those. No offense.”
The unfortunate part about the whole thing was that, as she was cutting my hair, it came out that the reason the floor supervisor hated social workers was because she and her family had been assigned a child protective officer that she described as being “too pushy”. This woman was the only social worker she’d ever met, and the woman apparently nosed around too much by making sure the kids had enough to eat and that their mom didn’t drink up all the money allocated for clothes and school supplies. “Like, if I’m really being honest, that woman was probably the reason I went to college,” she said, in a tone of voice almost nearing thoughtfulness. “But at the time I was so sick of her coming in and trying to take over the things that I usually did for my little brother, like getting him to school on time.”
I left thinking that this girl/young woman had had a really bad start, and was undoubtedly and perhaps understandably lumping everything from that period of her life into the “godawful” category, entire social work profession included. It was yet another reminder of something that I’ve written about here before, that being the perception of social workers in our media, pop culture, and society at large. It’s not pretty.
HOWEVER…there is a balm in Gilead.
Good news:
I had the opportunity of witnessing the premier performance of the Gayrilla Theater Troupe at the Neutral Zone, Ann Arbor’s youth-led and totally-awesome-beyond-all-words teen center. The LGBT group at the Neutral Zone is called Riot Youth, and they decided to undertake an extensive survey project to gauge the climate of the county’s public schools for queer youth. They administered a survey that THEY created to almost 2,000 teens, and decided to disseminate the results to the public through a spoken word/interactive theater performance that they conceptualized. Thus, the Gayrilla Theater Troupe was born. And…it was amazing. I had goosebumps pretty much the entire time. At one point, when the kids are talking about how their history and culture is completely erased from the school curriculum, and facts about LGBT life, health, sex education, contributions to literature, film, music, science, etc., are actively suppressed, I almost burst into tears. We can be doing so much better for ALL our kids, and it’s nothing less than criminal what we allow to happen to LGBT youth.
But this was supposed to be the good news. After the performance, one of the Riot Youth participants, an adorable bespectacled high school junior I’ll call Kelly, came up to my friend and me to introduce herself. She asked us how we liked the show, whether we went to the university, where we were from, etc. At some point in the conversation, she asked, “You guys are both social workers, right?” We laughed and said, “yes.” She said, “Oh, right on. I knew it.”
“What gave it away?” we wondered.
“Just, you know,” she answered, suddenly shy. “Social workers are always the ones helping us out, coming to volunteer, that kinda thing. Plus,” she added, pointing to the rainbow-colored pin on my bag, “that says ‘School of Social Work.’”
“Touche,” we said.
“I’m going to be a social worker when I grow up,” she continued. “I think it’s the coolest job. I want to be really active and make some changes in our society for LGBTQ people.”
At this point, I practically felt my ovaries jumping up and down squealing, “Let’s go make a kid like that!” Then Kelly told us how she had been inspired by the social workers at the Neutral Zone and was currently working an after-school job with Planned Parenthood as a peer adviser at one of the clinics in town. “I’m going to major in Gender Studies and then get my MSW,” she concluded.
Both my friend and I agreed that this kid should have her MSW, like, tomorrow.
“Aw, thanks,” she said, blushing a little. “But I still have to get through high school. This is the first year I have a girlfriend who’s going to Queer Prom with me.”
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(That’s the symbol for more ovary jumping.)
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March 4th, 2009 at 8:45 am
HAHA! OVARIES JUMPING! love it.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:07 am
So great to read this! I help advise the Gayrilla teens with theatre and it is so great to hear that not only did we get your ovaries jumping but also got you thinking about issues that face Lgbtq youth yay!! I love your blog and hope you don’t mind if I add you to my reader! Thanks for coming to support Riot Youth!