Heavy Metal Madness: Packing off the Unruly Teenagers

Gene Gable

In explaining to some friends about the school in Montana that we sent our 16-year-old nephew to, they said, “It sounds like one of those ads in the back of Sunset Magazine.” If you live anywhere west of the Mississippi, you probably already know what I’m talking about — Sunset is the magazine for “Life in the West.” Each month it brings advice on gardening, cooking, home decorating, travel and also features an extensive advertising section of military schools, schools for troubled teens, camps for promiscuous girls, wilderness programs and “traditional” schools that still value discipline and hard work.

Just a few of the hundreds of military schools advertised in 1967.

What has changed over time, is the definition of “troubled teen.” According
to the Website troubledteens.com, here are the top disciplinary problems cited by high-school teachers at different times:
1940

• Talking out of turn
• Chewing gum
• Making Noise
• Running in the halls
• Cutting in line
• Dress-code violations
• Littering

1990

• Drug abuse
• Alcohol abuse
• Pregnancy
• Suicide
• Rape
• Robbery
• Assault

It’s one thing to be sent to military school for aggravated assault, and
quite another for being guilty of cutting in line.
The School and Camp advertising section in Sunset is not unique — many such back-of-book advertising runs in magazines as diverse as Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, The New Yorker, Seventeen and Boys’ Life. They are the dread of every teenager, and the refuge of parents at the end of their rope, desperately out of control and ready to mortgage the house if it means getting that unruly kid out of the house. Packing the teens off to let someone else deal with them is an age-old tradition.

The Riverside Military Academy now runs pictures of the kind of young men some parents seem to prefer over dreadlock-wearing. pot-smoking, defiant wise mouths.

And even though my friend was meaning to be facetious, and I laughed as if to say, “Yeah, right,” the truth is, we did, in fact, send our nephew to one of those schools advertised in the back of Sunset.
Text and Subtext
At least now, the ads for these places are straightforward and clear — our generation is much more willing to confess that they need help with their children and can’t handle things. And by dropping in references to Attention Deficit Disorder, Alcoholism, Abused-Child Syndrome and other popular maladies, places that were once referred to as “military schools,” are now portrayed as “therapy schools.” But either way, they offer to take your child and turn them into a responsible adult. One that doesn’t call you names and tell you what you can do with your curfews and rules.

We now have more sensitive Web ads, but teens are still troubled after all these years.

There are still traditional military schools, of course, and they tend to be cheaper and may be the only choice for some parents, and for those who believe that discipline and physical activity is the key to success. But today instead of rifles and canons, you are more likely to see images of thoughtful teens reading books and listening to their teachers. Everyone knows their child has the potential for success, but for some reason they just don’t get it. Maybe someone with experience in these things could get through. “God knows we’ve done everything we can.”
The Horror of Boys Everywhere
As a reader of magazines like Boys’ Life, I was well aware that these military academies existed long before I hit puberty. But they seemed like something from another world to me — I was in what some might think of as a worse fate: Catholic school. But I would picture the boys that were sent to military school, most likely after being threatened with that possibility over and over again until the parents had no choice but to actually follow through with it.

Whether it is shaping a boy into a man, as they did in 1949 at the Gulf Coast Academy, or developing “manly men,” in 1971 at Carlisle Military School, it can be said all such institutions were “building Americanism” as they did at the Georgia Academy.

I knew these were “bad” boys, even though the ads emphasized such positive things as “building character,” “becoming an adult,” and “making you into a man.” That was all code for “beating you into submission.” And in those days, I have a feeling they really did beat you.
No, I couldn’t imagine that any 12 or 13-year-old voluntarily chose to go to military school. The only reason they advertised in Boys’ Life was so that when your parents sent you there, you wouldn’t think it was that unusual, or that it was indeed punishment. Surely if so many of these schools exist, lots of young people must go to them.

I particularly like this school, with a perfect name for troubled boys.

It’s Different for Girls
Any parent of a teenage girl will tell you that with their added cleverness and maturity, teenage girls can be more cruel and difficult than teenage boys. So even though it wasn’t fashionable to send your daughters to “military” school, there were plenty of counterpart institutions for the fairer sex. Only they were called “finishing” schools, or “college preparatory” schools. It was just a coincidence that many of them were in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by large fences. And oh yeah, there were no boys around either.

Miss Harker’s School for Girls benefits from being in the same town as Stanford, despite no actual connection. And at Marjorie Webster Junior College, girls are taught “terminal career courses.”

The emphasis at the girls’ schools was not directly on discipline, but rather appealed to the need for girls to learn things like “poise,” and “charm.” But like their military-school counterparts, I suspect quite a bit of “poise” was taught with a wooden paddle and a harsh tongue. To most parents, poise and charm were mostly code words for “not pregnant.”
Teens Have Always Been Trouble
I have been able to find ads for military schools and finishing schools dating back pretty much to the beginning of publishing. Wherever there have been teenagers, there have been institutions to send them to.
The Schools and Camps section of Sunset goes back to at least 1924, though they say it has run “continuously” since 1961. And a number of the schools have remained the same throughout that time — though the hairstyles in their pictures have changed.

In 1926, “Sunset Magazine” already had ads for 21 schools you could send your teens to for cooling their jets.

There has never been anything fancy about this form of advertising — the look has always been borderline classified, though now you’ll see colored photographs and fancier logos. For a brief period in the eighties and nineties, these institutions often featured pictures of kids yelling, or doing something destructive. But now they all emphasize the good in kids, and unless you sign a form specifically allowing it, they don’t beat the kids into submission anymore.

The ads in “Sunset Magazine” today promote the goodness of teens, and admit that some things are just too big for any one parent. But at the Oak Creek Ranch School, you can bet 32 years ago there was less emphasis on “true potential,” and more on discipline and hard work. And when they say “continuous enrollment,” what they mean is that if you can entrap them into a car and get them on a plane, they’ll take them off your hands anytime 24/7.

It Could be Even Worse
While most kids would cringe at the thought of being packed off to military school or therapy camp. I always felt most sorry for the kids who responded to the ads for weight-loss schools, or those who stammered and stuttered. “Geek Camps” I use to think.

There weren’t actually schools for overweight girls, but there were plenty of camps to handle that issue.

So when it came time for me as an adult to consider such a place for my own teenager, I was horrified. My whole life I had felt these institutions were for weak parents who cared more about traveling to the South of France than dealing with soccer practice and unwanted pregnancies.
And though it is very small consolation, as it turns out, it was not an ad in the back of Sunset that spurred our choice of where to send Marc, it was a recommendation by a professional. It just so happens that they advertise in the back of Sunset. Purely a coincidence, I swear.

Things have, in fact, changed for the better. Instead of just packing them off to military school, we now admit that abuse, depression and abandonment play a role in teen angst.

So now with the kid out of the way, I can finally enjoy those trips to the South of France, knowing that he’s learning how to “build character” and “learn the value of respect.” I wonder if they’re going to teach him how to fire a cannon?
Read more by Gene Gable.