Talking About Teen Dating During a Pandemic
Shafia on Parenting Beyond the Headlines.
Full Transcript below
[Sarah] Hey everyone and welcome to Parenting Beyond the Headlines. I’m Sarah Cody and I’m here with my co-host Amy Alavar whom I’m happy to be here with on Zoom after a couple of months. We’ve a little bit on hiatus and I’m happy to have you back.
[Amy] Yes, I've missed you and thank you for your patience with me and keeping the show going. It’s been great. I had some time to focus on family. It’s really important.
[Sarah] Absolutely, and we are excited to be back together and talking today with Shafia Zaloom. We have had Shafia on before. She is an educator, and an author. She had written ‘Sex, Teens and Everything in Between’. We have talked about that before, and we get into that a little bit more again. First we want to touch on article she recently wrote about for the Washington Post. It was title, ‘Black Teens talk about Dating in White Communities.’, caught my eye, caught Amy’s eye so timely right now with everything that’s been going on in the country and we want to dive in. Shafia, thank you so much for joining us.
[Shafia] Thanks for having me. It’s good to be here again.
[Sarah] So just start off with what prompted you to write this article with a certain couple, a certain story, was it the landscape of our country? What jumpstarted this?
[Shafia] It was a combination of things. I mean when the pandemic started in March, I was talking to kids about how it was impacting, how they connecting and at the same time the Black lives matter movement that was happening. There was a lot of media attention that being given in this. Light being shined on the systemic institution, the racism that existing in our country, on a personal, interpersonal, institutional level. And I really want to think about how can I do write by some of my students. I tried to write by all of them but how can I use my platform and access my contacts in a way that I can contribute to this movement in a way that will feel meaningful and elevate young people’s voices specifically, young black teenagers. That’s what really motivated me and so I just reached out to a bunch of the kids who I worked with and not only at where I teach year-round but also where I consulted in different states. Because I wanted to make sure that I was inclusive in different voices and geographies.
[Sarah] What exactly did you find when you do write up. The article is multi-faceted with you know the protest with been living through the election, the pandemic, all factoring in.
[Shafia] Yeah, I discovered a whole lot. I’m so humbled by the conversations I had. I conducted 20-hours of interviews about 10 young people, black teenagers so generous and incredibly honest and open about their experiences and they were also incredibly excited about the prospects of getting this information out there. I think one thing that struck me most as I started these interviews was the first question of when could I read the article? I want to hear what everyone else has to say. And really want, looking for affirmation in terms of their experiences and how other young people like them were navigating this space specifically in this context predominantly white spaces in communities and but dating in relationships as health educator who specializes in healthy sexuality relationship education, I think of that a lot, right? Like how different political and social identities intercept with sexuality and relationships and not only was I, but my students have also always been my greatest inspiration teachers, so I was learning so much from them. I had a set of questions, for consistency and just listened with openness. I really wanted to learn and to understand and they had so much to share and so much that they were thinking and feeling in regard to what has happening specially in the context of what has happening nationally and culturally with the Black Lives Matter movement and everything else. I discovered a lot. I discovered they are wrestling with issues that most adults are challenged by. There really isn’t a whole lot of guidance for them out there. In how to do these things and they are figuring out on their own. And I don’t want to minimize a lot of important people in their lives, their friends, their parents, their families. They are role-modeling certain values and ways we connect with other people and treat other people. Their communications skills and their insights and their capacity to have that kind of perspective and express it. It’s something that’s cultured and cultivated. We don’t want to minimize that but the very fact that they want to hear it from their peers is about how they were doing it too. There’s this certain level of feeling alone. So that was really why I was so grateful to be able to write the article and have it published was because then and those kids have texted me to say, ‘oh we are having these conversations now and talking with my friends about it. It just been really awesome. Thank you.’ So it’s been wonderful that it sparked a lot of conversation and help people understand what it means to be black in a relationship and navigating a predominantly white space.
[Amy] So what kind of things, I mean not everybody is blessed to have a health educator, right? And so we don’t want to minimize the role. How do we help parents to know what can they do to support this? What are the questions they can ask? Did you have suggestions on how they can approach the topic?
[Shafia] I mean, I do. Typically, when I write articles I’m giving my own advice from my years of experience, from my own training and working with kids but I did not want to presume I could do that anyway. Been talking specifically with black youth about their experiences and so I interviewed my colleagues who are black and young people of color as well and really wanted to report what they feel is important for parents to be doing. Because I really felt that my role in writing this piece was to listen, to report and to share. I did not want to presume I could do something I identifies as women of color, I’m multi-racial and I talked to lots of kids about this sort of issues all the time. But I wanted to be really specific about this one. I want to make sure I am highlighting black voices with regards to it. The advice that people have was to really make sure that people of color, black students if particular that they are going to schools that black people are in the minority that they also have other communities in which they see themselves and connect with other people who are black in their color. And also that we’re very specific and intentional about telling them the things that they experience that have to do with institutional racism and anything else is not their fault. That is an incredibly important matter to be communication explicitly and in concrete terms to kids because they are all concrete thinkers. Also, engaging kids in dialogue by asking questions, ‘what are you going for? , ‘how was this gonna serve you?’ . You know, helping them to understand because of the realities of the world we are living in, what the stakes are, what the risks are, what that means for them as they navigate the space with the majority that may not have take those things in consideration and to just really be available to process, to talk, to share without judgement, without judging. And to ask, what, how, kind of questions versus how, why, which can come across as judgmental. But like the how, the why, say I notice , my observations, my experiences, I’m thinking and feeling those kinds of conversations really help kids explore what is going on for them and express how they’re feeling.
[Sarah] It’s struck me that teen dating is still hard anyway, right? You add in these different factors and there are different factors that come into play. You are right about that a little bit. There is wondering sometimes are they dating for a reason or is it a fantasy. Is this a phase or are they trying out? How do couple, did you hear a lot of that, it seem that you did in reading your article.
[Shafia] For sure, there’s a young woman who’s a former student of mine she was sharing how on Tinder, actually a few of the young women who I interviewed talked about how they get on these dating apps. They get things like, is it true, the darker the berry the sweeter the juice. These kind of objectify, fetishizing, kind of approaches to establishing some form of connection. And you know how that feels. But also the question that came up for all the young people who I interviewed was thinking about a perspective person like someone who have interest who they think about dating. The question that came up was why are they into black people? Are they ok dating brown and black people of color? Have they have that experience before? What do you know about them? What are their politics, things like that. Sort of sourcing things, to do a research first. To establish that because these things are really real for those kids and can make it hard. Healthy vulnerability in general is difficult to do and we live in greater culture that actually discourages us from being vulnerable in healthy ways. We need to be to authentically connect with other people. So there are multiple layers for sure.
[Amy] Interesting.
[Sarah] I’m gonna say, just on top of everything, dating and pandemic teenagers are hardwired to look for their people, to look for their tribe. That’s right there, that’s their main job. They are not able to do that. I’m gonna imagine dating on top of it. Just really complicated. What’s your experience working with kids in pandemic and dating.
[Shafia] it’s really diverse and a lot of it depends on like a lot of different things and a lot of families, and how kids find each other, communicate with each other. The ways in which they do that and what are they resourced with to be able to do that. Very easy. So there’s a lot of variety. Initially, when everything was shutting down, and the pandemic started sexting was something people are talking about a lot. Our kids sexting more, what’s happening. Any kid I asked and talked to about thought it was definitely happening more. I did my own little research at the University of Indiana with the professors there, who are very helpful and they were looking more at the patterns in the pandemic context of adult and sexting. But you know predicted, it probably won’t be so different with younger people and basically what they said if you have capacity to do it before, you were doing more of it. If you didn’t then you probably weren’t. and in fact when we were all trend, we were doing less except for those people who were doing more. And it was pretty consistent with what I was hearing. It was really interesting too though, sort of talking about my students about sexting piece and some of their concerns around it. And then the questions that they have, the curiosities about sexting, their feeling kind of confident and kind of bold because they have this kind of security as they are isolated at home and wherever else. When this is over, am I gonna be obligated to follow through with everything I have been sexting on? Some people expressing they are sexting more with their partners because that’s the only way they can explore sexuality and intimacy with each other is through their digital devices at the time and then others were saying that they weren’t afraid to. And they thought they were gonna loose the emotional connection that they have with their partners. And others were searching for and trying to establish emotional connection but through digital device and we all know can be so much challenging for different reasons.
[Sarah] what about porn consumption? We talked the last time we talk. Do you feel like that’s out of control a little bit with everybody?
[Shafia] Yeah. And I wrote a pandemic porn article, and I couldn’t find a media outlet to pick it up because everyone was I think fearful which I understand. Bringing this up, pandemic porn was a huge thing. Kids, Pornhub tends to be the pornography if your kid is watching porn. I wanna say that. I don’t assume that all kids is watching porn because we are on a pandemic and the kids are on digital devices more. There’s other things happening on social media that we have to pay attention to as well not just focus on pornography. But Pornhub gave all its numbers a month of premium free because of the pandemic. So they have access to all kinds of videos. And talking this with some of my students, and yeah, porn. Yes, I’m watching more porn. And when I wrote that article, it was around April, May there have been 17 million searches on Pornhub in pandemic and Covid porn alone. So a lot of sizing on the pandemic in particular as well and how that become a theme of porn that had emerged. So I wrote a piece but people wasn’t as interested just like the fact that was going on and I think there is so much to think about really overwhelming which I get. But all the more reason I was like that it’s happening and so we have to address it in some way. And I think that has continued. I think the majority of young people who are watching porn will do so because they are bored and a host of other reasons too but that tends to be one in particular and it is still going on, for sure.
[Sarah] I’m not really you know, you have talked about this but that can really affect their development in their sexuality too, watching and certainly too much.
[Shafia] I think if they are compulsive about it. There’s a lot of different data out there that’s mixed when it comes to that and it really depends on the personality of the kids and other factors in their lives that would come together to converge, to create that sort of every situation. And there’s a lot more research being done now to determine who is it, are these factors than creating a predetermined to watch pornography or the pornography that they are watching creating this factors. So there’s a lot of research out there, a lot of these are mixed. These all kinds of ideals and theories over on its impact on teenagers and there some that are significant and very important for us to take notice of and to address because as their brains and sexual identities are forming media shut their brain. As they are watching on a daily basis, how they learning about sex, that’s like watching Fast and Furious to learn how to drive. Its not a real representation of those people helping you relationships and sexual practices.
[Sarah] Just to kind of sum up on at line of thought as we come out of this pandemic hopefully, the next year or where does that leave this generation? Does it leave this generation with some issues that will come work out? Do you fear?
[Shafia] You know, I think that remains to be seen. It’s really interesting because I am also hearing about kids were in relationship with each other so they are co-quarantining with their partners. In their pod, that means their romantic partner and those two families have decided that that’s ok and safe for them. So they are spending more time together than they would which would come with its issues and benefits. So authentic connection are true in a relationship especially in a culture that glorifies impersonal sexual performance but that in terms of boundaries and having their own independence and having their own friendships and things like that’s different because they’re not in their pod. There’s may not be in their pod.
[Sarah] The relationship could be in a rush or could be skewed because it’s just them without other factors.
[Shafia] Yes. Exactly. And you know I have a kid who went to college and I have been talking to her friends and other alumns of the high school I have worked at college campuses there’s plenty that’s actually going on there. Some campuses the pandemic doesn’t even exist. And as a parent of a college student I’m hearing about this things first hand but also from a lot of the students I've worked with through the years and I've written a couple of articles during the pandemic about that too and how consent in a different context of Covid actually feels different to teenagers sometimes the skills don’t translate. So there’s a lot going on. And there’s other kid who are committed to being Covid safe and conscious, who have health issues, who have friends who have health issues, who have grandparents or part of their family circle who are not and I think they are growing from too about being more isolated and that was mental health and feeling like and there’s some kids who have different rules who are allowed to do these things and then they can’t and then they feel torn because they want to honor respect of course to help their family members to what they are committed to in terms of public health initiative. But then they feel like FOMO because they see all these coming in their feed because they are getting it through social media and they feel like being left behind.
[Amy] I think honestly that’s a whole another show because I know I am seeing it with my own children and hearing that question from parents, how do we keep our own restrictions when others are not and there’s an issue of shaming like you. People like their choices, you don’t wanna necessarily shame them if it’s not the choice you would have made and you want your kids to do that. So it’s complicated. It’s definitely complicated certainly in an intimate relationship as a teenager.
[Sarah] We can just keep talking to Shafia and just keep digging in.
[Shafia] And then the other part of it is some of the educators who I am talking to because my business have moved online and I am busy from other schools through Zoom and actually it is quite easy and less expensive and it is not the same certainly but we’re doing it. And talking to educators if they care concern that their juniors and seniors, especially seniors. Junior and senior years typically statistically starts to actually have some sexual experiences, it certainly isn’t all of them but there’s a bit of an increase and that some may not be them that having experiences in high school within this context and then we’ll transition to college without having had either the typical curricular and programming about this sort of stuff and their life experiences that they learn from and be prepared to go on. So there’s variety of things that sort of answer your question more directly, Sarah that we have to be really be intentional about addressing with news on the ages of the kids who during this contextual time that we need supplemental information about certain things.
[Sarah] We will continue to have this conversation with you, Shafia. I think you are so wise and full of interesting things to say. Just remind listeners where they can follow up with you on your website is?
[Shafia] It’s shafiazaloom.com and my book is ‘Sex, Teens and Everything in Between’.
[Sarah] and it’s a great read.
[Shafia] Thank you so much.
[Amy] Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you, listeners, for joining us. We are thrilled to have you. Send us any ideas that you have questions you have and we are hoping you will. Follow us and like us and comment on us and all these beautiful things on social media. You can also find me Amy Alamar on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
[Sarah] I’m on Facebook as well, of course you can also find me on Twitter and Instagram, @SarahCodymedia. Thank you so much for spending time with us today and we will spend time with you again. Stay safe and take care.