The truth, as Emily now knows, is a bit more complicated. She and a group of her peers will explain how complicated (and fun and bewildering and exciting) teen life is in “Teenage Diaries,” a new series debuting on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” this Monday. Producer Joe Richman armed a team of teens with tape recorders and microphones and turned them loose to report on their own lives. “Between MTV and movies, you certainly see a lot of images of teenagers,” says Richman, 30, “but you really don’t hear their voices very much.” In “Teenage Diaries,” which will run each Monday this month and continue as a monthly feature thereafter, you hear teens’ voices, along with those of their parents and friends. You also hear the details: Emily and her pals beating on an out-of-tune guitar; 17-year-old Amanda coughing on a clandestine cigarette; the microwave beeping as 16-year-old josh heats up a TV dinner for breakfast. The result is an engaging and nuanced portrait of adolescence that’s far more satisfying than anything McDonald’s serves us.
Many of the teens in the series have a specific story to tell. Josh, from New York, has Tourette’s syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes physical and verbal tics. “I look just like a normal person,” he explains, “except after a while you’d realize that I don’t act much like a normal person.” Well, yes and no. His report, punctuated with the high-pitched whining sounds and occasional blurted obscenities that mark his disease, deals on the surface with the difficulties of coping when you’re likely to embarrass yourself at any moment. But the more josh describes his plight-parents who “just won’t butt out of my business,” trouble with girls-the more like a “normal” teenager he seems. “I think that’s true of all these stories in a way,” says Richman. “They’re about very specific things, but in other ways they seem very universal.” Indeed, listening as Amanda discusses her bisexuality with her Catholic parents at home in Queens, N.Y., you’re not just eavesdropping on one teenager’s battle over sexual mores; you’re hearing every teen who’s ever fought for the right to be different. “I think if a good fella came by and really treated you right, your mind would switch,” Amanda’s mother tells her. “My parents think this is just a phase,” Amanda says. “But 1 don’t think it’s a phase. I think this is me … and it really doesn’t bother me.” She chokes up. “It doesn’t bother me.” Whoever said children should be seen, not heard, got it backward.
