Charlotte: 2010

Charlotte is a pretty naïve teenager who, for the most part, is engaged in school, home, and church. She is the only child of two extremely respected members of their community. Her mom is a doctor and her father is the CEO of a Managed Care Organization. They live in a modest area of a small city where they raise her on Christian values and family unity. Her parents have high hopes for her future and she is well aware of their expectation. Her life is pretty quiet until a new family moves into the neighborhood. The parents are recently divorced and the daughter and son live with the mother, who is also a doctor.
Shakyla is a slim pretty black girl who is some what of a survivor and has no problem adjusting to their new environment. Charlotte, who has never had a black friend before, begins to hang out with the new girl. At the same time she has been secretly reading books and renting movies about teens that are liberated and doing their own thing. As the two girls discuss their fantasies and the things Charlotte has read about they start hanging out the Mall in the downtown area.
Malik, Shakyla’s bother, runs into them at the Mall and begins to scold them about being there, but not before his delinquent friends take notice of the two girls’ beauty. Rod whispers in Charlotte’s hear and Duke begins to sweet talk Shakyla. Neither girl is ready for what the advances of the four year older guys they are becoming infatuated with. Against Malik’s counseling, they start dating the two jock type drop outs. After the second date Charlotte confesses to Shakyla that Rod is constantly touching her in places she does not feel comfortable. Shakyla is experiencing the same thing with Duke, but she says she “is not having it.” She remembers what happened to her cousin who fell for a guy who she thought loved her. In the aftermath she has two kids and he is nowhere to be found. She is determined not to be victim of an unwanted teen pregnancy. She admits that Duke is good looking and a smooth talker, but she realizes that she is not the only girl he has told the same word to.
Charlotte, on the other hand, has not been exposed to guys like Rod, so she is very entices with the attention she gets. On the fourth date Rod lets her know that he has never dated a girl that he had not slept with by the second date. He further states that if she loves him she would not withhold her body from him. The pressure becomes too great and she gives in.
The fear of what she has done leads her to tell Shakyla who suggests she get a check up. Rod is extremely sexually active and it turns out he has given her an STD. Charlotte is furious and breaks off with him.

True Innocence

Life is not always what we think it is or want it to be. We dream of the perfect world and the perfect life. However that is not always what happens. Youth is wonderful time, but instead of using the time to prepare for adulthood, we tend to take a giant leap into independence. Charlotte Temple reveals a more open real life account of how so many young girls fall for what they think is an invitation to a beautiful future.I loved reading the book because it is a depiction of what I lived through and saw so many other teens experience. We want to break away from what our parents teach us, so we latch on to influences from people we idealize. There is something about innocence that attracts all kinds of people. Some people, like La Rue, are jealous. Others like Montraville is impressed with having what no one else has explored. Still there are villains such as Belcour who just want to destroy. Davidson did a wonderful job at painting a visual picture of how girls were to be groomed for wife hood. She also provides insight into the nature of young men who are endowed with power over naive women.The struggles Charlotte encounter reminds me of how we overcome or manage in the mist of a bad situation. Most of us would have been angry and at Montraville for taking us from our home and depositing us in a place we know nothing about. But some how Charlotte does not feel that anger. Instead she forgives and prays for those who claimed to be her friends and lover. It is funny how poetic justice prevails. I have had the occasion forgive or hold on to a grudge. I chose to forgive my husband for many things and sat at his bedside as he died.Cathy N. Davidson touched my heart with this story that encompasses a real part of my life. I didn't get taken from the country I grew in, but I left my home to become a wife to a man who said "I love you." I was not as passive as Charlotte; neither was I as Godly as she. I think that might have made my plight worse. Never the less I lived through it to love again. Poor Charlotte did not.

How to survive the teen years

I know this is pretty heavy topic and I am not sure how I will develop it. I realize that there are a great number of pitfalls, triumphs, fears, and doubts that plague this time in a person's life. For me there so many things to endure that I don't know where to begin. Some how I did manage to survive, therefore I may explore the fears of the American Teenager.
There were so many fears during my day for a black female, so I may need to settle on maybe one or two fears that will be related to one another. Bullying was a big fear that I believe is still prevalent today. Every era had the kids with low self esteem and/or feelings of "no hope" that tend to boost their ego by picking on other teens that were more interested in learning or staying out of trouble. The book I am reading Hair Styles of the Damned, by Joe Meno, Has a character that reminds me of the bullies of my day. Violence and sex are two themes that go hand and hand in all of the literature about teens.
I may decide to write about teen sexuality, but I think that there are so many people who write about already. Maybe if we stop talking about it will stop being so intersting to teens. Fat chance I bet. Anyway I guess I will just keep brain storming until I settle on a topic that has not been explored a great deal.
I kind of like the topic of "leaving home and becoming an adult" (Professor Wright's sugestion). That also was an eventful time for me. It was probably more exciting that the teen fears. although there were a great fear of would I be able to make it on my own. We shall see what choose I finally make.
Brenda

Counting on Children

I know this chapter may be a shock to some teens in this era, but for my parents and myself it was the norm. My mother tell stories of how she and her bothers and sisters would have to sneak away from the plantation in order to go to school. As she put "at the first sign of rain we would high tell it to the school bus ." If it rained they could not pick cotton. Hine reports "Although the upper classes were prolonging the immaturity of their offspring by sending them to school, most young people were seeing their childhoods shorten" (120).
Children assisting their family with the household income was, in most cases, necessary for survival. Fathers did not make enough to support the family and in many instances employers were more inclined to hire a whole family, suggests Hines (121).
I remember working at the restaurant on the corner of our street, after school, in order buy clothe for school and other items girls desired. We were of the working middle class, but it was very difficult to make ends meet with eleven mouths to feed. This chapter really hit home for me.
Brenda