Fabulous Frontline

PBS puts out great documentaries on its weekly program 'Frontline' that usually runs Thursday nights, but check your local listings. I got this video for $24.95 off of the PBS website and that money went to help fund more fabulous documentaries such as this one. It is a 90 minute documentary.

The Lost Children of Rockdale County is an amazing adventure into the lives of teenagers in Suburban Atlanta. The episode description says it all, "In 1996, a syphilis outbreak struck teenagers in the prosperous community of Conyers, Georgia. When epidemiologists interviewed the victims, they were shocked by what they heard: 14-year-old children told of scores of sexual partners, all-night orgies and sex parties. FRONTLINE uncovers the roots of the Conyers' syphilis epidemic and reveals a community struggling with teenage drug use, sex and cynicism."

Before the movie, there is a warning that there will be some graphic language and some adult content so this one might be a good movie for parents to watch alone or watch as a family to show the destructiveness of decisions. The movie opens by introducing Rockdale County. The narrator says that this county is perhaps the area where a population has grown and spread the fastest in the history of all civilization. It is a very prosperous and affluent suburb. We are then introduced to some of the children that describe their lives in Georgia. One person, DJ came from a wealthy, but divorced family and lived with a family friend with little to no supervision. This seemed to be a theme of this peer group. Where there were no parents, the children tended to group and do less than perfect things. This included drinking, smoking drugs and cigarettes as well as sex that led to the syphilis outbreak.

Something very disturbing to me was the chart that the police showed of the 'Web of sex' that the nearly 40 teenagers were part of. It really reinforced the old saying that whoever you sleep with, you sleep with their partners too. This image was shown several times and each time, a shiver ran down my back. The children then proceeded to talk about their sexual escapades. They would talk about massive group orgies, 'sexual sandwiches', and a game where they would watch The Playboy Channel and selected people would have to act out what was on the channel. This might be a moment where you would want to have the kids leave the room. The descriptions that the teenagers (all aged 14-16) give can be very graphic.

How did the parents finally figure all of this was happening? Well, one of the girls was babysitting a nephew and some of the teenagers came over for sex, drugs, and drinking and the nephew told the family and then the whole town was playing the blame game. They said it was the medias fault, music, etc but the pastor of the town was astonished that none of the parents blamed themselves because if they would have been closer with their children, this could have been somewhat prevented.

The girls tell a tale different from the boys. Many girls say that they did not like the sex at all and they only did it to feel 'cool' and wished that they wouldn't have. There were a few people that joined a Christian school and left the public school where this took place because they wanted to be away from this. Several girls in this new school said that they were at one of the parties for about 2 minutes and did not want to ever go back. She then went to a school with other people that wanted to remain virgins until they were married. It seems that nobody was exactly happy to have participated in this whole situation in hindsight which would be a good lesson for parents to show to their children.

This documentary is an enlightening look into the underground of teenagers. Topics like drugs, sex, and violence are not ideas that happen far away. If this documentary shows anything, it can happen anywhere. Conyers (the town in Rockdale County this takes place in) is very affluent and anybody rich or poor can be affected by it. This is good because it can help parents open communication with their children to make responsible choices.

I would recommend this movie for parents because they can get a glimpse of what some of the more horrible things that are happening to today's youth and help them with their own children. I am suggesting we watch it at our next PTA meeting. It's very informative and another Frontline classic