BAGGY PANTS - The dangerous Stereotype

While we are living on the earth with other people, we may made many mistakes owing to our wrong stereotypes. Above all, we have a tendency to judge other people by their appearances. How many victims of stereotyping have happened? What about their disadvantages by our stereotyping? We shouldn't overlook those issues at all.

Recently I see so many young people who enjoy wearing baggy pants, ridiculous big shirts and big shoes. When i came to America last year, I saw one man who wore this kind of pants in the street. When I saw his underwear that was exposed above his pants, i got shocked and thought he might be a sadist. But now I understand that it is very popular with young people. In fact, when i see their pants I am worried about them being taken off, so I feel it's thrill. Fortunately, my son has never tried on these type of pants which I hate.

One of my friens has a 14 year-old son who likes wearing baggy pants even if he is a good student in his school. His mother, my friend, often tell him.
   "Please take your damn pants off. Your pants look like they have dung inside. Please, please!"
But he ignores his mother's pleading by grinning. When I asked him one day how to wear those pants, he answered.
   "It's easy for us. Do you want to know?"
He showed me without hesitation how to fasten his belt so that his pants cannot slip down.
   "It's inconvenient, isn't it?"
When I asked him, he answered very clearly and concisely.
   "Never!"

Actually we had ever been crazy about trivial things, which weren't understood by older generation. In early 1970s, women's mini-skirts and men's long hair were sweeping Korea. At that time we kept the Confucian culture strongly, so that culture among young people couldn't be appoved morally. From that time on, the game of hide and seek between policemen, who wanted to control them, and young people, who wanted to enjoy the vogue, was begun. The policemen always kept the rulers and to mesure the length of skirt or hair when they met young people in the street. At that time our parents used to ask us with the same words as ours, in these days.



Probably some people say that we must understand young people and their own culture because we had enjoyed our own culture long time ago. Therefore we should give a big hug, both to our children and their culture. We are responsible for understanding them. We should pay attention to their inside instead of their appearance. We should be free ourselves from our stereotypes which has stayed for a long time in our minds.

When we begin to nag at them, probably they might say to us just like as follows:
   "Don't look at us so coldly. We already know how your young days were. Do you forget your mini-
   skirt, mom? Don't you remember your long hair, dady?"

 

Now we don't have any freedom to raise and educate our children with our own sweet will. Actually our children are often much wiser than we, their parents. (2002)