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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and we are

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Speaker 1: talking about after school specials today because you know what,

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Speaker 1: it's school time and for some of you it might

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Speaker 1: be after school. And I really, personally, I just wanted

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Speaker 1: to know about after school specials because in my brain

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Speaker 1: they are these kitchen feel good lesson teaching imparting little

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Speaker 1: videos that we watched now from time to time and say, oh,

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Speaker 1: look at Scott bo he's too drunk. I don't know

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Speaker 1: that all of them are feel good videos though, well yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, like Scott Bayo in The Boy who Drank

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Speaker 1: Too Much was you know, it was pretty it was

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Speaker 1: pretty tough to watch because he did get too drunk.

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Speaker 1: Or there was the one what was the name of

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Speaker 1: the one where he like got all whacked out on

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Speaker 1: drugs and fell in the water or something. I think

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Speaker 1: you are referring to stoned when Scott Bayo smokes pot

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Speaker 1: at school and gets really stoned. Not to be confused though,

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Speaker 1: with high school narc which is not Scott's Star Scott Bayo,

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Speaker 1: but it does deal with marijuana in school. Yeah, Scott

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Speaker 1: bay A lot of people got their start from these things.

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Speaker 1: Christie McNichol, Rob Low and his jaw, Helen Hunt. There's

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Speaker 1: one very famous after school special. I don't know the

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Speaker 1: title of it, but it involves Helen Hunt trying Angel

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Speaker 1: dust a k A pc P and then jumping through

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Speaker 1: a window. Cautionary tail these So, before this turns into

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Speaker 1: me just for sending to to be YouTube, just recounting

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Speaker 1: clips of after school specials. Uh. We are talking specifically

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Speaker 1: about ABC after school specials, although CBS also had their

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Speaker 1: form of after school specials. HBO even did similar kinds

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Speaker 1: of after school specials, but they ran on ABC from

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two to nine. It was the first network

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Speaker 1: to do this, and the very first after school special

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Speaker 1: was actually a Hannah Barbera animated feature about fictional birds. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's called Last of the Curlews and it was about conservation.

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Speaker 1: It kind of reminded me of Dr Seus's The Lorax. Uh. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was. It was all about these birds called the Curlews,

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Speaker 1: and it won an Emmy in nineteen seventy three for

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Speaker 1: Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming. My father would just say

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Speaker 1: it was a liberal agenda movie. It was a liberal

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Speaker 1: leg because it taught kids empathy and they learned about

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Speaker 1: ecology and environmental problems. I mean, he's a man who

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Speaker 1: can't sit through Wally and these yeah, uh yeah after

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Speaker 1: school specials, even though we might snicker at them now

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Speaker 1: a little bit because they might seem a little bit cheesy,

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Speaker 1: perhaps through our are now nine o two on oh

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Speaker 1: jaded lens, they would go on over their lifespan to

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Speaker 1: Garner eighteen Daytime, any Emmy's, three Blue Ribbons at the

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Speaker 1: American Film Festival, and a Peabody Award. So you would

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Speaker 1: think that, you know, having won all these awards, that

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Speaker 1: they would have been they must have been really popular

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Speaker 1: from the get go. But according to producer Martin Tay's,

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Speaker 1: who did a lot of these episodes, most of the episodes,

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Speaker 1: advertisers were not excited about these these shows. They did

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Speaker 1: kind of touch on a lot of racy topics and

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Speaker 1: they were very They were a radical departure from a

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Speaker 1: lot of the TV shows that were on at the time,

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Speaker 1: But critics loved them. They loved the series, and they

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Speaker 1: actually pressured ABC affiliates to take it more seriously. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because this was the first time that a network devoted

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Speaker 1: that kind of prime time specifically to teenagers. Because if

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Speaker 1: we look at TV when this is going on, remember

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Speaker 1: they were launched in nineteen seventy two, we had Happy

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Speaker 1: Days comes on air in seventy four, nineteen, Mr Rogers

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Speaker 1: sixty nine, Sesame Street comes around seventy three, We've got

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Speaker 1: Schoolhouse Rock, and then because it's awesome, we must mention

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Speaker 1: it reading Rainbow, Hello, you should do an episode just

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Speaker 1: on reading. But but those were all targeted toward younger audiences.

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Speaker 1: So the after school specials were really an attempt to

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Speaker 1: to educate how this it's adedutainment, uh toward teens, and

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Speaker 1: so they did tackle those tough topics like teen and

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Speaker 1: adult alcoholism, homosexuality, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, domestic violence, STDs,

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Speaker 1: teen suicide, child molestation, um also divorce, such as one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite after school specials, My dad lives in

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Speaker 1: a downtown hotel, which happens when boau Bridges and his

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Speaker 1: wife get divorced and Billy, their child, has to go

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Speaker 1: visit bou Bridges in a downtown hotel. Huh, yes, well um.

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Speaker 1: In an episode of NPRS on the Media which aired

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Speaker 1: in June two thousand five, they took a look at

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Speaker 1: these these wonderful episodes of learning and they quoted Chicago

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Speaker 1: Tribune media writer Maureen Ryan, who said that it just

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Speaker 1: seemed like there was much more of an air of

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Speaker 1: exploration in terms of topics that might now today be

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Speaker 1: considered inappropriate for kids or young adults. Yeah. I feel

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Speaker 1: like parents are very sensitive about what their kids watch.

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Speaker 1: But these were these were these were learning tools and uh.

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Speaker 1: They point out that while these after school specials may

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Speaker 1: have been melodramatic, they acknowledged that there was more to

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Speaker 1: adolescents than stock hops of happy days. Yeah. These were

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Speaker 1: happening in an interesting time because there's sort of sandwiched

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Speaker 1: between on the one side, this moral panic about uh,

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Speaker 1: television becoming more sexualized and violent. There were all of

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Speaker 1: these um stories in like Time magazine and Newsweek talking

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Speaker 1: about connections between violence on television and rising rates of

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Speaker 1: teenage violence. UM, and also concerns fueled by the Cold

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Speaker 1: War about whether or not kids were being adequately educated

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Speaker 1: this new and younger generation. But then on the other side,

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Speaker 1: you do have the opening up of uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's the swing in seventies, So you have the publication

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy of UH, everything you always wanted to

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Speaker 1: know about sex, but We're too afraid to ask. Two

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Speaker 1: years later, the Joy of Sex comes out nineteen seventy three,

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Speaker 1: Our Bodies Ourselves. You have drug culture going on. Um.

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Speaker 1: So you have sandwiched in the middle of this these

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Speaker 1: after school specials that we're trying to appease the moral panic,

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Speaker 1: the need for a desire for education on the boob

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Speaker 1: tube that's coming down from from parents, and also addressing

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Speaker 1: these very real issues that teams are confronting. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: this is referred to as the turn to relevance for

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Speaker 1: TV because you have commercial TV that people are all

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Speaker 1: up in arms about. It's all sexy times and violence,

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Speaker 1: but it's becoming more socially conscious to sort of become

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Speaker 1: an educational tool for young people. And this is all

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Speaker 1: talked about in a study from Julie Allman talking about

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Speaker 1: how adolescence was sort of redefined during this time as

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Speaker 1: just a period in your life to all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: now it's something to overcome. It's a disability. You have

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Speaker 1: to get over well. And you also have to take

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Speaker 1: into account the changing family dynamics that we're going on

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Speaker 1: as well, with more mothers working outside the home. So

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Speaker 1: you have all these latchkey kids. All of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: you've got divorce on the rise. And again because of

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Speaker 1: the lack of supervision, perhaps from both parents working. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you have youth TV intake becoming less supervised. So know

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Speaker 1: you mentioned producer Martin Toss. Uh. He decided with these

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Speaker 1: after school specials that he would draw from popular adolescent

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Speaker 1: literature and keep tabs on publishers weekly to essentially see

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Speaker 1: what the kids were reading, and in format the shows

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Speaker 1: similarly or even directly from these young adult novels. For instance, Uh,

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Speaker 1: Francine Pascal, who wrote the Sweet Valley High series, Um,

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Speaker 1: she had a novel, The hand Me Down Kid, turned

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Speaker 1: into an after school special in nineteen three, and it's

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Speaker 1: all about how a younger sibling is stick of getting

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Speaker 1: hand me down, so she steals her sister's bike, but

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Speaker 1: then of course that bike gets stolen lesson learned about stealing. Well,

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Speaker 1: then what happened? Uh, Well, and then I guess she's

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Speaker 1: fine with taking hand me downs. I have a feeling

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Speaker 1: at the end she gets a new outfit, because generally

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Speaker 1: there is some kind of need that's satisfied, you know,

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Speaker 1: the kid feels okay and well, a lot of one

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Speaker 1: of the points that they bring up about this whole

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Speaker 1: series is that there aren't miracles in these shows. That

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Speaker 1: oftentimes when these horrible things happen, whether it's oh my god,

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Speaker 1: I don't get a new outfit or whoops, I got

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Speaker 1: my girlfriend pregnant, often these are things that the kids

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Speaker 1: themselves have to deal with and resolve, and and they

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Speaker 1: don't just like magically, you know, like an episode in

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Speaker 1: Full House just magically get resolved in thirty minutes, right.

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Speaker 1: They have to undergo some tough circumstances in order to

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Speaker 1: reach the other side. And a lot of it is about, yeah,

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Speaker 1: the kind of the pluckiness of youth and having to

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Speaker 1: overcome peer pressure or just general loneliness and angst. Although Elman,

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Speaker 1: whose thesis we've cited, did take issue with how gender

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Speaker 1: shakes out a lot of times in the after school

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Speaker 1: specials um she points out that topics are often focused

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Speaker 1: around male protagonists to begin with, because of the notion

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Speaker 1: that girls are gonna watch some thing about boys, but

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Speaker 1: not vice versa, And a lot of times if a

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Speaker 1: female protagonist does have a problem, it usually required a

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Speaker 1: male love interest to come along who probably had already

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Speaker 1: dealt with a similar kind of issue, to guide her

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Speaker 1: to the solution. Whereas when the tables were turned and

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Speaker 1: you have a boy who's trying to overcome something the

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Speaker 1: women or the women, it's the girls who are still

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Speaker 1: kind of relegated to the side just to be caretakers

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Speaker 1: but not necessarily catalysts for change. Yeah. A lot of

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Speaker 1: her study does touch on divisions of gender and able

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Speaker 1: bodied nous and what that means as far as heteronormativity

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Speaker 1: and traditional masculinity and femininity. Yeah. She essentially uh makes

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Speaker 1: the point that able bodied nous is used as a

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Speaker 1: kind of uh symbol for heteronormativity because you have this

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Speaker 1: arc of uh you know, you start out with some

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Speaker 1: kind of handicap and a lack of love interest, and

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Speaker 1: as someone will overcome some kind of uh disability, then

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Speaker 1: the love interests will come along, so you have them

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Speaker 1: able bodied and hooked up by the end, sort of

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Speaker 1: linking those two things together. Yeah, she calls this a

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Speaker 1: rehabilitative approach in representing teen problems and addressing teen viewers,

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Speaker 1: and really, like I mentioned earlier, talks about overcoming disability

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Speaker 1: and defines um adolescence as what you're you're not being

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Speaker 1: able bodied, you might even kind of have a disability,

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Speaker 1: and so this whole thing becomes a developmental stage defined

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Speaker 1: by exposure to and weathering of the dysfunction. And speaking

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Speaker 1: of heteronormativity, uh, sexuality was something that did come up

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Speaker 1: and a number of after school specials, and there were

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Speaker 1: some that that dealt specifically with teens um coming out.

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Speaker 1: But a Reese overt Auto of straddle dot Com talks

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Speaker 1: about the HBO slash Canadian Cable Company special The Truth

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Speaker 1: about Alex, which is it's not an ABC after school special,

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Speaker 1: but it's in the same vein of these after school

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Speaker 1: specials and again starring Scott Bayo. I love that this

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Speaker 1: episode could just be co titled scottyes uh. And she writes,

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Speaker 1: for many young homosexuals, the Truth About Alex was the

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Speaker 1: first time they saw themselves on screen, and that was

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Speaker 1: profound enough and positive, But the real lesson of the

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Speaker 1: film hides behind the ostensibly decent portrayal, because outside of

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Speaker 1: those things, the survival of coming out of the closet

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Speaker 1: and an eventual acceptance from a handful of family and friends.

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Speaker 1: The life of a gay person was seen as a

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Speaker 1: relentless and destructive battle against the world. If you come out,

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Speaker 1: be prepared for everything to unravel around you. So it

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Speaker 1: is sort of, um, it's a positive, but still with

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Speaker 1: these negative attractors of saying, hey, be brave, young person

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Speaker 1: and be who you are, but still be ready for

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Speaker 1: a lifetime of hill exactly. She goes on to site

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Speaker 1: some episodes that focused particularly on young gay people in

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Speaker 1: high school. There's seven CBS school Break special what If

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Speaker 1: I'm Gay? Where Friends this guy's friends find his gay

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Speaker 1: porn collection. It ended up being nominated for three Daytime

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Speaker 1: Emmy's and actually one one um in there was another

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Speaker 1: CBS episode called Other Mothers and Meredith Baxter was one

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Speaker 1: of the mothers and she ended up coming out years later.

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Speaker 1: That was recently, right, it was just like two years

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Speaker 1: ago or something. Other Mothers was in when she came out.

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Speaker 1: Uh that yeah, I want to say it was two

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Speaker 1: thousand three. Uh. And then there was an HBO episode

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Speaker 1: called More Than Friends, the coming out of Heidi Lighter.

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Speaker 1: I think that's how it's pronounced. But yeah, so there

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Speaker 1: was a focus on gay and lesbian students, but like

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Speaker 1: Kristen said, there was still the downside of you have

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Speaker 1: a lot of junk to deal with. Well, it was

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Speaker 1: similar to to how sex was dealt with, especially when

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Speaker 1: it comes to st d s and unintended pregnancies. Because

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Speaker 1: this is going back to Elman's paper and television and

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Speaker 1: new media. She talks about how while yeah, sexteen sex

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Speaker 1: was depicted a lot, but STDs were always um depicted

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Speaker 1: as some kind of punishment, a moral punishment for promiscuity,

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Speaker 1: as was accidental pregnancy. A lot of time saying like hey,

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Speaker 1: well you know you can do this, but if you aren't,

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Speaker 1: you know, monogamous, you're going to get a horrible STD

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Speaker 1: and terrible things will rain down upon you. Yeah. This

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Speaker 1: is part of what she called medicalized entertainment, which was

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Speaker 1: a style of literary slash televisual narratives that emerged around

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Speaker 1: this time to basically transmit images of medical knowledge and

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Speaker 1: often disability for public consumption. So here, you've got this

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Speaker 1: this health issue. Um, let's let's teach you about it

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Speaker 1: in kind of an entertaining way, so that you'll know

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Speaker 1: more about it and hopefully avoid it. Yeah. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I will say, like, um, considering the time that these

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Speaker 1: were on the air, and considering how how new it

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Speaker 1: was and how revolutionary was that this was the first

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Speaker 1: time that the teen experience was really being valued and

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Speaker 1: portrayed on television, I think that you have to to

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Speaker 1: take after school specials as I don't know. I I

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Speaker 1: think that they were a good thing because they did

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Speaker 1: portray all of these different issues, even though they might

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Speaker 1: seem kind of kitchen now. Um, not the issues themselves,

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Speaker 1: but how they um came across, and it would be

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Speaker 1: interesting to see like if obviously after school specials don't

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Speaker 1: really exist today in the same format, but how we

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Speaker 1: might deal with them differently. But I guess maybe we don't.

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Speaker 1: We don't need after school specials anymore because a lot

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Speaker 1: of these issues have been mainstreamed into prime time dramas

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Speaker 1: or drama tase comedies like Glee. You have things like

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Speaker 1: nine O two and No Going Back in Time a

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Speaker 1: Little Bit, which came out first in October of nineteen nine.

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Speaker 1: You have the O C. Dawson's Creek all this other

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Speaker 1: stuff where they interweave these kinds of uh issues into

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Speaker 1: incredibly dramatic plotlines. Dawson's Creek, you learned that the brunette

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Speaker 1: is always the one that you trust. You don't ever

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Speaker 1: trust the new blonde who comes to town. And I

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Speaker 1: also think a really good thing about these episodes, Like

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Speaker 1: christ And said, even though they're a little cheesy, um,

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Speaker 1: they do feature a lot of different kinds of people,

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Speaker 1: a lot of different young people of different ethnic backgrounds, ages,

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Speaker 1: family situations. And Elman says that this whole imagined coming

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Speaker 1: of age as a process of developing liberal individualism by

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Speaker 1: offering lessons in tolerance, so showing different types of people

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Speaker 1: and what they go through instead of just maybe your

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Speaker 1: run of the mill happy days cast. Yeah. And I

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Speaker 1: think one of the great things too about after school

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Speaker 1: specials um as opposed to, or in comparison to the

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Speaker 1: kinds of teen dramas that we see on TV today,

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Speaker 1: is that, especially when it comes to their economic backgrounds,

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Speaker 1: it was a lot of lower middle class, you know,

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Speaker 1: everyday kids just going through life, whereas a lot of

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Speaker 1: times now what we see you turn on Gossip Girl

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Speaker 1: and it's all, you know, fabulously wealthy kids. Even the

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Speaker 1: poorest among them is clearly obviously incredibly wealthy um, and

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Speaker 1: so a lot of it's more like stylized, and even

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Speaker 1: the middle class is portrayed to be like far above

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Speaker 1: the actual living standards of the current middle class. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: one thing that definitely was not stylized at all is

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Speaker 1: a show that I watched in my eighth grade. I

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Speaker 1: guess it was maybe our break period or something, and

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Speaker 1: that's Degressy Junior High. Yeah, if there were, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I gotta say that I in home school, I did

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Speaker 1: not watch The Grassy. I've heard about Degrassi for a while.

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Speaker 1: Last year, in fact, a friend of mine who really

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Speaker 1: has a love for uh eighties and nineties culture, asked

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Speaker 1: me about it and I was like, yeah, I've just

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Speaker 1: never seen it, and she's like, you gotta watch the Grassy.

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Speaker 1: Did you which version did you watch? Because there's like

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Speaker 1: fifty I started from the beginning of the Grassy Junior

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Speaker 1: High and Caroline, I didn't leave my room for a

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Speaker 1: few days because I got their I got hooked. I

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Speaker 1: was twenty six years old on a Degrassy Junior High marathon. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well they are. I just remember thinking when I was

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Speaker 1: watching them in classic this is is stupid, right, guys,

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Speaker 1: this is so wow. I can't believe they're actually talking

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Speaker 1: about this. Yeah, they hit all of the kinds of

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Speaker 1: issues that after school specials did, but it was somehow better,

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Speaker 1: I feel like, because they just pulled in actual kids

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Speaker 1: from the neighborhood, Like the clothes that they wear were

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Speaker 1: closed from their closet. And the Grassy and Your High

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Speaker 1: and a Grassy High ran on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

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Speaker 1: CBC from seven to and then there's Degrassive the next generation,

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Speaker 1: not to be confused with Star Trek correct that started

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Speaker 1: in two thousand one. But you found some, uh, some

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Speaker 1: differences as to specifically because it was broadcast in Canada,

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Speaker 1: about why they could tackle some of the issues that

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Speaker 1: they did more freely. Yeah, well, I guess I never

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Speaker 1: thought about the differences between Canada and the US as

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Speaker 1: far as like cultural taboos and things like that, because

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Speaker 1: I just don't think of our countries as that different.

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Speaker 1: Maybe social input, maybe they are, um, but yeah. Linda Schuler,

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Speaker 1: who's the producer, said that Degrassi needed to be more

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Speaker 1: entertaining than an after school special because it was all

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Speaker 1: about finding the authenticity of these characters. Voices and emotions

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Speaker 1: about really tackling issues that kids were talking about, and

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Speaker 1: that came into play when they had an episode about abortion.

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Speaker 1: Because there wasn't really an issue in Canada about airing

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Speaker 1: this episode. It was like, Okay, well, this is something

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Speaker 1: that kids are worried about, this is something that happens

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Speaker 1: in society, let's talk about it. But it was actually

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Speaker 1: pulled in the US because the network, the N I

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Speaker 1: don't recall this network or anything, but the n actually

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Speaker 1: refused to air the abortion episode, and so The New

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Speaker 1: York Times ended up writing a piece on it like, oh,

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Speaker 1: Degrassis tackling society's last taboo. And Schuler's response to that

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Speaker 1: was basically like, well, it's not really our last taboo. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's just a different national context. And so there's this

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Speaker 1: book called Programming Reality Perspectives on English and Canadian Television

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Speaker 1: that said the Degrassi went places that American TV was

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Speaker 1: afraid to go, and that that national context really does

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Speaker 1: affect what type of stories can be told on TV. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I gotta say if it if it's a

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Speaker 1: contest between ABC School Specials versus Degrassi, I mean, hands down,

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Speaker 1: its Degrassi anyone who out there is not watching this

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Speaker 1: might get me on another Degrassi kick. I'm saying, you've

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Speaker 1: got to go home right now and watch it. Yeah. Um, well,

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Speaker 1: there's also the issues we haven't really talked about girls

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Speaker 1: and feminism and how that's presented on these shows. Kristen

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Speaker 1: Pike inn for an essay in Girlhood Studies, which is

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Speaker 1: a journal. She did an analysis of episodes featuring tomboys

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Speaker 1: and explored how these after school special circulated ideas of

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Speaker 1: feminism and femininity to young viewers. And her study demonstrates

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Speaker 1: how these after school specials targeted girls through images of

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Speaker 1: female progress and independence while simultaneously cautioning them about the

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Speaker 1: dangers of women's lib So it's the same kind of

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Speaker 1: thing that we talked about when they featured gay students

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Speaker 1: on these episodes. It's like, okay, yeah, go be yourself,

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Speaker 1: go beat go be a strong woman, a strong young woman.

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Speaker 1: But but you're you're kind of a tomboy and you're

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Speaker 1: different and there could be cons equenses. Be prepared. And

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Speaker 1: they said, she said that, uh, the series trend of

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Speaker 1: taming tomboys. So like, oh, you're a tomboy, but now

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Speaker 1: you found a love interest to everything is Better? Um,

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Speaker 1: it's actually connected to the backlash against women and gay

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Speaker 1: rights movements. So did this help TV hurt? TV element

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Speaker 1: in her studies said that it rehabilitated TV's image that

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Speaker 1: now kids have something productive to watch, more constructive. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe portraying sexual issues as productive. Sure. But

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Speaker 1: at the same time, though, I feel like there was

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Speaker 1: somewhat of a drop off because you transition from after

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Speaker 1: school specials really into not to I know, is the

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Speaker 1: is the biggest thing to pick up from that? Um?

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Speaker 1: So I don't know. I'm curious to hear what other

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Speaker 1: people who might have watched more after school specials at

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Speaker 1: the time when they were airing, and parents a day

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Speaker 1: who are concerned about TV programming what they think about it.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know, maybe or maybe if it's if

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Speaker 1: it's a moot point that we shouldn't be so concerned about,

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Speaker 1: like what kind of education kids are receiving from television

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Speaker 1: rather than you know, education that they are receiving from

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Speaker 1: school and books and other outlets like podcasts. Um, but

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Speaker 1: I think that. But I'm glad that we took this

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Speaker 1: look inside of after school specials, inside of Scott Baio's career. Yes,

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Speaker 1: because I really I didn't know where they came from.

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Speaker 1: So so that's where then they're not from the Stork.

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Speaker 1: They are from the brains of ABC and producer Martin Toss.

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Speaker 1: So there we go. And I think you know, folks

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Speaker 1: out there, if you would like an episode completely devoted

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Speaker 1: to Degrassi, I wouldn't be remiss, but I would have

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Speaker 1: to go back and do a lot of homework. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but let's maybe just go watch let us know if

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Speaker 1: you want that, though we could do it, I really

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Speaker 1: just want an excuse watch more Degrassi because I still

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Speaker 1: haven't see the next generation. I digress. So any after

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Speaker 1: school special letters you got to send our way Mom

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Speaker 1: Stuff at Discovery dot Com is where you can send them. Now,

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Speaker 1: before we get into listener letters, I do have a

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Speaker 1: quick message for you from Netflix, which is partially responsible

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Speaker 1: for bringing you this episode of stuff Mom Never told You.

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Speaker 1: And it is the perfect time to talk about Netflix

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Speaker 1: because we are talking about after school specials. We've ticked

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Speaker 1: off a number of our favorites and if you would,

400
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 1: for instance, like to take a trip back in TV

401
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:45,160
Speaker 1: time and watch some of the ABC after school specials,

402
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 1: you can watch on Netflix, for instance, the one to

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00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 1: nine eighty two after School Specials Edition, which features a

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00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:58,440
Speaker 1: young Rob Low in the after school special A matter

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00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: of time. Now, if you want to find out a

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00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:03,679
Speaker 1: matter of time for what and what young Roblow is

407
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 1: doing in that after school special, all you need to

408
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:10,919
Speaker 1: do is go to Netflix dot com because as a

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00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:14,400
Speaker 1: new Netflix member and a stuff mom never told you listener,

410
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,719
Speaker 1: you can get a free thirty day trial membership. Just

411
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:23,399
Speaker 1: go to Netflix dot com slash mom and sign up

412
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 1: and be sure to use that U r L so

413
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:29,040
Speaker 1: they know that Caroline and I sent you. Now, this

414
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 1: free thirty day trial is not going to be around forever,

415
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 1: so do not delay. Head on over to Netflix dot

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00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 1: com flash mom for that free thirty day trial membership.

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Speaker 1: Now back to our listener letters. We've got to let

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Speaker 1: her here from Bree talking about our episode on self harm,

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Speaker 1: and she says she's been a self harming op and

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Speaker 1: on for about ten years. UM, and talked about the

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Speaker 1: addiction factor. UM, and I just wanted to read a

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Speaker 1: couple of things in her her letter because we don't

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Speaker 1: have time to read the entire thing. Um. She says,

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Speaker 1: I do agree that the subject is not often talked

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Speaker 1: about because people just think it is an adolescent slash

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Speaker 1: teen white girl problem and then eventually they will grow

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Speaker 1: out of it. Being an African American woman, I was

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00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:23,439
Speaker 1: often told that this was a white problem and that

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00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: that I should just stop because black people don't cut themselves. Yes,

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00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 1: people actually say these things. Also, a lot of people

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00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,399
Speaker 1: do not believe men harm themselves, but that's also true.

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00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:35,639
Speaker 1: I kept quiet about my cutting for almost a year

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00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 1: until I can find it in a friend, and it

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00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 1: all went down from there. Soon. It's seeing that all

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00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 1: of my friends were harming themselves in some ways and

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00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: we were all on a path toward death. Thankfully, most

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00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:46,880
Speaker 1: of them grew out of it and it found other

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00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: ways to cope when they're feeling down. So she also

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00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 1: offers some pointers to help treat people who are cutting.

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00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 1: If someone is concerned, she says, don't ever take or

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00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 1: throw away or hide a person's personal cutting tools, boxes, etcetera.

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00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: Doing this seems helpful, but it can break the trust

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00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:05,879
Speaker 1: you have with this person, and it could make the

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00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: person who was cutting find something quick and really sharp

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00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 1: to use at the moment, and in their frantic state,

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00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: they could not be as careful and then, and it

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00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: could end up badly. Also, don't shame them or make

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00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: them feel like they're worthless. It will be really hard

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00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:20,360
Speaker 1: at first, and sometimes you might say something you regret,

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00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: but just take some deep breast and try to focus

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00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: on the main point. Remember that everyone is different. Don't

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00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 1: treat the person as if there were someone you see

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00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: on TV or reading a book. Remember that you can't

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00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: force anyone to stop harming themselves. They have to want

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00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: to stop in order to progress. All that a person

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00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 1: can really do is be supportive and know that you're

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00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 1: thinking about them and you want them to get better.

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00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 1: So thanks to Brief for that insight. And I have

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00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 1: a letter from Kristen about our soda pop calth Hey.

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00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 1: She says, I grew up in Palmer, Alaska, a smaller

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00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,360
Speaker 1: city north of Anchorage and Alaska. We have many villages

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00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 1: which we call the Bush, that are not connected to

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00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:02,880
Speaker 1: the rest of Alaska by roads, and are therefore only

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00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: acceptable by airplane or floatplane, boat, snow machine, and or

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00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: dog sled. In these villages, everything is much much more expensive.

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00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, I remember a gallon of

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00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:15,800
Speaker 1: gas hitting twelve dollars. I remember learning that in many

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00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: bush villages, babies, children, and young adults are beginning to

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00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: experience very serious dental problems because healthy drinks such as

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00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: water and milk are very expensive, but unhealthy drinks, mostly soda,

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00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: are affordable for women with children. These mothers put soda

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00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: in bottles for their babies, and their children grew up

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00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:33,880
Speaker 1: drinking soda as the main or even only, daily drink

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00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:37,199
Speaker 1: that contributes not only to problems you mentioned in the podcast,

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00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: including weight gain and diabetes, but also major dental problems.

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00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: Imagine the cavities a baby would develop if it drinks

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00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: solely sugared soda while teething. I'm not sure how big

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00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 1: of a problem this continues to be in the bush,

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00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: but it's an image that has always stuck with me

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00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: and I wanted to share. So thank you for that information, Christom,

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00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: and thanks to everyone who's written in Mom's Stuff. At

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00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com is where you can send all of

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00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: your after school special letters and any other letters on

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00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 1: your mind, and also head over to Facebook let us

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00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 1: know post the YouTube video of your favorite after school special.

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00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: There are a lot of them up on YouTube, and

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00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 1: you can also find us on Twitter at mom Stuff

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00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: podcast and on Tumbler stuff Mom never told you dot

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00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 1: tumbler dot com. And of course, you can get smarter

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00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: during the week by heading to our website, It's how

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00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

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00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.

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00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the two thou twelve Toyota Camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready, are you