Dee Snider - Teenage Survival Guide

From what I can see, the pressure to conform isn't as great today as it was when I was growing up. The music and dress of different groups of people aren't as polarized anymore, and there has been a great deal of cultural crisscrossing. It's hard to tell the headbangers from the punks, the uniforms are so inter­changeable. Racial and musical barriers seem to be breaking down gradually. Ten years ago that Aerosmith, a white hard-rock band, and Run-D.M.C, a trio of black rappers, would share a stage was unthinkable.

You're lucky. I think there's more tolerance today for being what you want to be and dressing the way you want. When I was in elementary school in the 1960s, everybody listened to the same music and wore the same outfits. There were few acceptable options. I remember that back in elementary school there was a kind of jacket called a CPO—chief petty officer's coat. It looked like a shirt with tails and came in blue and maroon. Everybody had one. Except me. So what else is new? i

I dreamed of owning a jacket like that because without it, how could I expect to fit in with my classmates? All year long I'd dropped hints to my parents that I wanted one, and on Chrismas Day I practically tore the box it came in to confetti.

It was the wrong jacket.

“I am sorry, but I went to a half-dozen stores, and they were all sold out," my mother half-explained, half-apologized. Of course they were sold out; thousands of kids wanted to conform as badly as I did. I was so upset, I started to cry, which looking back now was pretty selfish on my part, because my mother had tried really hard to get me the CPO jacket. I was absolutely miserable, as if my whole life were about to come to an end. As far as I was concerned, it was. But somehow she coaxed me into trying on the jacket. I slipped into it, looked in the mirror, and— "Hey [sob], this looks pretty good!" Actually, I had never seen anything like it. It was the type of coat worn by the Confederate Army during the Civil War, with gold buttons, a military collar and tabs. It was happening. I stopped my sniffling.

The next day I wore it to school, and I was pronounced by the people, for the first time, as "cool." Everybody wanted to know where I had got it. I had created something of an image for myself, and let me tell you, I wore that coat until the buttons fell off. I had accidentally learned an important lesson about being an individual, and it marked the beginning of my decision to be different.

The teen years are spent searching: for a fun time, for that Playboy or Playgirl magazine you stashed under the bed years ago, for pubic hair, but mostly for your identity and your place among your friends. Up until now you've been very much a product of your immediate environment, conforming to expectations and standards set by your parents, teachers and peers. It's as if upon birth you shot out of the gate like a racehorse with blinders on and charged around the track, never stopping to question your direction or to reflect on what you've accomplished so far in life. Before you never really analyzed why you are the way you are, why you have certain attitudes, whether or not you're satisfied with yourself. But now that's changing.

The lack of the knowledge, or awareness, of "Who am I?" can be the cause of a lot of anxiety. People die at a hundred and ten without ever knowing who they are, and you're expected to come up with the answer by your sixteenth birthday? Your self-identity is made up of a lot of things: race, sex, ethnic and religious backgrounds all play important parts in shaping the person you are, as do your experiences from childhood on, your attitudes, interests, values, qualities and goals. Even where you grow up helps affect your identity. If I'd been raised in rural Arkansas instead of suburban Long Island, today I'd be Lonesome Dee Snider, crooning country & western songs about my tractor that would break your heart.

Now, life would be much simpler if you could take all that information, feed it into a computer and get back a detailed printout, "This Is You." Or if you could just rely on your own instincts to figure it out. But that's almost impossible, and knowing what most people think about you doesn't help that much, either, because the way we see ourselves is sometimes very different from the way others see us.

One reason we are sometimes unhappy with ourselves is that lots of people judge others on the most apparent and superficial information, such as what they look like. Take my face, for example. (Please!) Ah, my face. When I was a kid, it caused me a lot of problems because I was... how shall I put this? … apretty ugly kid. (Don't sugar-coat it, Babe; give it to 'em straight.) It was like a cross to bear, a public sign that said I had been put on this earth to be harassed by others. I'd been a cute child (aren't we all, though?), but suddenly puberty started to play some pretty weird tricks on me, coinciding with my sexual awakening. Small children are rarely aware of who's good-looking and who's not, but as a teenager, I found myself being judged by others solely on my appearance.

Gradually I realized that 1 was not good-looking by conventional standards. Like, being at a party where the kissing game Spin-the-Bottle is being played, and when it points at you, the girl goes, "Oh no," and makes a face as if she'd rather swallow poison. But it took me quite a while to admit to myself that I was not attractive. If I'd stare into the bathroom mirror and see this suave, good-looking young dude staring back, not the dork my classmates teased. I'd cock my head at just the right angle, affect a sort of leer, a swagger. "Hmm... /a slight tilt of the head]. Hey, I am good-looking; they just aren't seeing it. In fact, from this angle [tilt a bit farther, practically severing my spinal cord] I look a bit like... Robert Plant!"

It was not easy to do, but I finally admitted to myself that my preening and primping in the mirror was just that. And unless I could walk around with my head positioned permanently at that painful angle—and don't think I didn't try—I still looked like what I looked like to the rest of the world, no matter how I made myself appear in the mirror. I'm convinced that my dressing up in women's clothing, wearing makeup, spraying my hair for Twisted Sister was originally an effort to prove that I was attractive, even if in a perverse, corrupt, maniacal, campy sort ofway.

Physical appearance—what an incredibly shallow thing by which to measure another human being, but unfortunately, that's a part of human nature most people don't think about unless they have to suffer because of it. And not only are people judged on their looks, they are usually stereotyped by them. The tall boy is told he ought to play basketball; the husky boy, football For girls it can be even more limiting: A slim figure and a pretty face are synonymous with popularity, while a less attractive girl is often encouraged to lower her expectations with regard to popularity. I remember wanting to play the tuba in the third grade. But I was a tall, skinny kid, even as an eight-year-old, and so I was encouraged to take up the trombone instead. Tall, skinny kid; long, skinny instrument.

It's such a stupid standard, because physical appearance has nothing to do with you as a person, since how you look is dependent on your parents' genes. I suppose if I could have been born with a face like actor Rob Lowe's, sure, I would have gone for it, but from what I can remember as a young fetus, no one gave me a choice. Back then you didn't even get a choice of meals. And it's such an arbitrary standard, because there's always someone better-looking or worse-looking than you.

To boot, up until your mid-teens, your looks are controlled pretty much by your parents, who buy your clothes for you and drag you to the stylist just when you think your hair looks perfect. It's important that you try to convince your parents, if not to let you shop alone, then at least to let you go with them to the store. When parents are left on their own in a teenager's clothing department, there's no telling what they may bring home—a pair of white buckskin shoes, for example.