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Hamburger Abendblatt
19/20 June 1999

Yearning for a feeling of security
Joerg Otto Meier talks about his conversations with 29 young people.

Teacher and photographer Joerg Otto Meier asked young people between the ages of 9 and 20 how they feel about life. The interviews were published in book form with texts and portraits.

Mr. Meier, why do adults have such a low opinion of young people?

Adults were prejudiced against young people way back in ancient Greece – and these prejudices will probably always exist. We adults are simply too quick to generalise if we have any negative experiences with young people instead of dealing with each and every case impartially. It often seems to me that a lot of us have completely forgotten our own youth. Some of these sweeping statements are certainly true up to a point: young people today are faster, ruder, rougher. But what we see is just a result of the way we bring them up, educate them. The problem has its roots at home, at school, with those in responsible positions in our society. They’re the ones who destroy such a lot and are then surprised how tough our kids have become.

Young people really get to say what they think in your book. How did the project start?

Very intuitively. I had often heard so many things from my pupils, their complaints, their hopes, what they wanted from life, that two years ago I thought to myself: “Now you’re going to write all this down.” Then I met with pupils and other young people. Always in places they were familiar with. All of them were amazingly candid. I also told them a lot about myself. I have no problem with that.

What did you find to be completely different from when you were young?

I don’t think the basic problems have changed much over the years. We were no strangers to fear and violence in the past either, we also hated some of the teachers. In those days they used to slap us. And then we became teachers ourselves and wanted to do everything differently and better. We wanted to be laid-back and understanding, we wanted to be loved by everybody. But we failed. You have to set limits, young people even want that themselves. It’s important in life not just to be nice – and that’s where the Sixties generation made a big mistake - but also to be strict if you expect the kids to learn to be polite, punctual and hard- working. The laissez-faire attitudes did young people a lot of damage.

Are you mainly strict?

There are no prizes for being lenient, especially not at school. If someone doesn’t stick to the rules that have been agreed on, he has to pay the consequences. But he remains a wonderful person for me and I tell him that too. You must never deny young people love and attention just because they behave badly sometimes or get bad grades at school.

What can adults learn from young people?

Young people have their own unique kind of wisdom and they say fantastic things – that God is a radiant, white light, for instance, or that life is a long road with bends and hurdles. We would never have thought of anything like that at that age. I wonder if this generation isn’t more mature than we were – maybe in fact because times are harder, because there are hardly any intact marriages and because wars, scandals and catastrophes are all part of daily life.

Do young people today have any values at all?

I think young people judge everything according to their personal scale of values which ranges from good to evil. It also depends on whether they have any left or right-wing radical leanings. They have a strong sense of justice and they long for recognition, a feeling of security and to be loved for their own sake.

What is it about their parents that disturbs young people most?

That parents often smother them. That they say, “You just wait and see, you’ll see that I’m right.” That way they don’t allow their children to make their own experiences.

Are adults envious of the younger generation?

Sometimes they are. One of the boys I interviewed said he had the feeling that his parents resented his youth. But a lot of the things parents reproach their children with are simply a projection of their own behaviour. Parents who sit in front of the TV every evening, drinking and eating crisps criticise the same behaviour in their children.

What is the most surprising thing you learned from the interviews?

How candid the young people are. And how well they know adults. Although they’re in the weaker position, they are such good psychologists that parents and teachers really have to be on their toes.

Interview: Regina Müller

„We're alright"

The skill of a good portrait photographer lies in being able to put his subjects so at ease that they are completely themselves. Joerg Otto Meier is a master of this art, not only as a photographer but also as an interviewer. Years ago he produced a book about the port of Hamburg and the people who work there, about the stevedores, the woman who sells fish, a pilot and even the director of the port. When looking at it from Nuremberg, it did seem rather a long way away, but the book was fascinating.
   Now Joerg Otto Meier has used the same method for a topic that touches all of us, he has taken photographs of and interviewed young people between the ages of 9 and 20, getting them to talk about their lives without any beating about the bush. They talk about their relationship to their parents, what they think about school (if they still go to school), what they believe in, the sexual experiences they've already had, how they see the future and what they're afraid of.
   It makes no difference that these young people live in Hamburg - there are the molly-coddled daughters of well-to-do families, ambitious middle-class lads amongst them, but also children from broken homes and young people who left home very early. Christians, Buddhists, and Moslems, but also atheists and pantheists have their say.

This book should be made compulsory reading for parents, teachers, social workers, in short anybody who  has anything to do with young people. Although it's hardly right to call it compulsory reading, because these short personal anecdotes draw the reader in immediately and are positively captivating.
   So many generalisations are made about today's youth, there's so much complaining. Here we have concrete evidence and learn to respect even particularly difficult children as personalities. The positive title, demonstrates that we should have confidence in young people.
   From the accompanying texts in the book we learn that Joerg Otto Meier is actually a teacher. I'm convinced that he's a very good one.
Dr. Holger Jergius

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