According to a recent study, "cool" kids are far more likely to engage in risky behaviors than their less popular counterparts. Which proves, once and for all, this essential fact: Scientists, apparently, never went to school. Having forgetful parents with an unlocked liquor cabinet is practically a ticket to the top of the social heap in many school districts.

One's initial reaction is to consign this study to the giant rubbish heap of research that just barely manages to prove the painfully obvious. Remember that gang of cheerleaders who spent nearly every Monday morning bragging about how they T.P.'ed somebody's house? Remember the football players shouting, "Dude, we got totally wasted!" in the hallways?

And why shouldn't they? As one wag once said, "People are smart. Crowds are stupid." Popularity offers teens the ability to be surrounded by crowds practically every moment of their lives. This leads to an atmosphere of "group-think," the dangers of which are well known.

But, as dangerous as it can be to simply go along with the crowd, it can sometimes be a winning strategy. It takes considerable self-assurance and courage to cling to one's moral center in the midst of overwhelming pressure to have fun; something that a popularity seeking teenager isn't likely to have.

The rewards of popularity are what make it nearly impossible to resist the pressure to engage in drinking, vandalism, drug use, and sex. For whatever reason, some people feel a need to be liked by others, especially during their adolescence, and it's hard to thing to give up acceptance once it's been attained. And, in the finest recursive fashion, the in-crowd affords one access to lots of drugs, alcohol, illicit thrills, and casual sex.

Still, as obvious as all of this sounds, there's one group of folks out there who just don't get it; they're the ones responsible for the inevitable expressions of disbelief that come about whenever a "booster" winds up in some sort of trouble. The people who end up saying things like, "So when he's 18 his record will be expunged, right?" to their lawyers. They're the various pillars of the community whose children are out there getting fucked up right under their noses.

Naturally, the people who are oblivious to the dirty deeds of their own children are also the people whose very success enables those deeds. Very often these folks have their own secret histories, filled with sweaty hands, twisted sweaters, and six different kinds of pilfered liquor disguised in a Big Gulp cup. They're also the first to beg for a hell of a lot of leeway on behalf of their kids, insisting that their sanctioned extra curricular activities, college prospects and (of course) their impeccable breeding outweigh any bad behavior. "It was a one-time deal!" they cry.

Thanks to this study we can now tell them, "Not so." Especially if they are the sorts of people who believe in the strictest possible enforcement of drug laws; let their own children hang in the noose they voted for. The odds are good that if their kids managed to get caught smoking dope at a party somewhere, they've probably been doing it---and worse---for years.

-B. C. Silvia
-6/1/05