RUNAWAY: FREEDOM OR FRIGHT

[Music] e Carol how much longer before you going to get some stupid milk over here to Chris he has to leave for school in about 5 minutes listen don't you just listen crap I can't believe it let's get going here C anymore you can't take what I can't take this no I was just out there I can't even get the truck like I told you to I just fed up with it now get out of my the denominator are not factors up one it's very simple my parents didn't care if I lived or died what is that what is all that don't bother me right now Okay C sir and don't go and bother your father either okay do you know what it's like seeing your father drunk and sick every night what are you looking at the way my stepfather used to look at me he just gave me the creeps and after a while I just couldn't take that anymore stupid piece of bread to that's all you ever on this stinking house D BR 12 years married you and I have a son that's about it you have your job to do you have your body that's all you do where the hell the in this place scramble about 3 hours stupid I can't believe scram I am not going to do you're crazy man some people have real problems at home don't they I hope you don't but do you know what each one of those stories had in common each one was was told by someone who had run away now what I'm going to try to do in the next few minutes is to show you why you shouldn't run away from home actually my job's going to be pretty easy for most of you don't intend to run away on the other hand some of you have thought about it once or twice haven't you I imagine a few of you have thought about it a lot and that's serious I guess you're the ones that I'm talking to when I was asked to appear on this program I tried to think about how I could convince you not to run away from home the funny thing was I realized that if you look at it one way everybody leaves home sooner or later runs away well walks away from home for example somay don't you intend to get a job to make money maybe you'll work in a factory maybe an office or maybe you'd like to have your own business perhaps you hope to go to college to learn a profession someday don't most of us intend to get married and have children sure we do and for most people that means leaving home so what's the problem with running away if everybody does it sooner or later well if you're 11 13 or even 16 you must realize that right now you're not quite ready to leave home you're not really able to completely support yourself oh you will be someday and probably soon but not right now isn't that true let's look at that factory again there are no 15-year-olds working here are there even if you could handle the job and they wanted to hire you they couldn't because of the law the same thing is true in this office or almost anywhere else you would like to work and if you couldn't get a job you sure couldn't afford an apartment they wouldn't let you into college because you haven't completed High School so if you ran away now you could never become a teacher a nurse or a lawyer now we've all heard terrible stories about people who ran away you know the kind I mean there was no place to sleep and I didn't have any money there was just just nowhere to go so I slept in a bus station I even slept in alleys a few times I was thinking like where am I going to spend the night what am I going to do it was really scary SC the first night the very first night I really I was scared you may not believe this but I was so hungry that I couldn't find nothing to eat so I even looked in the garbage cans what I remember most out there is how cold it gets it's cold there's no place to go no place to sleep no place to get warm and you almost feel like you're going freeze to death at night all the weirdos come out and I was really scared the whole [Music] time you you have a pretty good idea of what it's like to be a runaway don't you you already know that for a runaway it is dangerous out there it's true that most people are good but there are bad guys who make it their business to spot a runaway they know a runaway is an easy target because he's alone trying to avoid the [Music] police step up here your money can be stolen everything you've taken with you might be stolen you may be forced to commit crimes for other people there's always the chance you'll get physically hurt and as you've heard sometimes even worse things happen by the way do you know what the experts found out about Runaways almost all of them return home in a day or two he Mom this is Dale Dale are you all right uh yeah uh I want to come home now are you sure you're all right yeah I'm all right I just got my backpack now why would that be well where are you well not because they were caught but rather because each one found out what you already know they weren't prepared miss you that's no fun out there for someone your age now stay there okay it seems to me there's one thing we can say for sure no matter what the problem is that would make you want to leave home running away is not a good answer what we have to do is find better answers for one thing you have to prepare yourself to leave home successfully of course that's why there are schools now I know that sounds pretty obvious but we sometimes forget it don't we if you're getting bad grades or you think you're not popular it's easy to start thinking that school is a bad place a place to run away from it's also easy to forget that what you're really doing in school is learning as much as you can to prepare yourself to be independent so one obvious answer is to make sure you stay in school right but if you stay in school it probably means you're going to have to stay at home now if you're having problem problems at home you're just going to have to learn to live with them a while perhaps you can't solve those problems they may be your parents' problems and not really yours you don't know what the heck you're doing any how do you learn to live with them well if you're upset or depressed or angry one of the best things you can do is talk about it it's as simple as that just talk about it with someone you like and trust you can talk to your brother or your sister your best friend your teacher perhaps the counselors at school when you talk to someone about what's bothering you the hurt goes away a little and you'll find the problem easier to live with now on the other hand if one of your friends has a problem that might lead to running away you can help by being a good listener encourage them to talk about their troubles SM it just seems I can't do anything right for that man that's one of the things friends are for well as you can see when I sat down to think about it everything I came up with to convince you not to run away you already know someday you intend to leave home but right now you're not prepared are you and if you did go now it would probably be a bad experience wouldn't it to prepare yourself you need to stay in school and if you do I guess you're going to have to live with any problems you may have at home and one of the best ways to do that is to talk about those problems with a friend or someone you trust so you see it turns out I don't have to convince you not to run away after all I probably couldn't anyway I guess what I've been trying to do is to remind you that you already know better answers if you'll just take the time to think of [Music] it