... The lives of these poor people were exceedingly disturbing,"Where flies and maggots breed, where the plumbing is stopped up and not repaired, where rats bite helpless infants..." (834). The urban slums were places of confusion, crime, and death. In addition to the poverty-filled cities, the youth of this time period were starting to rebel and become delinquents. "American adolescents grew culturally restive as they searched for self-definition" (837). This was a time period when American adolescents had leisure, because they did not have to work, and money from their parents to create their own style of fun and culture. During this decade, the father was usually too busy to care about their teenagers, a newly formed word in the fifties, and the mothers were usually too busy taking care of the younger children in the family. However, the parents did know the lives of their teenagers through the media. Many teenagers began to act out in school and cause trouble. Also, to much of the parents' dismay, the adolescents began to listen to the provocative and disturbing music of rock-and-roll and Elvis. The teenagers of this decade led an ever-searching quest in becoming an individual. They began to customize everything and wanted to change the morals of their old and traditional parents. ...
