Into the bright lights of the city – and danger

Why do some children and teenagers run away from home? That question has been circling round my mind as I read Oliver Twist. What drives young people to risk everything by running away to an uncertain future where they probably will end up living on the streets in a big city?

Personally, I think it’s something to do with loneliness and fear, sometimes combined with a sense of hopelessness about their current life. (It is certainly this that makes Oliver run away from the undertaker he has been apprenticed to after being so ill-treated that he cannot take any more.) In particular we often read about children and teenagers running away to escape physical abuse from their parents  or step-parents.

Living on the streets puts young people at risk of assault, disease and being drawn into prostitution and criminal gangs (as in Oliver Twist). Even if none of this happens, what kind of a life is it on the streets? No shelter from cold weather, heatwaves and rainstorms; hunger, thirst and sleep deprivation are just some of the obvious problems that spring to mind.

In fact, much of the anguish street children (and adults, for that matter) suffer stems from loneliness and fear – which is where we came in with this little article. So the real tragedy is that although running away may temporarily improve a young runaway’s state of affairs – maybe even save their lives in some cases – it doesn’t help their state of mind. Substitute one form of loneliness and fear for another; keep making the same mistakes. And tragedy is all about repeating the same mistake over and over again, although it can also be presented as comedy.

As Dean Koontz put it: “Life is an unrelenting comedy. Therein lies the tragedy of it.”