Christin Murray interviews "Get Lit Teens" Founder

Ms. Brighid: Let me introduce you to Christin Murray. She is one of my fabulous seventh grade students. This is Evelyn Coker, who I know from a variety of different ways, one of which was the nonprofit that I worked at and started. Evelyn was one of our board members. \What do you think Christin, you want to share a little bit about you or you want to jump in with your questions.

C: I'll share a little bit about me? Why not? I'm Christin. I'm 13 years old. I'm in seventh grade. I have four siblings. Technically, literally three. But I have a stepbrother on my dad's side. Oh, and I'm always on my phone. 24-7. Okay, and I'm just in my room too, 24-7. Like I barely see my siblings.

E: You have your own room?

C: Yeah, because I'm the only girl.

E: Oh, how is that?

C: Oh, it's not that bad. Like, I wish I had a sister. Just like someone I could like relate to.

E: Yeah, I guess that's where friendships can be really meaningful for you?

C: Yes. I love my friends like they are my sisters. Because I don't have any. They're like the closest thing I can get to a sister.

E: Mm hmm. sisterhood is a beautiful thing. Thanks for sharing.

C: Um, yeah. Um, so I'm just gonna ask my questions. Are you okay with it?

E: Absolutely.

---

C: Okay, so my first question is like, okay, so I understand you have a website called Get Lit Teens. And I just want to know, like, what is it all about?

Get Lit Teens is a space that I wanted to create, that allows teen girls to just be themselves, to talk about topics that are important to them, where they don't have to worry about their parents being mad, things that they're wondering about, or curious about.

C: kind of like a safe space?

E: Yep, a safe space. And so that has, in creating that, I also have a podcast. And so all of it is kind of, like, groups together.

As an adult, I've had to really make sure that I'm providing the space and not trying to shape what happens in the space.

And I think there's a healthy balance between, you know, trying to be an elder that can share experiences without forcing my own and trying to make the girls in my image, kind of like mini me’s. You know, what I mean? Like, everybody has their own journey. So, you know, that's been something for me to make sure that I'm cognizant of, because, um, I've even read a research about like, empowerment programs for girls, and how they end up not being empowering because their voices get shut down, because they're saying things or doing things that the leaders don't think is appropriate, and that as long as they're not harming themselves or someone else. It defeats the purpose of a safe space, if somebody's just gonna tell them what to say.

C: Yeah, I understand completely, completely about everything you said. So like, how you mentioned, everybody has their own journey, which leads to my next question is like, have you gone through any obstacles within your life or like, while making Get Lit Teens?

E: So I've gone through quite a bit of different experiences, um, which has made me pursue the profession that I'm in like, I'm a licensed clinical social worker. So that means, you know, I can do therapy and other types of interventions with young people. When I was a child, I lived in an impoverished community. I lived in a housing project called Altgeld Gardens, and it's on the south side of Chicago. I was exposed to gangs, drugs, you know, violence, all of that type of stuff, but also within my family, I was exposed to domestic violence. One of the biggest challenges of my childhood that I feel like really shaped me as a person is, I was the child of an incarcerated parent. So for almost two years my father was in prison. And that was very difficult for me because we couldn't tell the truth about where he was. I also had self esteem issues when I was a teenager, and I had an eating disorder. And so a lot of that, again, is what motivates me to work with teen girls, and what motivated me to create the journal for teen girls. So you know, girls can work through their issues and have a positive outlet.

C: Have you had anything to like help cope with that?

E: ...as an adult, I've done therapy. And that's been helpful. So even though I do therapy with people, I also participate in therapy with my own person and I think that's really healthy.

C: So like, basically, what led you to making Get Lit Teens is like, the experiences you had as a child, and you want to make sure that other girls make sure that like they're happy, and that they feel safe, and they have some way to cope.

E: Yep, and it was one thing in between. So the thing in between is, I was a foster parent for my cousins, because my auntie has a mental health disorder called schizophrenia. And so she couldn't parent them. So they lived with me. And so it was a girl and a boy. And I remember as the girl started to get older, you know, when you, you start becoming a teenager, and you don't really want to talk to your mama that much, and you think she all in your business and, and that's when you really start clinging to your friends more, I used to worry about her. And I used to think to myself, man, who is she gonna talk to when she has questions? You know, it just it worried me because I know, as a teenager, I talked to my friends. And we didn't know, we thought we knew, but we didn't know nothing. And so it's just a lot of times misinformation going on between peers. And that worried me for her. So I first had an idea to do, like a self help book and a journal companion, long, long time ago, like in 2008. But I didn't get a chance to do it until 2017. But it was, so it was my childhood experiences, it was the fact that I was fostering a young girl, you know, moving into her adolescent years, and the work that I've done in my profession, you know, that made me want to create the journal.

I remember my experiences. And that's actually what inspired me to create this space, because I could have used something like this when I was a teen.

C: That's good. That's good. Um, so I have one last question for you. How do you feel right now about all of your accomplishments and the ways you accomplish them?

E: Oh, that's a great question.

I've been really grateful to have received positive feedback from girls who have used my journal, who talked about the impact that it's had on them and their ability to cope.

E: Girls have told me they're closer with their moms now because they were able to communicate better and things like that. So that's a great feeling.

C: That is very, like good to hear like, you're proud of your work. Thank you for answering my questions. Thank you for your time. You're a nice person. Thank you.

E: You're welcome.

Ms. Brighid: Christin, before we can hang up, can I ask a couple questions too to see where it might take us? So one thing I'd love to hear is a little bit more about the podcast. I'm curious how you pick the topics. I'm curious how you find the girls. I'm curious, what are some of the things that you've explored so far? And just what have you noticed in doing, because a journal is such a private thing. So someone might have their whole experience with it and you might never know what that experience is. But the podcast is a live exchange. So I've just loved to know more about what that's been like.

E: So the podcast, it's for girls, 13, to 19. And my goal is to integrate black and brown girls in these discussions relevant to their generation. So for the first season, I actually, you know, I did a few things. So first, I went through all of my journals. So I still have my journals. And I created this grid, pretty much, all of the things that I talked about in my journals. And then I did focus groups with girls in high school, and found out, you know, topics that are important to them. And I compared them to the grid that I created based off of my journal. And I found that everything was the same except for social media. So when I was your age, it was something called MySpace. And my mama didn’t let me get on it. So I didn't even deal with social media until I went to college.

So that's the one experiences that different between myself and the young ladies. Um, and then after that, I just put a call out on Facebook, and on a bunch of different groups that I was in, and I got people who were interested. And I did pre-production interviews with them, where I just asked them a series of like 8 questions. And from there, I decided which girls would be good to talk about, you know, a particular topic. And that's pretty much how we grew. So that was the first season. For this next season, I plan to take a more of a participatory approach. I want the girls to have complete ownership of it from the beginning. I'll still be a co host with them, but I'm going to let them pick the topics. I'm going to let them recruit. I'm going to let them do pre-production interviews. So I'm gonna allow them to take the reins, so it'd be more meaningful to them. But that was pretty much the process for the podcast.

B: Okay, first of all, I so my mind's going …. with tons of questions. So the first thing is it reminds me a lot of how we're here today with you. Because career day at Kellman used to be totally adult run, right? A counselor was in charge of it. She picked the people, you know, the whole day was constructed sort of with an adult mindset. And last year, when I came into Kellman, I was like, well, what if Career Day was planned by the students? And so this year, part of it was them talking about what careers they wanted, and then setting up this opportunity for them to do interviews, these interviews are going to go on a student designed like website. And so just that idea of like starting first with adults running it, and then what happens when adults get out of the way, and really allow the students to claim the space and the power? And then my next question was, so Christin one, what do you think the topics are that Evelyn's discussed on the podcast? And two, if you were pitching her ideas for season two, what ideas would you want the podcast to talk about?

E: Whew that's a great question! I stomped my foot on the ground!

C: Okay, so some topics, I think are going on are really just based around like the new generation and how like teens feel about it. So some topics I think about is what if you didn't have any friends? What or how do you think your life would be? Um, because that's a deep question. And like, I know, like this generation, like, they've made like, me personally, I've made a lot of friends during the global pandemic. So sometimes I wonder what would life be like if I didn't meet those friends if I didn't have those friends? Um, have you like talked about like any type of like, like social media or what do you do on your phone or something like that?

E: We talked about bullying. And so cyber bullying came up. Yeah, and how to deal with that. And we even so we think we talked about bullying for two episodes, and one of the episodes was about, are you a bully? So asking questions about whether or not you have behaviors that are harmful to others? You know, intentionally or not. So that was pretty interesting.

C: So like, What do you plan on doing with your upcoming season of your podcast?

E: Well, I'm really excited to see kind of like, what the girls come up with, you know, um, last season, we had a lot of adult women that supported it. And I loved seeing the conversation because we would stream live. And it would allow people on my different platforms to like, put comments in the chat and, and everything. And it was, it was just such beautiful conversations between, you know, teenagers and older women. And I hope that can continue. But like I said, I'm excited to see what the young ladies come up with as far as topics and, and things to talk about. One thing that we're looking forward to doing one of the co-hosts came up with an idea of having like a journaling club, where, you know, we would just come together and I would give prompts, and everybody would journal and if people wanted to share they could and if they didn't want to that was okay. So I thought that was a really good idea. So those are some things I'm looking forward to.

C: Yeah, that's good. Um, I can't think of any more questions as of right now. Because you answered all the questions I have prepared.

Ms. Brighid: Christin, I just want to say you are a rock star.

C: Thank you. Ms Brighid, like thank you for giving me this opportunity. It was fun.

B: You are so welcome. So Evelyn, you're meeting Christin for the first time. But this young person basically started this year saying, I want to make a difference. I want to be a leader and I want to help my peers. I want to be involved in anything I can. And so I feel like just every week, Christin, you just keep stepping in. Right? And like when I said oh, do you have your interview questions? You were like, I got them already. I'm prepared. You were ready to go. She's presenting to the younger grades about career day and getting first and second graders to think about their dream jobs. And I feel like one thing after the next Christin, you just keep saying like, How can I be a part of something good? Miss Evelyn was talking about how she wants to make a difference. You are already making a difference as a young person. You are changing Kellman by how you show up and I'm so proud of you.

C: Thank you Ms Brighid. I don't want to cry.

Ms. Brighid: I'm already crying. So if you want to cry, you can.

C: Thank you for those nice things Ms Brighid, you are a nice person and like I couldn't have done it without you. Like, like giving me confidence to do the things to make a difference. Um, and it's been really fun working with you and like my other classmates on career day. And I hope like tomorrow everything goes well. Um, yeah. And like, it's been fun. It's been really, really fun.

B: Do you want to tell Evelyn what you're doing tomorrow?

C: Oh, yeah, I'm going to talk to second graders about career day. So like, they can have an idea of what they want to be when they grow up. And like, they can know like, what, like, career day is in like, why it's happening and what's going to be happening.

E: And then there'll be future leaders like you some day.

C: Yeah, I hope they are like I, I just want to influence good behavior when I show up tomorrow. Like, I want to influence like, whatever you like, whatever your dream job is, make sure you like work hard towards that. Like, like, here's a tip like, if you're getting like, I want to tell them this, like if you're going to get a job, think of a job that would be the most fun to you, like it's not boring and like you want to go to it every day.

E: so t doesn't feel like work. Yeah, that's what you love.

B: I think that's an excellent tip.

E: Yeah. It'll be great tomorrow.

C: Thank you.

E: You're welcome.