The political parties of Maine are floundering, the voters of the state of Maine are floundering, and teenagers are floundering.

The most cruel, wretched result of this condition is heaped upon teenage high schoolers. Our kids have more understanding about the facts of their life than their mothers, fathers and political parties care to recognize.

During World War II, I was a teenager, and I see and feel for the kids of today.

The people in charge of my life when I was young planned that I would go into the service and sent somewhere in the world to fight in their war. I knew I was being used. I knew they had my life planned to age 30, if I was lucky. The kids today have the same problem. People are telling them what is being done for them.

So I decided to ask teenagers themselves some questions recently.

I asked them if they liked the new grading system — not one said they liked it. I asked if their parents had talked to them about it — they said no. When I asked if the teachers talked to them — they said no. They said, “No one cares about us anyway.” They know, as well as I did back in the Second World War, they have no future to prepare for.

On top of all this, the city of Augusta and the state government are issuing bonds that must be paid by someone in the future. The people in charge of the city and state want the children to stay in Maine and work. They need the kids to stay in Maine to pay off their bonds, their debt. The kids are placed in bondage for the rest of their lives, while the city and state receive the benefits now and then their officials retire to a warmer climate.

The Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel reported on a new drug court program being developed through the efforts of District Attorney Maeghan Maloney, the Somerset County Sheriff’s Department and others. These are the types of people, the type of leadership, that Maine voters need to look for each year to represent them in our state government.

Their leadership in a new approach to help people with their problems dealing with drugs and alcohol. Drugs and alcohol are not to be taken lightly since they can result in abusive behavior.

We also need a court system for mental health issues, where a person can discuss their problems openly and freely without finding themselves in a mental institution being harassed by everyone. The person with mental health problems eventually dies, and a family dies of a million paper cuts — a result of a mental health system that is floundering.

Legislators need our support now in their important investigation into Riverview Psychiatric Center practices. Its practices create conditions that have resulted in abusive treatment by caretakers. As a person on the receiving end of these mental health practices, I can say my “treatment” seemed more like a vendetta than a cure.

If we want answers to the many questions and problems that our state is facing, we need to ask the people most affected by what’s happening.

My father always said, “Judge a person by what they do rather than by what they say. If you do good work, employers will judge you and hire you.”

Dwinal Wood is a resident of Augusta.