Your teenage “kids” are probably a lot more competent than they seem, according to psychologist Robert Epstein. But a raft of laws and regulations (compulsory education, labor restrictions, a separate juvenile justice system) and an ever-growing consumer sector have needlessly delayed their entry into the adult world. Historically, he points out in an interview about his recent book The Case Against Adolescence, this is not the norm:
We have completely isolated young people from adults and created a peer culture. We stick them in school and keep them from working in any meaningful way, and if they do something wrong we put them in a pen with other “children.” In most nonindustrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil. Many cultures do not even have a term for adolescence. But we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable. In 1904, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall said it was programmed by evolution. He was wrong.
Rejecting the stereotype of the teenager as immature and incompetent, Epstein argues that adolescents are fully capable of cognitive and moral reasoning, maintaining long-term relationships, and being responsible for themselves. While teens “have too much freedom” in certain senses, they’re nevertheless “not free to join the adult world, and that’s what needs to change”:
I believe that young people should have more options—the option to work, marry, own property, sign contracts, start businesses, make decisions about health care and abortions, live on their own—every right, privilege, or responsibility that an adult has. . . .
When we dangle significant rewards in front of our young people—including the right to be treated like an adult—many will set aside the trivia of teen culture and work hard to join the adult world.
Naturally I disagree with him about abortion, and I’m not convinced that we should roll back child labor laws or institute the competency tests that he favors. Broadly, however, I think he’s right that the myth of the shallow, irresponsible teenager is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Parents may not be able to give their teenage sons and daughters all the rights and responsibilities of adulthood, but they can at least encourage teens to find a job and give them enough freedom to learn from their mistakes, just like adults do. Don’t assume they’re incapable of making good decisions unless they’ve proven by their behavior that they’re incapable. Stop treating them like kids, and they may stop acting like them.
h/t Joe Carter
January 31st, 2013 | 2:39 pm
What if, like many aspects of human growth, there’s a point in maturation where we need the challenges of adulthood in order to mature morally, intellectually and socially? If so, it’s not just needlessly cruel and restrictive to treat adolescents like 5 year olds, it may be that, deprived of the responsibilities and freedoms they naturally seek, they may find it hard to *ever* mature.
Gee, is there any evidence something like this has actually happened?
I’ve long been amazed at the hopelessly mixed message we send our best high school students: you are expected to represent the school in sports, drama, orchestra, and other competitions; you are expected to have the self-discipline to do the 6 hours of homework a night a typical AP load calls for. Yet you need a permission slip to cross the street to buy some lunch with your friends – if the school will even allow it.
January 31st, 2013 | 2:59 pm
I agree with Epstein that adolescence is a human-created state. Humans are
adult physically as soon as they are through puberty. There was a time in Western Civilization where this was fully recognized. Then only the wealthy few could afford an adolescence for their children. The rest, the vast majority, got to the first-hand job of making a living at roughly 13. Of course, life spans were shorter, on average, and life was harder.
Today adolescence is routine in the West. I believe that is not a good thing as the creation of adolescence also created the adolescent mindset: “I should have full authority for myself, but my parents should continue to have the responsibility.” I agree with Williams that there is much we parents (I have six, the last one currently an adolescent) can do. I believe not only that we should but that it is our duty as parents to teach those adolescents what it means to be an adult, not just with words but with assigned duties in which they can fail and see the consequences. I’m not talking contrived situations but, like Williams, that includes a job. It also includes the everyday things. Teens should know how to plan a meal and prepare it, how to wash their own clothes, how to change the oil in that car you bought them, how often the oil needs to be changed, how to change a tire, how to sew…
And I limit none of these to a single sex.
Adolescence is here. Unlike Epstein, I don’t think we can make it go away. But we can make it a time for our teens to learn to live on their own and test their limits. That depends on us parents.
January 31st, 2013 | 4:37 pm
Aren’t there studies on the development of boys’ brains? I do think there is something natural about limiting teens’ “freedom”, but also agree that the common culture doesn’t do much to encourage growth. Weren’t boys lying about their ages to enlist in the military early when my grandparents were young? So there’s a balance. For my boys, it will be homeschooling, but largely self-directed, and with some sort of labor outside the home in order to mature at their own pace with loving parental guidance.
January 31st, 2013 | 4:38 pm
We pulled our son out of private school and started homeschooling after first grade because because we thought we had more to offer him than a room full of kids. At 10 he started working for his dad. At 14 he went on a missions trip with our church. He came home with a maturity most twenty-year-olds don’t possess. Ever since he has been pushing us for more independence and responsibility and we have given it to him. At 15 he spent 5 weeks as an intern at an orphanage in Guatemala and got a glowing review. While his peers are playing video games and worrying about girlfriends, he is making a life for himself. Instead of throwing our kids into adolescence and believing there is nothing we can do when they act like adolescents, we should teach them to take charge of their lives and make something of themselves.
January 31st, 2013 | 4:39 pm
(The studies I refer to, IIRC the male brain is not fully developed until sometime between 19 and 25.)
January 31st, 2013 | 5:20 pm
Andy – good point, but does the study address the possibility that the brain is not fully developed because it is being deprived of the stimulus – responsibility – needed for that development?
Also, read somewhere – maybe here at First Things? – that the practice of relatively early marriage – 18,19,20 – had the effect of having each partner mature in relationship while as yet not so fixed as individuals, and that this contributes to stability and bonding and bonding in the marriage. (Note: these would be marriages within a culture that supports them, not teenagers eloping over everybody’s objections).
Bottom line, I don’t know how all this works out, but it’s clear to me that the standard practice of depriving good high school students of virtually all contact with mature adults living in the real outside school – which, given massive amounts of homework and near-mandatory extra-curricular activities is unavoidable – has some bad effects on maturation.
January 31st, 2013 | 5:24 pm
We’ve already moved from aolescence to ‘emerging adulthood,’ a term that is applied to people beyond the age of majority.
February 1st, 2013 | 7:27 am
Homeschoolers have huge advantages over most other young people. Their academic advantages are well known, but you still see a lot of fretting over their so-called lack of socialization. The socialization the authorities think kids should get is the situation Epstein describes — isolation with their own peers away from the world. Most (though not all) of the homeschoolers I have known are far more socialized than most schoolkids. They spend time with people of a wide range of ages and are comfortable with adults; choose activities that interest them even if they’re not considered appropriate for their age; and see themselves as part of the wider world. My homeschooled daughter, at age 12, was the only young person in a reenactment group and went on encampments with them by herself. When she went to high school she was still more mature in her socialization than other kids but she inevitably became involved in the girl dramas and the teenage mentality that surrounded her and was not quite the same person. She quickly recovered at college, however, and intends to homeschool her own children.
Really, parents, the best possible thing you can do for your children is to keep them out of school and let them live in their family and the larger world without the intermediary of that dangerous institution.
February 1st, 2013 | 7:07 pm
Neuhaus left home at age 15 or thereabouts. That was before the Abduction Age and the Super Bowl Sex Traffickers.
February 2nd, 2013 | 7:36 pm
The Superbowl Sex Trafficking is presumably a more recent phenomenon, but child/teen abduction (apart from the issue of abduction by non-custodial parents, which isn’t really relevant to a case like Neuhaus’s) is no more prevalent than it has ever been.
February 5th, 2013 | 12:31 pm
This article struck me as on-topic: http://artofmanliness.com/2013/02/04/dont-waste-your-twenties-part-1-taking-advantage-of-the-unique-powers-of-the-twentysomething-brain/
Thus, there is such a thing as “adolescence” in the brain’s function. However, our society sees not fully mature as a liability and limits what they can do to “protect” them. Whereas, their still maturing brains give them the ability to strive for things in a way that is no longer possible once fully matured. They have the ability to passionately risk everything for a dream, which is the key to greatness.
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