American culture inhibits our children’s ability to grow up simply by constantly reinforcing the belief in our children that they’re not grown up.
In Europe you can buy cigarettes when you’re 16 years old. You can buy alcohol when you’re 18, but neither of these laws are strictly enforced. So by the age of 18 Europeans are legally adults. Two things happen when you tell a person they’re an adult (even if you do it indirectly such as the laws in Europe have done). One, you stop feeling inferior, and your confidence goes up. Two, you cease to adhere to the self fulfilling prophecy that you are a child and should act like a child and start adhering to the self fulfilling prophecy that you are mature and should act mature.
In America you can’t buy cigarettes until you’re 18. You can’t buy alcohol until you’re 21. You can’t get a job until you’re 16. Technically it’s illegal to get fucked until you’re 18 (or was it 17?), and you can’t vote until you’re 18. American’s tell their children that they are children (and thus should act like children) until they’re 21.
In some ancient Native American cultures kids would go through a coming of age ceremony as early as 12 or 14, after which they were considered adults. They were treated like adults, and they lived up to the expectation that they were adults. 100 years ago white American culture was similar, though a little vaguer. One of my grandma’s told me about how she was working on her family’s farm from the time she was a little girl. She was actively playing a role in the ensuring the survival of her family from the time she was little. She was playing an adult role, and as a result I’m sure she developed an inner sense of maturity from an earlier age than kids today. Kids in America today can’t get a legal job until they’re 16. Even then, that’s not a real job. If you do help support your family at 16 you’ll undoubtedly grow more as a result of that job than if you’re just working for extra play money while your parents pay for your living expenses.
How much playing do you think my grandmother did at 14 or a Native American (several hundred years ago) did? Probably not much. Today parents buy their children video games, skateboards, swimming pools, televisions, dvd players, and a bazillion other forms of entertainment. And in buying your 14 year old all these toys you are telling him/her that he/she is still a child, because everyone knows only children play with toys. Even Jesus said something to the effect of “When I grew up I put away childish things.” And that’s what we teach our kids, but we still shower them with “childish things” all the way into adulthood. Guess what the consequence of this is. You will be what you’re raised to be. If you’ve been raised to be a child until you’re 21 (if that’s all you’ve even known) then guess what? That’s who you’re going to be. If you’ve been raised to be a child all the way up until adulthood then you’re going to be a child in adulthood. If you’ve been raised to be an adult since childhood then you’ll be an adult in adulthood.
The point of the story isn’t to say that American children are spoiled, whiney bitches. There are actually two other points to all this, or rather two messages: one for children and one for the older generations.
To any Americans under 21: The limits your elders place on you hinders your ability to believe you are mature and thus your ability to act that way, and your elders are being hypocritical when they tell you to grow up. However, despite the fact that you’re a victim of this self fulfilling prophecy of inadequacy, you might be able to overcome it as long as you know that it’s happening…but probably not.
To the older generation: Don’t be surprised when you’re children grow up to be adults and still seem to act like children. That’s how you raised them. But don’t feel too bad about it, because the corruption of the youth isn’t entirely you’re fault. That’s the way the post industrial era world we live in works. Your children can’t work when they’re young, because they have to go to school to get decent jobs later. The system is designed to spoil them (while at the same time giving them low self-esteem). But that’s not the only side effect of raising your children in La La Land. Your parents lived by the sweat of their brows their entire lives, and their personalities probably reflect that. They’re probably not all that animated or happy-go-lucky. You might even use the word, “stuffy.” Or in some cases, “cantankerous old douche bag.” Your children probably are animated. We tend to equate a stifling lack of exuberance with maturity and visible happiness and energy with immaturity. That’s fucking stupid. Just because your kids are animate and happy-go-lucky doesn’t mean they’re immature. In fact, they’re attitude probably stems from a set of life skills that allows them to enjoy life more than your parents did and maybe even you. Is that so immature?
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