Recently the topic of teenagers, and how awful they are, came up in a Twitter conversation I involved myself in. While I’ve mentioned the topic in the past, I thought I’d write a bit more on them here.
Adolescence is a modern invention/perversion. Until about the 1800s or so, a person of about the age 13 was considered an adult. Since about that time, better nutrition has led to puberty occurring earlier (in the 1800s it occurred at about 15-16, it now occurs at about 12-13), but at the same time independence has also decreased. A teenager is a biological adult. (Mentally, a person continues maturing until sometime in their mid-20s).
The problem of rebellious or destructive teenagers is not a fault of the teenagers, but rather a fault of society. A teenager is an adult being treated as a child. A 14-year-old should be learning independence and self-sufficiency by going out into the world on his own (on an apprenticeship, to college, to his own shack on the family farm, etc.) and should be looking for a wife shortly therefore after. Instead, in our modern world teenagers live under the dominion of their parents as a child.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24 ESV)
Of course teenagers rebel, any adult treated as child will rebel against being infantilized. They lash out because they know at some level that their parents having dominion over them is wrong, because an adult still under their parents is against the natural order. It is not teenagers that are the problem, it is the parents and the society.
Now of course, teenagers are not always going to make the best decisions because they are new at being adults and are learning the basics of adulthood, but in our current order, instead of learning about adulthood at age 15 so they are responsible adults by their 20s, people are now making the same failings in their early-20s and sometimes even their late-20s/early-30s, so your average person is not a responsible adult until their 30s.
Despite this, most modern teenagers would probably break is left on their own. This is, again, not the fault of the teenagers, but most children nowadays are so thoroughly over-protected and over-controlled by their parents and infantilized by the school system that they have never been learning the kinds of independence a healthy adult needs.
Children nowadays are being raised to learn a horrible combination of lack of freedom and lack of discipline. A child learning both will be the most self-actualized and most successful. A child with freedom but no discipline will generally pick up some level of discipline through trial and error, and a child of of discipline but no freedom will usually be able to survive although possibly not thrive, but one with neither will drown.
Ideally, we should start training our children to become adults when they should do so, in their mid-teens.
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This is not going to happen on a society wide scale because infantalized adults are useful for the long march.
Adolescence gives the public school system an extra 4-6 years (8-12 extra if he goes to university) to condition a person to the docility and obedience necessary to get a man to be willing to work in a cubicle or factory for 3-4 decades of his life. It conditions a man to accept schooling and academics as being the primary measures of worth, so that he is willing to feed his mind, time, and money into the progressive college system. It prevents early family formation and helps keep the squeeze on the family so the state can continue to interject itself. It conditions dependence and a slave mentality in a man so he is more likely to see dependence on the state as normal. Adolescence is just another case of how its all related; the long march continues.
I’m assuming you’ve seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? but it’s an amazing film under the microscope about how these kids are being forced to make the same mistakes as their parents in a red-pill situation. The Day Off is metaphorical for escaping it just for that moment. At one point Ferris asks the exact same questions you do, why not get married and do it differently? His mate gives the answer, “look at my parents, that’s why you don’t get married”. But the undercurrent of the film is actually quite sad, since Ferris for all his talent cannot escape it. He doesn’t know why he has to go to College/University and what he will do there, he just understands that it is the done thing. Hope to make a review of it soon.
To add, you’ll notice all the great melodramas of the 1950s, Splendor in the Grass, Rebel Without a Cause, Blue Denim all highlighted these issues of teenagers wanting to be adults but not being allowed to, but by the 1970s and 1980s they seem to worship teen culture. Money to be made.
Somewhat relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKUZ42T9diU
@Free northerner
”Ideally, we should start training our children to become adults when they should do so, in their mid-teens.”
I believe the age of 12 is when they should be being mentored and trained at being an adult. Such is the age of ancestral puberty rites of passage that occurred for young men and women at such ages when they transition from childhood to adulthood.
What do you think?
Another case for homeschooling and the reintroduction of rites of passage.
@infowarrior: Beat me to it. I’d say that rites of passage should come in two forms. The ones based on skills and the ones based on age.
The former can be attempted by any child of any age as many times as is needed, almost like a scout badge. They would be based around practical skills, useful knowledge and engaging in meaningful activities. Thus, a 5 year old may have a woodworking “badge” that a fifteen year old does not, but the fifteen year old should have a much larger badge total than the five year old.
The latter would be stages of life where they would be told what their next stage means and undergo a make-or-break challenge that is surpassable, but stressing. For example, a 6-7 year old would be explained how they are becoming freer and more socially aware and would involve a degree of social education (so they know what to expect of others their age) to prepare them for the next stage in their life, where social powers are strong and loud. The challenge would be spending a few weeks actively engaged in a social group. Or a 12-13 year old would be explained how their bodies are changing, how risk-taking is going to control their brain, how they will shortly want to be independent. They will by then possess the skills to make it on their own. The ritual would be something akin to survivalism, where their emotional maturity and skills are put to the challenge. The parents’ goal is to make sure that by the time the children reach the agreed-upon target-age, they possess all the skills required to pass the challenge.
Though they lock down young people because “their brains are still developing” they decline to note that once the brain stops developing it begins to decline.
At the age of 12 all “primitive” cultures put boys through rites of passage – away from the mother and introduced to the world of men – and after that they were men. These days you can’t get away from the Mother – that’s what feminism is, which has infected almost everything. And feminism, being leftist, always destroys, BTW, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn described Leftism as the attempt to “overthrow the Father.”
While I agree with your characterization of the problems of present-day adolescence FN, I should point out that not all cultures treated 13 year-olds as adults. In fact, in England for many, many centuries, the age of majority was 21 (not 18). This principal was also present in the US for a long time as well, only ending in the previous century.
FN, have you raised several children to adulthood?
I’ve noticed this getting worse, even during my lifetime. Both in college dorms and the army, the number of rules imposed on people are increasing, with each screw-up used as justification for the rules. Of course, the screw-ups become more dire as people have less and less experience making mistakes, and the result is infantilized adults.
Thank you, FN, for the link to a study I find highly interesting. Social stress contributing to earlier puberty? Again, highly interesting….
Adolescence is real but in the past people didn’t have the luxury of acknowledging it. They needed the kids to get to work ASAP as a matter of economic necessity.
The average 16 y/o today is not mentally equipped to live independently. This is not really their fault though. Our K-12 system is outdated and is failing our kids. There needs to be more emphasis on civics, economics/home economics, personal finance, and health science. College prep would still be an option but all students would be equipped with basic life skills.
With that kind of education we could consider them adults upon graduation. Ambitious students could take an accelerated track and graduate sooner. The idea that it takes 13 years to educate a student seems a bit ridiculous to me.
All this has been planned. Read John Taylor Gatto’s works to understand why.
Free northerner, are you afraid of open debate? You never got back to me in the other comments section.
@ donalgraeme: You don’t really present a counterpoint since if you look at American and English history you still find adolescent boys beginning their apprenticeships and teenage girls marrying. Being treated as an adult is more of a deciding factor than what a piece of legislation says
@donalgraeme
The legal age for majority is not the same thing as the social acceptance of adulthood. It could come even earlier. Take, for instance, the early career of Admiral Farragut:
“Through the influence of his adoptive father, Farragut was commissioned a midshipman in the United States Navy on December 17, 1810, at the age of nine. A prize master by the age of 12, Farragut fought in the War of 1812, serving under Captain David Porter. While serving aboard USS Essex, Farragut participated in the capture of HMS Alert on August 13, 1812, then helped to establish America’s first naval base and colony in the Pacific, named Madisonville, during the ill-fated Nuku Hiva Campaign. […]. Farragut was 12 years old when, during the War of 1812, he was given the assignment to bring a ship captured by the Essex safely to port. He was wounded and captured while serving on the Essex during the engagement at Valparaiso Bay, Chile, against the British on March 28, 1814” (from the Wiki).
“Modern Gamer” If you used a degree of reading comprehension, you’d see that F.N. does get on Twitter a lot, perhaps you should try there.
On the topic of this post, I believe that “Jim” wrote about how teenagers would be given over to another family to live with them for several years of training so that the parents wouldn’t coddle them and the hosting family would push the teenager harder, thus building the individual’s character. Similarly, private boarding schools became popular in the 1800s until the Devil’s Decade (1960s). Likely, those two solutions would be for middle and upper class families. However, for lower class families and their teenagers, the apprenticing situation, along with a lot more corporal punishment for any laziness, would be the solution instead of leaving home.
Any of these would be much more sensible than the path that F.N. writes about in this article.
A.J.P.
There is another condition related to social stress earlier in life: psychosocial dwarfism. Apparently, neglectful parents are to blame.
^
“…to be blamed.”
@ donal: What Al and TanS said. Adulthood and legislated age of majority not necessarily the same.
@ MG: Both rude and impatient. I have a life outside this blog and answer comments when I can get around to it. I probably shouldn’t respond, but will, check that thread.
We should go back to having college start at 14 normally (for those who ought to take that path, at least), with some adult colleges available for those who learned a trade or some other labor first and desire change. Some modern innovations in these areas are merely results of the industrial revolution, and I personally have no desire to see the industrial revolution overturned. We simply do not have the room in middle class properties to have children move into their own space at the age of 14, nor is it very realistic to expect them to pay for their own housing, considering they used to be simply handed their own space on the farm.
Allowing people to get to work earlier and start building for full independence should increase long term prosperity as well. People will be able to save up money while they are still young and supported by their parents. Right now, the best a high schooler can hope for is a part time minimum wage job, and then to get into massive debt going to college. Such is hardly conducive to savings and prosperity just from a basic economic perspective, let alone the fact that it is damaging to the traditional family and helps feed the narrative that sexual sin is some kind of inevitability.
And I never argued that it was. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough in my original comment. What i was trying to say is that even in the past you weren’t a full adult, with all your adult rights, until 21 in England and the US. There was still a gradient or timeline to becoming an adult. I wanted to make that distinction clear- that becoming an adult is a process, not a single point in time.
@Free Northerner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70B5tlc4_uo
Aurini’s take 30 minute mark.
@donalgraeme
He agrees:
”A teenager is a biological adult. (Mentally, a person continues maturing until sometime in their mid-20s).”
FN,
One issue you largely avoided is the difference between teenaged males and females. Because the contributions to creating a successful family are different for each sex, it seems to me that they shouldn’t be treated the same or have the same expectations at the same ages.
Although all teenagers, male or female, should be given adult tasks within the home or outside of it, a teenaged female’s ability to be a mother is probably not helped all that much by waiting until she is 25. However, a provider male’s ability would be.
Regardless, I thank you for pointing out that adolescence is a marketing ploy.
The irony here is that teenagers are being infantilized for longer periods of time yet they are also being sexualized at much younger ages. This creates an interesting dynamic where they are making adult decisions i.e. sexual intercourse but they are resolved of responsibility i.e. welfare (and often celebrated as being heroic) when giving birth to illegitimate children.
Great post, linked your article here at my place.
Totally right on article. In your article on pedos though, there is nothing wrong with being a hebophile and finding 12 to 14 year olds attractive. In fact, according to scientific studies, men prefer the faces of 12 to 14 year olds over any other age group. You sound like you’ve read Dr. Robert Epstein’s Teen 2.0. If you haven’t, then you really need to check it out. Even according to the Bible, Paul makes it clear that there are only children and adults. God did not create adolescence…..man did.
‘Childhood versus adulthood’ does not depend on biological development. Next time, try learning neurology. “Teenagers” are rebellious because people tell them to be that way. They are given examples in the media of what a “teenager” should be feeling or acting as. Childhood depends on whether or not the brain is fully developed and matured until 25, which is why these ‘adults treated as children’ are so immature and unable to handle situations with dignity and grace.
Your argument that we should not “coddle” them is flawed in a similar manner. Children, even between the ages of 13-17, are not ready to be exposed to what adulthood “is,” hence people developing mental issues later in life due to not being treated properly for their age. Neglecting the older child’s need to play, explore, live carefree, and lean on their parents for certain things inhibits their feeling of security and may cause symptoms of childhood neglect later in life.
To reiterate/rephrase, emotional regulation is not mature until actual adulthood, a time period in which handling pressure would be more appropriate. “Teenagers” are still in a fragile mental state, much like younger children, and it is NOT the consequence of the parents’ own decisions in this case. It’s basic neurology. If you would be open-minded enough to do some research, you would find that thrusting adulthood responsibilities onto children causes stress and problems later in life.
And no, the brain does not begin to decline until about the age of 40-years-old; when it loses volume. It decline even more so around the age of 70, although that does not render someone incapable of functioning in adult society anymore, because one in their senior years has still had the experience of their mental “prime,” and may continue to display the maturity and functionality of the younger adult.
Additionally, this claim that these children are adults is problematic due to the amount of pedophiles using this to their legal advantage: preying on the older child in hopes of others, others much like you, finding it acceptable. While they may have sexual thoughts and desires, sexual intercourse and relationships are damaging to the psyche at such a young age.
Just because children are able to become pregnant and/or impregnate doesn’t mean that a child is ready to accept the responsibilities of parenthood and raising a fellow child; nor are they physically ready to give birth, as there is a certain medical risk of older children giving birth and possibly suffering possibly fatal injuries or consequences such as death during birth.
Madeline is overthinking this and doesn’t know the difference between childhood between birth and puberty and the adolescent strange. Do your research goodness gracious.