On the subject of adolescence a couple of stories recently in The Mountain Press. One, we have Miley Cyrus, I believe she is 15 years old, embarrassed over photographs she had taken of her by a professional photographer. Photographs approved by her parents. Photographs that have been called “risqué.” Second, we have a singing group, the Naked Brothers, 10 and 13 years old respectively appearing at Wal-Mart promoting their latest DVD “I Don’t Want to Go to School.”
Miley appears on the Disney Channel and the Naked Brothers appear on the Nicolodean channel. Both considered to be “kid friendly and family oriented.” Not so recently we have Jamie Spears, 16-years old, unmarried, pregnant on the Nicolodean channel's most popular show.
The world has changed. The transition between childhood and adulthood is much longer today than it was less than one hundred years ago, when a boy proved himself a man when he could shoulder and share adult hardships, risks, and responsibility working side by side with his father in the fields. By the time he was a seasoned seventeen or eighteen, he was ready to start his own family. A girl became a woman by the time she reached childbearing age; fourteen or fifteen was often considered old enough to marry. The transition from childhood to adulthood was so short that adolescence---at least as the distinct stage of life we now consider it---hardly existed.
Today the traditional determinations of adulthood---the establishment of occupation and family---are routinely postponed until after college. With the period of childhood innocence seeming shorter and shorter, we’ve created a new ten-or-twelve-or-more-years-long designation, a no-man’s land (or no-woman’s land) we term adolescence. Over the past fifty-years or so, this new limbo-land life stage has become an extended period of awkward uncertainty.
We have stretched adolescence further than anytime in history. Any child of any age, with the click of a mouse, can see naked people performing sexual activities of all persuasions, “meet” complete strangers while in their own homes while their parents cross their fingers and hope for the best.
Imagine how it will be for our great-grandchildren.
Miley appears on the Disney Channel and the Naked Brothers appear on the Nicolodean channel. Both considered to be “kid friendly and family oriented.” Not so recently we have Jamie Spears, 16-years old, unmarried, pregnant on the Nicolodean channel's most popular show.
The world has changed. The transition between childhood and adulthood is much longer today than it was less than one hundred years ago, when a boy proved himself a man when he could shoulder and share adult hardships, risks, and responsibility working side by side with his father in the fields. By the time he was a seasoned seventeen or eighteen, he was ready to start his own family. A girl became a woman by the time she reached childbearing age; fourteen or fifteen was often considered old enough to marry. The transition from childhood to adulthood was so short that adolescence---at least as the distinct stage of life we now consider it---hardly existed.
Today the traditional determinations of adulthood---the establishment of occupation and family---are routinely postponed until after college. With the period of childhood innocence seeming shorter and shorter, we’ve created a new ten-or-twelve-or-more-years-long designation, a no-man’s land (or no-woman’s land) we term adolescence. Over the past fifty-years or so, this new limbo-land life stage has become an extended period of awkward uncertainty.
We have stretched adolescence further than anytime in history. Any child of any age, with the click of a mouse, can see naked people performing sexual activities of all persuasions, “meet” complete strangers while in their own homes while their parents cross their fingers and hope for the best.
Imagine how it will be for our great-grandchildren.
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