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What do you disagree with? You just joined me in calling them children. If society shifts such that most 18 year olds act like children, them perhaps 18 is no

by learc83 11y ago

What do you disagree with? You just joined me in calling them children. If society shifts such that most 18 year olds act like children, them perhaps 18 is no longer the appropriate age to consider someone an adult. I'm not arguing that this is a good or bad thing, but childhood has been lengthened before and it appears to be happening again. There's nothing magic about 18, it's a function of the culture and if the culture changes... >What does it even mean to be an adult? Most definitions of adult say something like: an adult is someone who is independent, self sufficient, and responsible for their own actions. Now obviously being an adult (in the social sense) is more of a spectrum than a binary distinction, and those attributes I listed are more goals than hard requirements.

striking 11y ago
You blame an external boogeyman you call "society" for the sins of the individual parents. I do not. Just because many coddle their kin doesn't mean all of society does. Not all kids should be treated as if they were once coddled.
- learc83 11y ago
  >You blame an external boogeyman you call "society" for the sins of the individual parents. I do not. Society is just the action of individuals in the aggregate. What determines the age at which we consider someone an adult? The answer is cultural norms. My argument is that the trend to treat 18-year-olds as children is growing to the point where more of them act like children than adults. >Just because many coddle their kin doesn't mean all of society does. Not all kids should be treated as if they were once coddled. There are 16-year-old kids who can act as capable adults, but the vast majority can't, so we consider them children. 300 years ago this wasn't the case--society changed and the length of childhood increased. If society changes like this again (and I think it is) the length of childhood will again increase, regardless of whether some 18-year-old kids are capable of acting like adults. Again, it's happened before. Societal shifts are made up of individual changes like parents "coddling" their children. I'm sure that 200 years ago many people considered not sending 14-year-old kids to work was "coddling".

by learc83 11y ago

striking 11y ago

You blame an external boogeyman you call "society" for the sins of the individual parents. I do not. Just because many coddle their kin doesn't mean all of society does. Not all kids should be treated as if they were once coddled.

learc83 11y ago
>You blame an external boogeyman you call "society" for the sins of the individual parents. I do not. Society is just the action of individuals in the aggregate. What determines the age at which we consider someone an adult? The answer is cultural norms. My argument is that the trend to treat 18-year-olds as children is growing to the point where more of them act like children than adults. >Just because many coddle their kin doesn't mean all of society does. Not all kids should be treated as if they were once coddled. There are 16-year-old kids who can act as capable adults, but the vast majority can't, so we consider them children. 300 years ago this wasn't the case--society changed and the length of childhood increased. If society changes like this again (and I think it is) the length of childhood will again increase, regardless of whether some 18-year-old kids are capable of acting like adults. Again, it's happened before. Societal shifts are made up of individual changes like parents "coddling" their children. I'm sure that 200 years ago many people considered not sending 14-year-old kids to work was "coddling".