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Devil's advocate mode: Extending childhood is related to spending a lot of time preparing children to do things other than what they grow up with. This is nec
by tenebrisalietum 7y ago
Devil's advocate mode:
Extending childhood is related to spending a lot of time
preparing children to do things other than what they grow up with. This is necessary for a resilient society that is something more than a collection of family farms and for social mobility.
This extended "training time" is less necessary if A) you live in a preindustrialized society where you aren't expected to spend a significant amount of your life working for an employer, and B) all you are going to do is what your parents are doing on the same property they live on.
- threwawasy1228 7y agoThis was my initial thought as well. While farmwork and other aspects of rural living is wildly complex, when you have everything pre-setup for you it is easy to learn everything you need to know from an early age. OTOH, when your modern parents leave you with no setup direction for you to follow, and you have to invent your own direction, it takes much more time to build toward that. Imagine a kid living in the suburbs that wants to do this sort of independent farmwork and self sustaining life from scratch without family support, vs a the child of a farmer.