Kids as "young adults"

Townhall.com ^ | December 1, 2009 | Rebecca Hagelin

[jabchae]

Have you talked to any High School kids? The ones with the Pokemon and Hello Kitty toys hanging off their phones?

Western society has engineered ways to keep "adolescents" busy and out of the workforce. In early America teens couldn't count generally count on their parents to subsidize their idleness and carelessness. So, they go on with their (adult) lives--e.g., getting married, going into business, getting diplomatic posts.

Your nine-year old will perhaps be ready for something more substantial by age 14. You seem to be doing a better job with him/her.

[Turbo Pig]

My new theory is that an adult is someone who manages to pay all of his or her own bills for one entire year, while not living in someone else’s house for free. Until then, don’t talk to me about what’s fair or what you deserve.

You, my FRiend, are BRILLIANT!!!!

[MrB]

Courtship is a better plan -

one question - what is the goal of one on one dating?

[netmilsmom]

>>one question - what is the goal of one on one dating?<<

Sex./s/

Seriously, I didn’t “date”. I went out with friends.

My girls will do the same. I like the courtship idea.

[MrB]

You’re absolutely right, at least in the boy’s mind and intentions.

When there’s a courtship, it is recognized up front that the goal is to determine compatibility for marriage, the suitability of the young man for the father’s daughter, and that they are both to arrive at the altar morally pure.

[netmilsmom]

Exactly.

We will approve of the dates right in our own home. They will be alone only in the sense of around the tv with the dog.

A long time ago a FReeper told of how he handled “dates”. The young man was to pick the daughter up from the home livingroom where Dad always seemed to be cleaning his guns.

We have guns too.

[netmilsmom]

Thank you.
We try.

A few years ago, when she was seven, we volunteered to help friends get a house ready to sell. While my girls and I painted the deck, their nephew (nine years old at the time) did nothing but whine that he wasn’t home playing his Xbox.

The parents said nothing. I realized at that point what our job was as parents. Not to make happy kids but rather to make responsible adults.

We went camping with this family during the summer. The kid is now 11 and just as much of a whiner. My girls helped set up and he whined. I’m amazed to this day.

[denfurb]

So true...I hate when people say their pre schoolers have a girlfriend/boyfriend in class

[cvq3842]

Interesting point. thanks.

[Clemenza]

Kids are much ‘younger’ today than they were even in my day (I graduated high school in 1990), and certainly less mature and responsible than in my parents’ day.

All thanks to their stupid parents who baby them into thinking they are still a "kid" until they are past college.

Time to end high school at grade 10 and/or send the young adults to vocational school or college if they want. We used to have young MEN by 15, ready to face the world, now we have babies thanks to the soft, suburban douchebags that have shaped most of our nation's children since the end of WWII.

Someone who is 16 or 17 year old should never be referred to as a "child." It says alot about the state of our society that they are considered so.

[HGSW0904]

Both of my grandfathers fought in WWII, and both of them said they were just scared kids doing as they were told; they loved their country, that was all they knew.

So don’t give me this ‘men at 15’ macho trip. Their brains aren’t done cooking til they are well into their 20’s. I find the notion of a ‘child’ at 16 a bit much, too; but they are still a far cry from adult, young or otherwise. I believe that’s why they coined the term ‘teenager’.