When I was 14 kids could leave school at 14 and take up a full time job or apprenticeship and most did. They worked and mixed with adults, were expected to behave like adults most of the time while working and socialising
At the age of 16 they could get married and most of them did before 20 and started a family.
The reason this worked was because their life had been that of an adult for the previous 6 years and their brains had developed accordingly
The prolonged modern adolescence where ther is no real adult to adult interaction has resulted in a situation where the courts will accept that their frontal lobes are not fully mature at 26
You're right, this century is going to belong to the Asian societies that have real expectations of their children
Interesting that it's perceived as young at 26 to be taking and managing that level of responsibility, but preteens and teens can make decisions to take harmful chemicals and surgically alter their bodies, often causing lifelong mental and physical distress.
With two boys in their late 20s your column certainly hits home, Ani. The screen addiction was so hard to deal with. All kids are different, some confident, some are sensitive. Just demanding they pull themselves up by the boot traps is not the answer. If they’re vulnerable you don’t want them to leave home, reject parents, and end up in dodgy situations where they are unable to cope. Meth, suicide, it’s all frightening. There’s so much weird stuff going on out there, media is so powerful now, school teachers tell them gender is a choice. I think parents need help more than ever to understand what their kids are dealing with. At the end of the day the most important thing is to keep talking, keep the lines of communication open, and not be judgemental. If they want to pop off to Europe, buy the ticket!
A timely and cogent opinion Ani. There is a very coddled generation out there that has been brought up to expect delayed adult responsibility and accountability. I believe many judicial decisions have had a bearing on this.
Goodness Ani, $7.50 per hour. My after school job at the local chemist earned me 2 shillings for about 2 and half hours per day. The independence and ownership of life was priceless - all at 12 y.o.
Same here. Bottle shop after school in the early 70s. I managed to buy a car and a stereo with ridiculous speakers — my pride and joy.
I remember telling Mum, “It’s my money — I’ll do what I want.” I can still see her rolling her eyes and going, “Fine. Then I should charge you for food.” 😄 - she never did - oof!
As a teenager I worked in a shearing gang when the work was available. Very good money (especially for a girl) . . . but I can just see today's snowflakes balking at getting up to start at 5am in the shed.
I cant recall what the reaction was to the Student Army after the Chch earthquakes. But they would probably have been younger than this. Some people are born to do these things and the 26 yo probably would have done it even younger if the problems occurred a few years ago.
The Student Army was very positively received at the time of the Christchurch earthquakes and the people they helped (many senior citizens) were very grateful.
The same people who claim they should have the right to vote at 16 as they are mature then gladly claim diminished responsibility through being under 18 in a court of law. You can't have it both ways. Adulthood means having rights and responsibilities to go along with privileges. I think it was 3M management who said people perform to the minimum level of your expectation of them. We set the bar too low at our own peril.
Such a great piece of writing - I’d think of something and a paragraph later you’d mention it!
The comments are full of experiences like mine - bought my first 10speed bike at 13 from working a paper run - my parents were working class and neither had tertiary education - so I won a scholarship and lived off $10 interest per month (early 80s)
Had two kids - had built a house (in Ohope) and then migrated to OZ by 23. Such a different world. Raised my kids fairly similar - my daughter was earning a decent adult wage at 19 and has lived in London Vancouver and Sydney…no kids - now 40….
Something is wrong with the concept of being “young” at 26 - but you summarised it brilliantly.
We are witnessing the death of the West - birth rates for sure - but also our lack of self responsibility and ability to exercise common sense and work hard…
Kids worked in factories during the Industrial Revolution - made a life for themselves - now Chloe wants to cast them all as victims and freaks out about slugs in the bathroom…
Shockingly I have a brother in law who lives with his 92 year old mother who still does all his washing and cooks his meals. He has a definite personality disorder and finds simple daily relationships with others difficult. I doubt he will function as an adult human being when she passes away. A complete waste of a life.
Reminds me of that Beckham documentary on Netflix where Victoria Beckham was criticising the way the team manager treated David. She referred to David as being in his early 20s and a "child" at the time. There may have been a power imbalance but David was being paid millions to play football, had a partner and a baby. Bizarre that she saw him as a "child" at that time looking back.
Current neuroscience says the brain is fully mature at 25. Interestingly the ancient Greeks did not consider a man old enough for full responsibilities until the age of 30. Women of course were never considered to be adults.
That's interesting about the Ancient Greeks, Chris! They have been proven partially right in recent neurological studies: males' prefrontal cortices do not mature until around 25 and some not until 30. Female brains, however, mature around 20, so the Greeks got that bit wrong.
But, anyway, the Ancient Greeks were misogynists of the first order.
I much prefer the Ancient Minoan civilisation, where women were equally respected and powerful. That was probably why the Greeks destroyed that civilisation after the Minoans were weakened by the eruption of Thera and the devastating tsunami in Crete. The Ancient Greeks couldn't bear allowing women to thrive. Then they blackened the name of the Minoans by making up the Minotaur myth. Peevish!
Interesting piece — and a slightly depressing marker of where we’ve got to.
I did Europe at 20 for a year, paid for by working around uni. Mum thought I’d vanish. I turned up home a year later and Dad’s response was basically: “Good to see you. What’s next?” By the way — I arrived home before the two postcards I’d written even turned up.
Now I’m away and I’m calling home constantly — to my wife.
I’ve got a 35-year-old son who’s travelling all over India and the Asia–Pacific (admittedly for work). I’m not calling him every five minutes, but I am constantly checking in my head, quietly hoping he tells us what he’s up to. Part of it is curiosity — wanting to hear what he’s seeing and doing. Part of it is quieter: I’m worried.
I reckon this is the kind of conversation you have after a couple of wines (not too many).
Maybe it's because we are living longer that there's no hurry to shed adolescence until a bit later in life. At 18 the government considered me old enough to do national service and be trained to fight a war which thankfully never arrived. My grandfather was milking cows at 12 and 21 when he went to Europe to participate in WW1. A great uncle was killed in WW1 aged 19!
Exactly. And hours, days,and months playing games on computers and endlessly watching videos. Can they ever recover their misspent younger days?
When I was 14 kids could leave school at 14 and take up a full time job or apprenticeship and most did. They worked and mixed with adults, were expected to behave like adults most of the time while working and socialising
At the age of 16 they could get married and most of them did before 20 and started a family.
The reason this worked was because their life had been that of an adult for the previous 6 years and their brains had developed accordingly
The prolonged modern adolescence where ther is no real adult to adult interaction has resulted in a situation where the courts will accept that their frontal lobes are not fully mature at 26
You're right, this century is going to belong to the Asian societies that have real expectations of their children
Interesting that it's perceived as young at 26 to be taking and managing that level of responsibility, but preteens and teens can make decisions to take harmful chemicals and surgically alter their bodies, often causing lifelong mental and physical distress.
With two boys in their late 20s your column certainly hits home, Ani. The screen addiction was so hard to deal with. All kids are different, some confident, some are sensitive. Just demanding they pull themselves up by the boot traps is not the answer. If they’re vulnerable you don’t want them to leave home, reject parents, and end up in dodgy situations where they are unable to cope. Meth, suicide, it’s all frightening. There’s so much weird stuff going on out there, media is so powerful now, school teachers tell them gender is a choice. I think parents need help more than ever to understand what their kids are dealing with. At the end of the day the most important thing is to keep talking, keep the lines of communication open, and not be judgemental. If they want to pop off to Europe, buy the ticket!
A timely and cogent opinion Ani. There is a very coddled generation out there that has been brought up to expect delayed adult responsibility and accountability. I believe many judicial decisions have had a bearing on this.
Goodness Ani, $7.50 per hour. My after school job at the local chemist earned me 2 shillings for about 2 and half hours per day. The independence and ownership of life was priceless - all at 12 y.o.
Same here. Bottle shop after school in the early 70s. I managed to buy a car and a stereo with ridiculous speakers — my pride and joy.
I remember telling Mum, “It’s my money — I’ll do what I want.” I can still see her rolling her eyes and going, “Fine. Then I should charge you for food.” 😄 - she never did - oof!
Careful boys. You're starting to sound like "The Four Yorkshiremen."
😂 Guilty. Next I’ll be telling you we walked to school uphill both ways.
i was thinking the same..lol
As a teenager I worked in a shearing gang when the work was available. Very good money (especially for a girl) . . . but I can just see today's snowflakes balking at getting up to start at 5am in the shed.
I cant recall what the reaction was to the Student Army after the Chch earthquakes. But they would probably have been younger than this. Some people are born to do these things and the 26 yo probably would have done it even younger if the problems occurred a few years ago.
The Student Army was very positively received at the time of the Christchurch earthquakes and the people they helped (many senior citizens) were very grateful.
By age 26 my dad had fought in WW2, came back home damaged, but owned his farm by that time, had married and started a family , 1st of 6 children.
By age 22 I owned my farm had married and a child on the way.
Why is this 26 year old so special?
My father-in-law, Harry Snelling (RIP), was just 18 when he captained a landing-craft at the D-Day landings in 1944.
wow! what a family history. what those young men endured and achieved was remarkable.
The same people who claim they should have the right to vote at 16 as they are mature then gladly claim diminished responsibility through being under 18 in a court of law. You can't have it both ways. Adulthood means having rights and responsibilities to go along with privileges. I think it was 3M management who said people perform to the minimum level of your expectation of them. We set the bar too low at our own peril.
Such a great piece of writing - I’d think of something and a paragraph later you’d mention it!
The comments are full of experiences like mine - bought my first 10speed bike at 13 from working a paper run - my parents were working class and neither had tertiary education - so I won a scholarship and lived off $10 interest per month (early 80s)
Had two kids - had built a house (in Ohope) and then migrated to OZ by 23. Such a different world. Raised my kids fairly similar - my daughter was earning a decent adult wage at 19 and has lived in London Vancouver and Sydney…no kids - now 40….
Something is wrong with the concept of being “young” at 26 - but you summarised it brilliantly.
We are witnessing the death of the West - birth rates for sure - but also our lack of self responsibility and ability to exercise common sense and work hard…
Kids worked in factories during the Industrial Revolution - made a life for themselves - now Chloe wants to cast them all as victims and freaks out about slugs in the bathroom…
In OZ we had scorpions and funnel web spiders…FFS
Shockingly I have a brother in law who lives with his 92 year old mother who still does all his washing and cooks his meals. He has a definite personality disorder and finds simple daily relationships with others difficult. I doubt he will function as an adult human being when she passes away. A complete waste of a life.
Reminds me of that Beckham documentary on Netflix where Victoria Beckham was criticising the way the team manager treated David. She referred to David as being in his early 20s and a "child" at the time. There may have been a power imbalance but David was being paid millions to play football, had a partner and a baby. Bizarre that she saw him as a "child" at that time looking back.
Current neuroscience says the brain is fully mature at 25. Interestingly the ancient Greeks did not consider a man old enough for full responsibilities until the age of 30. Women of course were never considered to be adults.
That's interesting about the Ancient Greeks, Chris! They have been proven partially right in recent neurological studies: males' prefrontal cortices do not mature until around 25 and some not until 30. Female brains, however, mature around 20, so the Greeks got that bit wrong.
But, anyway, the Ancient Greeks were misogynists of the first order.
I much prefer the Ancient Minoan civilisation, where women were equally respected and powerful. That was probably why the Greeks destroyed that civilisation after the Minoans were weakened by the eruption of Thera and the devastating tsunami in Crete. The Ancient Greeks couldn't bear allowing women to thrive. Then they blackened the name of the Minoans by making up the Minotaur myth. Peevish!
Interesting piece — and a slightly depressing marker of where we’ve got to.
I did Europe at 20 for a year, paid for by working around uni. Mum thought I’d vanish. I turned up home a year later and Dad’s response was basically: “Good to see you. What’s next?” By the way — I arrived home before the two postcards I’d written even turned up.
Now I’m away and I’m calling home constantly — to my wife.
I’ve got a 35-year-old son who’s travelling all over India and the Asia–Pacific (admittedly for work). I’m not calling him every five minutes, but I am constantly checking in my head, quietly hoping he tells us what he’s up to. Part of it is curiosity — wanting to hear what he’s seeing and doing. Part of it is quieter: I’m worried.
I reckon this is the kind of conversation you have after a couple of wines (not too many).
Are we safer now… or just more anxious?
Maybe it's because we are living longer that there's no hurry to shed adolescence until a bit later in life. At 18 the government considered me old enough to do national service and be trained to fight a war which thankfully never arrived. My grandfather was milking cows at 12 and 21 when he went to Europe to participate in WW1. A great uncle was killed in WW1 aged 19!
Yes, i remember sobbing my way around all those commonwealth war graves overseas. So many dead teenagers! What a waste! What a crime!