Last night I was again writing about differences between younger and older generations in the workplace, and I put a lot of it down to experience, with the experiences of the older generations when they were young, very different to the experiences of those who are young in the workplace currently. In another forty years, it is going to be interesting to see what differences between the age groups will exist, and how the "new boomers" will interpret their own youth.
But something I find interesting with a lot of the arguments I have heard over the years from people defending the young of today, surrounds the conditions they have faced and how they are hard done by. Yet while I believe that they need to "grow up" and take responsibility for their experience, they believe that they are entitled to doing what they want, which also meansnot taking responsibility. And they are right, they can do what they want, but as the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it to. Which means in this context that you can't have all the benefits of responsibility, without taking responsibility.
So, when is it time?
Throughout history, the "coming of age" time has been extended further and further, which in many ways has been a good thing, as children in most areas aren't forced to work, get married, have children very young and such. But over the last fifty or so years, the childhood transition into adulthood time has been extended a great deal. Now, the "only young once" attitude is extending well into the thirties for many people, who are still "finding themselves" yet insist that they know exactly what this life thing is all about - which happens to be only the things they want to spend their time on and enjoy doing.
Childhood privilege?
It is good that children can be children in many circumstances, but it should also be remembered that the point of childhood is to learn how to be an adult. But if none of the activities support learning the skills and behaviours of adulthood, the children won't mature. Yes, they will age physically and look like adults, but if they do not hold the skills of an adult and do not behave like an adult, and have no adult responsibilities, are they adults?
I have often read stories of violent crimes where the perpetrator was not held responsible for their actions because they had a very low IQ and the maturity of a child. It didn't mean they were allowed back on the streets, but they were locked away in some kind of psychiatric ward, not a prison. And I think that this might be somewhat of a case study for young people of today, because if they haven't matured, they can't be held responsible for their actions, but it also means that they can't hold positions of responsibility that require the skills of an adult.
There have been many stories written and movies made about post-apocalyptic worlds, and one of the points of sadness is that the children invariably have to mature beyond their years, because they firstly don't get to be children playing games with no worries, but they are also exposed to various horrors and are required to take responsibility for tasks beyond what would be expected of them in the normal world. But, we are in the opposite of a post-apocalyptic world when it comes to how many children are raised today, where they have lessening amounts of responsibility, and increasing amounts of playtime. They also get what they want on-demand when they want it, and there is a lot of convenience in the home and outside that means they don't have to take responsibility or even remember much for themselves. Rather than being exposed to the horrors of the world, they are increasingly surrounded by the comforts.
Spoiled?
For sure. But perhaps this is the way humanity should be, where none of us need grow up and we can spend our time doing exactly what we want, when we want it, and do nothing of what we don't want to do. The problem with this is, the conditions we have do not create nor sustain that kind of living. Unfortunately, things need to be done that no one really wants to do, but in order to make the current conditions somewhat work, someone has to do them. Someone has to take responsibility. But it is also often that these jobs that no one wants to do but must be done, are also poorly paid, like nursing, or emptying bins. Which is why the privileged in many western countries don't do these jobs, they import foreign labour to do it. And that foreign labour tends to know what bad conditions actually look like in the current world, so take responsibility for themselves and do what they need to do, not what they want to do. And often, what they want to do is out of their reach, because the privileged do not want them to do those kinds of jobs anyway - the kind that have some meaning and purpose and a decent salary.
Childhood is a privilege.
But childhood privilege has to come to an end for each of us, otherwise we never progress through all the stages of life. Yes, our body might, but the longer we are holding onto our childhood experience, the more we are limiting our adult experience. But to make the transition across the gap, we have to accept that we need to take on more responsibility and extend our mindset and behaviours to include other people. A child doesn't have to take responsibility for the home like a parent having to pay mortgages and repair broken hot water systems, but they can start learning many of the skills that support it in the future. Similarly though, an adult can't avoid taking responsibility for the community in which they live and benefit from. They have to participate and return value to the system, so that the next generation of children can be children, but learn the skills to add value to the community in the future.
We often talk about education systems as something the government provides, but all of our experience is educational. The quality of the education depends on what we are exposed to, how we interpret and deal with it, and what kinds of support we get to help us close gaps in our skills and understanding when we need it. Every day, no matter whether young or old, we are part of an education system, even though the majority of it is informal and comes with no certification.
But, it does come with qualifications.
While everyone is looking to be free, they also might want to understand what qualification actually means; restriction, limitation, modification. It is about quality. Where quality is about the conditions of something in comparison to something else. It is exclusionary. Our education builds skills that tailor us for certain tasks and will also make us less suitable for other tasks. If our education doesn't prepare us for what we need to do in our lives, our education system has failed.
And I believe it is failing us today, because our experiences are not building strong, robust, healthy, skilled people who are able to take responsibility for what needs to be done, and do it. Instead, it is making us softer, more fragile, and less capable to solve the problems we face now, and those that will arise in the future.
When is it time to learn what we need to know?
Taraz
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