Newt Gingrich: Let's End Adolescence

[Masquerouge]

Have either of those points changed appreciably in the last few millenia?

Yes. They've changed appreciably in the past two centuries, with the advent of medicine.

The thing is, when infant mortality rates were through the roof, people just not cared much about kids. Only after a kid was grown-up enough to prove that he was able to survive infancy did his parents, and society, took note of him or her.
When more than half your kids did before they reach the age of 6, and when you had more than a dozen of then, you simply could not afford to give the same kind of emotional care that we now give our few and healthy kids.

There was an awkward phase in the late 19th century where people still had the old mindset of kids being an expendable resource even though progress made that mindset obsolete and unacceptable, and this is when Dickens and Co. came into play and were able to resonate so much.

Finally, the Romans had a clear-cut (haha, you'll see why in a minute) way of identifying when a boy was an adult: the first shave. Girls obviously do not count, sucks to be a Roman girl

 

[Luckymoose]

I totally agree with what he is saying. We need to get them off the streets and into jobs, while they are not in the classroom. This doesn't mean sweatshops you over exaggerators, they should be able to work at younger ages in places that are less demanding, like say using their ability to type to work in an office or something. I wish I could have worked at 13-14, I could really have used the cash.

Newt 2012.

 

[IglooDame]

So you can buy alcohol by presenting your (presumably not fake) high school diploma? You can sleep with a 14 year old just so long as she has a (presumably not fake) high school diploma? Somehow I don't see Newt going for either of those.

Perhaps not. Is he a mandatory ID card supporter? But anyway, who am I to argue for the consistency of a social/fiscal conservative? All I'm saying is that I think many - probably close to all - children are fundamentally able to participate in society as adults earlier than they're presently expected to do, and it wouldn't be a bad thing to find a way to accomodate that. Sure lifespans have increased so childhood doesn't need to be suppressed for economic survival, but that doesn't mean that it needs to be drawn out for the sake of keeping them out of the workforce longer.

 

[Luckymoose]

This has nothing to do with having sex with minors...

 

[Shekwan]

Who in their right mind calls their son "Newt"? Was he born to a cabal of witches?

 

[OzzyKP]

Perhaps not. Is he a mandatory ID card supporter? But anyway, who am I to argue for the consistency of a social/fiscal conservative? All I'm saying is that I think many - probably close to all - children are fundamentally able to participate in society as adults earlier than they're presently expected to do, and it wouldn't be a bad thing to find a way to accomodate that. Sure lifespans have increased so childhood doesn't need to be suppressed for economic survival, but that doesn't mean that it needs to be drawn out for the sake of keeping them out of the workforce longer.

Exactly.

 

[I'm Cleo!]

This odd "OMG sweatshops, Dickens-esque industrial dystopia!! " knee-jerking failure to address actual arguments is unusual from you and Cleo.

Oh please. The article doesn't deserve more than mockery. He asserts that kids today are doing drugs and having sex (with a couple of context-free data points). Then he says that the "earlier, more successful model of childhood" should be adopted. What is that model? Apparently it's what a handful of people from the 18th Century did -- John Quincy Adams (whose influential youth provides a model for . . . the children of powerful government officials?), Daniel Boone's career as an "explorer," very relevant today, and Benjamin Franklin, quite possibly the most singularly talented person in the history of the United States. But don't worry: he assures us that "the list goes on and on."

It's moronic. Everyone back then succeeded in their teens because that's the only way anyone succeeded. He hasn't made an argument that the model in place back then is better than the model in place today. It's "back before there was such a thing as 'adolescence,' everyone who ended up successful did so without the benefits of 'adolescence,' therefore there is no benefit to 'adolescence.'" As Godwynn said, let's get rid of cars and computers, too -- after all, Benjamin Franklin didn't need them!

Then he says that kids who graduate school early (which they already do, by the way) should get scholarships. Sounds good to me.

I read once (I can't remember where, sadly) that Newt Gingrich is "what dumb people think smart people sound like." He's been around a lot more lately, and the more I read of him, the more I agree.

Cleo

 

[JollyRoger]

Perhaps not. Is he a mandatory ID card supporter? But anyway, who am I to argue for the consistency of a social/fiscal conservative? All I'm saying is that I think many - probably close to all - children are fundamentally able to participate in society as adults earlier than they're presently expected to do, and it wouldn't be a bad thing to find a way to accomodate that. Sure lifespans have increased so childhood doesn't need to be suppressed for economic survival, but that doesn't mean that it needs to be drawn out for the sake of keeping them out of the workforce longer.

So you don't see an increased pressure to push a kid to finish up high school already so he can apprentice at his father's dead end trade? Why not keep the default where the kid is 18 and perhaps has a better chance of making an informed choice?

Kids can already legally work at age 14 under restrictions. Some restrictions are lifted at 16. More resrtrictions are lifted at 18. A kid can drop out of school and pursue a livelihood well before 18 as it stands now. I think the default is about right for today's society.

 

[Narz]

We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Young adults could use a little more responsibility.

Adolescance has been a failure. No other culture in history has consider a 17 year old a child, we're an anomaly.

 

[kramerfan86]

What is the washed up loser's logic, the fact kids do illegal drugs and gets STDs? How exactly does making them adults sooner cure this ill? Is the fact the girls will now be working magically going to render their sex pure and clean? And when the stress levels of their lives increase from having to work, get educated, and become adults quick, this is going to compel them to do LESS drugs?

Newt is a washed up idiot who is just bitter that the game doesnt give a crap about him or his ideas like it did in the 90s. He is also a hypocrite because he cant even be loyal to his loved ones but wants to lecture everyone who will listen on values. Compared to drugs and promiscuous sex I consider cheating on the one you claim to love to be much much much worse morally, so he can go shove his morals advice up his rear.

 

[JollyRoger]

At what age should one be able to serve divorce papers on one's spouse in the hospital? It gets hard to work in a full lifetime's worth of marriages if you start too late.

 

[IglooDame]

Yes. They've changed appreciably in the past two centuries, with the advent of medicine.

The thing is, when infant mortality rates were through the roof, people just not cared much about kids. Only after a kid was grown-up enough to prove that he was able to survive infancy did his parents, and society, took note of him or her.
When more than half your kids did before they reach the age of 6, and when you had more than a dozen of then, you simply could not afford to give the same kind of emotional care that we now give our few and healthy kids.

There was an awkward phase in the late 19th century where people still had the old mindset of kids being an expendable resource even though progress made that mindset obsolete and unacceptable, and this is when Dickens and Co. came into play and were able to resonate so much.

Finally, the Romans had a clear-cut (haha, you'll see why in a minute) way of identifying when a boy was an adult: the first shave. Girls obviously do not count, sucks to be a Roman girl

Yay, a solid response.

But I'm not quite onboard with your description of pre-20thcentury parenting. (Sidenote, I don't suppose you could point me at a link with some child mortality/family size historical data?) Because I think that society treasures not only children but human life in general a lot more over the past century or two. That doesn't mean that children can't be treasured just as much by parents (or society) nowadays even with legal majority lowered - perhaps the opposite, "children" will refer to humans that aren't bigger than us, smarter than us, and a lot more pissed off than us and legitimately in need of protection from society.

I regard responsibility as a learned trait, not something that appears spontaneously when a brain experiences its Nth birthday. Certainly a not-fully-developed brain will have a tougher time with it, but it goes back to my original question of when is a brain or a body fully developed and "mature"?

 

[stuge]

What great ideas indeed. As soon as the standards of education can be lowered enough to match the 18th century, society will bloom!

 

[JerichoHill]

Yeah, that might work if life was like it was in the 19th century. That Newt flippantly disregards the differences in existence between the two periods is enough for me to dismiss this as a ill-thought rant

 

[Neomega]

So what does Newt suggest that we move the ages down to for the following:

Drinking
Voting
Contractual capacity
Sexual consent capacity

...and the draft. We can start the draft at 14. Of course, everyone knows drug use and pre marital sex ceases at age 18.

 

[OzzyKP]

The brain achieves adult levels of reason and capacity at like 14 or 15.

Masquerouge's account of 19th century parenting is mostly accurate. However it doesn't follow that today's treatment of youth is preferable. Childhood is being extended further and further because parents are unnaturally clingy to their children. I hear more and more reports of parents arguing with college professors over their kid's grades. I know plenty of college students and just over that whose parents still take care of everything for them, and would be lost without them.

Newsweek wrote an article about it a few years back, they coined the term "Twixer" basically someone in their 20's (a growing group) who doesn't really accept living independently and still depends on (and in many cases lives with) their parents.

Rights and responsibility is the only solution to this.

 

[OzzyKP]

Yeah, that might work if life was like it was in the 19th century. That Newt flippantly disregards the differences in existence between the two periods is enough for me to dismiss this as a ill-thought rant

Newts point, obviously too complex for you to understand, is that there is nothing innate or inherant about teens that cause them to be incapable of adult responsibility. For all of human history they have handled responsibility and handled it well.

So any frantic fears people have expressed here about "children" not being able to handle more substantive, adult roles in society are misplaced and not based on fact or history.

If you want to have a debate over what model is best for youth, and society, then so be it. But Newts point, lost on you, is that there is nothing biological holding youth back, just our laws and the way we treat them.

 

[bathsheba666]

Newt puts forward in a very direct way the strongest possible argument for more education, not less.

And who on earth said americans don't do irony?

And just think of the future benefits of genetic research.
We'll be able to revert to laying eggs and, after 4 hours of staggering around, we can have them straight down the mine.

 

[kramerfan86]

No one has really explained WHAT the actual problem is with the current system. What is making it so bad that we need to revert back to previous social trends? Whats the actual problem?

 

[IglooDame]

So you don't see an increased pressure to push a kid to finish up high school already so he can apprentice at his father's dead end trade? Why not keep the default where the kid is 18 and perhaps has a better chance of making an informed choice?

Kids can already legally work at age 14 under restrictions. Some restrictions are lifted at 16. More resrtrictions are lifted at 18. A kid can drop out of school and pursue a livelihood well before 18 as it stands now. I think the default is about right for today's society.

Is there any pressure at this point to push a kid to finish up high school so he can apprentice at his father's dead end trade?

I confess that I'm not around teenagers all that much, but it seems like parents push teenagers to graduate high school so that they can start their adult life working at a profession rather than a fast-food joint. The informed choice, it seems to me, comes from interacting with society beyond high school - a vicious circle, especially given that they can drop out of high school and then being able to make an informed choice about - ack - dropping out of high school.

My sense of the article (and I don't think Newt Gingrich is exactly a font of intelligent ideas, I'm not defending the man, but just holding the concept up for debate) is that there would be a more socially acceptable "fast-track" educational path leading to earlier social/legal "adulthood". The only downside I see is creating the actual evidence of early adulthood. Faking IDs for age verification is already fairly easy, how much worse for the bouncer/sexual partner to verify something other than date of birth.