The French teacher and I were on hall duty about two months ago, watching the silly antics of teenagers during passing period. He noted that there isn't even a word for teenager in 168 countries. His deduction was that the idea is artificially manufactured by our society and, if we would only refer to teens as adults, they might behave as adults.
Could the teenaged years be a so-called capitalistic plot, I thought? After all, a whole economic enterprise is built around teen things - clothing, music, makeup, magazines, tv shows, jewelry, cell phones, the list goes on and on.
Capitalism works as a viable socio-economic system, so I was relieved to read in this month's Scientific American Mind magazine (April/May 2007) that, no, it isn't some subversive plot hatched by evil capitalists. It is theorized, however, that the period known as adolescence is purely a Western phenomenon, and now may be affecting non-Western countries, such as Japan, whose teenagers have actively sought to emulate American teens for decades years now.
And, it does have a small fraction to do with capitalism, specifically, the Industrial Revolution, when large numbers of young immigrants flooded American streets at the turn of the last century, often spunky, sneaky, and rascally youth, i.e. antisocial teens looking for a way out of poverty via enfranchisement in the American way.
Observing this phenomenon, it was in 1904 that psychologist G. Stanley Hall deduced that adolescence was an innate re-enactment of man's savage stage of evolution, and popularized the word adolescent. Teen turmoil was thereafter attributed to a necessary part of human development throughout the 20th century. Dr. Spock probably didn't help matters, either, with his revolt against the Victorian manners with which he had been raised, in which proper children should be seen but not heard - talk about rebellion!
Enter 21st century psychologist, Robert Epstein, author of the Scientific American Mind article, with a study of his own descrying the swollen teen brain model that has explained teen behavior lately. Epstein asserts what we have discussed here before, that we infantilize our youth, extending adolescence far beyond the years when teens, well, let's just call them people, are capable of navigating the world on their own. This, he claims, is the source of anger, frustration, angst, and anti-social teen behavior, rather than brain function. True, our teens hold down jobs, drive cars, have babies, and do everything veritable adults do. Epstein even sites examples of 18-year-olds who have been elected mayor of their towns - you can't get much more grown up than that!
Epstein also claims that in the last few decades, laws restricting teen behavior have increased in greater number than those for other subgroups. He may be right. When I started teaching in 1975, for instance, students could smoke on campus in designated areas, go off campus for lunch, or use the pay phone in the cafeteria or gym foyer during lunch and passing period. All of those have been slowly taken away from students over the years. As seen in Chrissie's article on driving, restrictions are infringing even further into teens' lives with driver's licenses, as the legal driving age inches up toward 18 (and gas inches up toward $3).
So, is all of this the result of an evil plot to extend adolescence to 30? While Epstein might view it as such, I view it as the well-meaning result of the last nearly four decades of peace in the U.S. in which we have had the luxury of becoming increasingly doting on our young. Blame it on the Industrial Revolution for spawning more goods, money, and leisure time to be doting parents, if you will. Blame it on a good economy in which we aren't compelled to kick the kids out of the house when they are 18. Blame it on an effort to protect young people from themselves. Blame it on insurance companies who are trying to keep costs down (teen accidents at night with passengers in the car...). Blame it on trying to save our young from the pitfalls of life into which we may have fallen. Blame it on our litigious society which likes to sue schools now that more students are making it to the 12th grade (yes, the drop out rate is high, but not higher than the turn of the century when the country was still mostly agrarian...). Or on the fact that 18 is not middle aged anymore, so if the lifespan has been pushed farther ahead, then adolescence has to be, as well.
Whatever the cause, neither side of the debate, brain-induced adolescence or culture-induced, gives the whole picture. As more research is done, a synthesis of all the information can give us a better idea of just what it means to be a teenager in America. They admittedly do crazy things (like the teen who choked himself with a bungee cord trying a new high through oxygen deprivation - my thoughts and prayers go out to his family today). But, with a little reworking of the situation, I think being a teenager in America would still be better than being a teenager just about anywhere.
Or, we could be like the French who legally removed all English words from their parley, and vote the word "teenager" out of our vocabulary. We could call them "lighthearted stressed out happy depressed people who like to do zany things." It has a certain je ne c'est quois, no?
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