Tonight’s show features renowned psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein, and his book The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen. It’s an interesting and controversial book. It outlines how adolescence is an artificial construct of Western society and an unnecessary phase of life. Dr. Epstein thinks our teens are ready for more rights and responsibilities at a younger age.
Enter our debate: Is adolescence too long or too short in our society? The obvious answer is yes — it extends far beyond the teen years, to the point where young adults do not get on with either maturing, moving out, supporting themselves, finding a mate and buying a house to eventually fill with offspring of their own. It may sound like a dated model of adulthood, because it now is. We’ll talk about how adolescence extended beyond one’s formative years but why those formative years still matter.
Tonight’s show will also look at how adulthood is reached in other cultures — from societies where children work to supplement familial income and are seen as equals to adults — some times as young as 10. We’ll also look at Mediterranean cultures where mamone — or, mama’s boys — live with their parents well into their 30’s and even 40’s.
My parents came to Canada from Greece and heaven forbid you should consider moving out before you marry in the Greek-Canadian milieu. What kind of family would people think you were from? What kind of girl would people think you are? Why would you want to throw your money away on rent? That’s the preaching I got in my formative years, in case I ever even considered going out on my own before I had a ring on my finger, complete with a big fat Greek wedding send-off.
Well, it didn’t work. Even though I went to university in my hometown, I hightailed it to a student residence the first chance I got. You would think living in an all-girls residence — with security and locked doors at night — would be the proper and respectable thing to do. But no. People thought the worst. It was not the respectable thing to do.
But I’d like to think I broke down barriers. My cousin George got the hell out, a month shy of his 30th birthday. He was sharing an apartment with two women — it was platonic — a concept so foreign to our uncles, they were convinced he was gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Why would he need to move out of his parents’ house anyway? He could have had cooked meals!
Twenty years later, I beam with pride as a younger cousin is living with her fiancé — a year before the wedding. “I did it while my sister’s baby was born and my parents were so excited to be grandparents it took them a while to realize I was gone,” she told me. The sneak-out…a very good way to go.
So while, many young people find themselves back at home after university, I belong to a culture where a group of us remained defiant and tore down the walls of mom and dad’s house. Of course, we still go back to get fed.
