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I don't think I agree with that. I'm a big fan of Sasse's "the Vanishing American Adult." He points out that what you call "teenage cringe" is a fairly modern construct. For most of human history, teenagers were integrated into the adult world, not set apart and left to their own devices in the modern context of "school." It's a malign symptom, not a necessary developmental stage.

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Yeah, I tend to think the world would be a better place if we made more room for young people in the adult world. I think kids are capable of a lot more than we give them credit for and I think setting them apart, as you say, erodes their ability to participate in the world and makes us want to set them even further apart. If we treated them like whole people who can do things, I think they would start acting like whole people who can do things, much, much earlier.

I totally agree with you on this. Kids can take on more responsibility than they're given today - see any generation that came of age before the last 15-20 years. It would benefit many of them enormously to do so (jobs, babysitting, driving, etc). I just think it's too easy as an adult to look back on your teenage years and project your current level of social and emotional development onto your younger self or teenagers in general.

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