'Teenagers Being Teenagers' is NOT Normal

It really isn't, folks. A 16 year old is supposed to resemble an inexperienced but real adult, not an overgrown child with unrestrained urges.

Anyway, this isn't directly related to Libertarianism or freedom issues, but I have access to the blog so I'm going to share my opinion. :) This is something I think I had an apostrophe about (Ed. Note: Epiphany. I assume.) and wanted to submit for consideration here.

The sneering, haughty, contemptuous attitude of teenagers/young adults--I speak primarily of boys, but it often applies to girls also--is the direct result of organized, age-segregated schools. Among any gathering of adults of various ages where the few late teens are the youngest in the room, they will starkly stand out, because their attitude is easily markable as silly and juvenile. They're idiots, knowing nothing, yet each sincerely believes he is the wisest person in the room.

How does this happen? It's the inevitable product of the school culture. Yes, schools have their own culture, where the teachers are outside oppressors, and the ruling class, the people at the top of the social pyramid, are the high school juniors and seniors, the oldest/biggest kids. A 17 year old regards himself as the pinnacle of human development because in his world, he IS.

This should be no surprise. From age 5 forward a child's primary culture is the school culture, with all of its own cultural nuances. Every child spends the vast majority of his time surrounded by other children, primarly those of the same age, and rarely are adults around at all except to swoop down and try to impose undesired and cumbersome rules.

Consider: Within the standard family unit, a child's ruling class, life guides and role models are adults--primarily parents, who not only instruct them and rule over them but also live with them, and by that I mean perform the daily activities of life day by day with them*, and also parents' adult friends and acquaintances. All but the firstborn have older siblings in a similar role.

* This is something we've lost in modern excessively-busy society and sorely miss.

But within the school culture, a child doesn't participate in the daily activities of life alongside ANYONE older than himself! For a child growing up in a family, the ancillary people generally surrounding him are predominantly adults, with only younger siblings and their friends being younger than himself.

But for a teenager, in the school culture, his world is predominantly populated by younger children--so he's already mature by those standards (and he grew up believing that teenagers were the most mature people in the world). How is one supposed to learn to be an adult in that setting?

Therefore it's easy to understand why homeschooled teenagers tend to behave like inexperienced but recognizable adults, whereas school-cultured teenagers tend to behave like children with adult desires and passions.