A blogger writes the following:
If kids 10 and older need to be accompanied by adults when walking to school, at what point do they have any autonomy? Kids differ and if parents aren’t comfortable letting their kids go somewhere without supervision I’m fine with that, but there are tremendous cultural pressures to monitor children up to the day when they get sent off to college. A typical 10-year-old in a decent walking environment can get him/herself to school.
This is a useful observation that rings true to many of us. The same blogger doesn’t seem to remember writing the following just a couple of days ago, however:
If you’re the kind of person who wonders why kids today can’t put themselves through college without any debt, you probably think they’re living with their parents because they’re pampered and lazy. Of course, if you’re that kind of person you’ve completely blocked out any memory of what people in their 20s would actually like to do if they had the resources.
Or maybe he simply isn’t capable of making the connection between young people not being allowed to develop any autonomy or maturity by their parents and these same young people remaining dependent and immature after the age of 18.
Blaming the economy is an easy, knee-jerk response of those infected by vulgarized Marxism. I, however, came of age in an economy which was so bad that no American 18-year-old can even begin to imagine it. And in that economy, some people allowed their parents not only to keep them but also to wash their underwear, cook their food, and take out their trash until “the babies” turned 30 while some looked for any opportunity to make money and become independent.
Of course, these distinctions were not and are not about being lazy and pampered. They are always about being raised in a way that deprives you of autonomy and prevents you from growing up.
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