It's funny how we've changed the perception of the 'right' age to be engaged in seemingly adult activities, including marrying and having children over the generations.
My Dad's Mum was 16 when she married. My Pop, Dad's dad, was 14 when he joined the Navy and went to WWI.
When I started work in 1980 with the ANZ bank only the men received Superannuation when they started, women weren't paid any Superannuation until they turned 25 as you were deemed unmarriable and unlikely to have children if you weren't married by that age.
Yes early teenage yeaars are TOO YOUNG to be worrying about relationship and sexual expression. However the change over generations in terms of marrying and having kids is massive. Nowadays people believe the best time to start a family is in your 30's.
And sadly we've put our young teenagers in cotton wool and tried to spare them any experience of adult activities, this leaves them totally unprepared when the shackles of protection are removed.
I truly believe that there's much teenagers could experience safely (not sex or marriage mind you) but lots of the experience we protect them from we should instead be saying 'okay I'll stand beside you and let you experience these things safely and learn the skills you'll need to manage them on your own in later life'.
It is almost as if society has gotten lazy and decided that the best way to protect teenagers is to prevent them from any experiences at all. This works out very badly because when they're finally let loose on the world they've no 'like skills' and they are literally like a Bull in a China shop and sadly the greatest damage they do is often to themselves.
Schools are not responsible for parenting kids, parents and families are. It just seems to me that we've decided that the one part of our kids lives that truly is the most energy consuming and challenging time; their teenage years, we are simply walking away from our responsibilities in this time and coming up with excuses like 'we're protecting them' ... that's b*llshit, we are just being lazy by not taking the time to be with them and help them learn through an 'apprenticeship of life' ...
dismounting soap box returning to mundane domesticity and I must say a degree of bliss.
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