Infantilising Young People: Another Quaker led Error?

by John Myhill

Over at least the last hundred years, each generation of parents, teachers, politicians, professionals and sales people; have increasingly refused to make young people over six years old  adult responsibilities for tasks at home, in school and in the community.  I first became aware of his amongst Quakers 50 years ago, and I foolishly followed the fashion.

This goes against the entire history of Evolution, which develops in the young of every species, the genetic drive to learn to behave like an adult. Those who failed to learn this quickly died in childhood.  In my own childhood I was often free to wander the countryside, indulge my fantasy of being a grown up and learn practical skills, from herding cows at  eight to driving a tractor at nine. In contrast I had never been in a big city on my own till I was fifteen, whereas my London cousins, travelled around with total confidence at ten. My own children were given far less freedom, far less responsibility.

The genetic drive is still there. But, parents, starting with Quakers have fought it in every way, in the name of child choice, protection from parental discipline, and child exploitation (children helping to carry shopping or wash up or peel potatoes is a far cry from ten year olds working in unsafe factories or mines) 

Children imitate the words and behaviour of older people with whom they interact, but their role models are frequently inarticulate; talk to them as if they were babies; offer them games (increasingly computer games) which have little to do with adult life in the real world; place them in front of a screen, or give them choices,

(from what subjects to study to what sex they want to be),for which lack of experience. They become even more deskilled than their parents. They are rarely given responsibility for chores at home or in school, let alone menial tasks at their parents place of work.

At a time when their brains are able to absorb and remember more effectively than in later years, their only motor skills are in the use of keyboard or mobile phone.  Instead, they are fed “facts” without connecting these with the lived experience of adults; and taught sports, rather than how to use machines, the basics of First Aid or electric wiring: tasks which many children under ten can do with proficiency in poorer countries. Many skills of hand and eye co-ordination: from sewing and cooking to woodwork and machine maintenance are most effectively learnt at this age [as of course are languages, playing a musical instrument and sums.

Most of us learn by doing. Yet we give “trigger warnings” to prevent young adults from trying things for themselves: this is the state taking over the responsibility for parenting. Only when we have been doing something for some time are we able to experiment and try different methods, or learn a new skill from a computer or book. Such learning is not for everyone, and more often leads to error than to imaginative innovation. All knowledge is useful, but unless we see the relevance of it to our drive to become adults, we will forget it quickly after the exam.

Adult life is highly regulated. It places heavy loads of responsibility on all those who engage in work.

If young people have no boundaries to their behaviour, no expectations of adult skills, chores and responsibilities, they will be unable to transition to adult life. Their genetic drive will be prevented and mental distress/childish behaviour will ensue.

Yet our current methods of infantilising young people exacerbates the problem by filling their minds with problems that adults have failed to solve themselves: climate change, war, sexuality, racism and disability. Until young people have learnt to be responsible adults, they cannot hope to develop independent ideas on such subjects. Better they should learn directly from people working in raw materials, production or transportation, than how to mimic some fashionable academic cliché.

In Friendship,

John