Obviously the older you get, the less age differences matter. 18 to 22 is a much bigger difference than 28 to 33. So as you get older, you start interacting with a larger range of ages in your day to day life. Also being in the work force means that unlike in school, you are not in an age-group-specific setting.
And as I’ve dealt with more and more people outside of my immediate age group, I find, not surprisingly, that people are increasingly out-of-touch with younger people. But the degree to which they are out-of-touch is, admittedly surprising.
It amazes me that people don’t realize how young kids are having sex, doing drugs, smoking, drinking, etc. Which means even if your kid/sister/brother/niece/nephew/whatever isn’t _involved_ in that, they know about it, and they know someone who is. Unless they’re … say, six. Six is about the oldest age that you have a high likely-hood (note, I didn’t say guarantee), that they haven’t run into any of the above. By 8, there’s a some chance they have run into it, by 10 a good chance, by 12 an almost definite chance, and by 14, if they haven’t run into it, they live in a cave. I was a nerdy kid, and by the time I was 8 I was swearing, by the time I was 12 I had friends that were smoking and sexually active. And that was more than 10 years ago, the problems hit continuously younger kids every passing day.
And not all of this is problems. I had my first sex-ed class when I was 10 years old. Fat load of good it did: even though I had no friends, had never kissed a girl, had a girlfriend, etc., I already knew what sex was, what safe sex was about, what blow jobs and eating a girl out was, etc. The first girlfriend-boyfriend relationship in my school was in 3rd grade, BTW. That same couple also had the first real kiss that year.
Several weeks ago, I was in an argument with a mother who was not clear on what a great son she had. She was upset that her son spent several weeks trying to find smaller and smaller devices onto which he could force a linux installation – an increasingly technical challenge he gave himself. This inexplicably seemed like a… problem to her; a way in which he wasn’t a good kid. This kid is in high school, and I explained to her he could be doing drugs or having sex as an alternative, so she should be happy he’s not. She stared at me in disbelief and said that kids his age didn’t do that. This spawned a long argument, as you might have guessed. What the fuck is wrong with people? How fucking blind can people be? Perhaps if he was home schooled… but then he’d really be fucked for life. Home schooling is for kids who can’t cope with real life, and is a bad idea. Sheltering kids isn’t the answer, educating them so they have the power to make good decisions is.
Someone else I know, actually in my age group, was in a discussion with her roommate about having to explain minorly-sex-related things (we’re not taking strap-ons and hard core porn here, we’re talking, say, shaving gel for sensitive skin) to the roommate’s two younger step-sisters of ages 14 and 15 who would soon be visiting. I can somewhat understand this on the grounds that the kids are visiting from some buttfuck town in nowhereville Vermont, so they’re not even remotely close to a normal city (the poor kids) – but I’ve heard people have similar conversations about kids in this age group many times, which is asinine in most cases. Anyway, my friend isn’t stupid (or they wouldn’t be my friend), and these two rightfully came to the sane conclusion this isn’t likely to be a difficult thing to explain, but I’m amazed it was a concern in the first place. Now, it’s very pretty in nowhereville, and who knows, maybe things are different there. But there ain’t much to do, so I’d venture to say that by 14, while there’s a reasonable chance they’re not sexually active yet, they probably are pretty clear on what sex is all about. And some of their friends have had sex. Someone they know is probably doing drugs already. There’s a damn good chance they’ve hit puberty. The point being, if they didn’t live in buttfuckville, if they lived anywhere close to an actual city, or even a suburb, all those “probably”s would be “definitely”s.
The sad fact is, most of the people I meet my are completely oblivious of these facts. When are people going to wake up? When are people going to realize there are 12 year olds smoking pot and having sex whether they think that’s possible or not? And to all the fucking republicans who want to blame this on sex education, you’re fucking morons, sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. The answer is better, earlier sex education. And better, earlier drug education. Which reminds me, to those people who don’t believe those “truth” commercials help, you’re also fucking stupid, they do help, and studies prove it. Remember that “this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs” commercial? I saw that when I was really young, and it sure as hell made me think twice when I was offered drugs. It’s part of the reason I said no. The “Drug-Free Class of 2000” campaign also made a difference when I was young – to me and others. Additionally, education about AIDS, STDs, and teen pregnancy from parents, school, TV, and other places made me think twice about the first time I had sex.
In summary, as I always say, there’s way too many fucking morons out there, and they shouldn’t be allowed to have kids. They should be found and shipped off to the moon where they can all kill each other without bothering me.
I agree with you on the age thing. But it’s not always age that determines the person I think, it’s maturity. I guess I’m kind of an example of that, I’m almost 17 now, and I’ve been told (and I believe, myself) that I’m much more mature than other people my age. It tends to vary, so I don’t think there’s any certain generalization that’s true about age relation, but I do see some patterns when it comes to the age difference thing. But yeah…I do agree with what you said.
When it comes to age and the things you listed, like sex, drugs, etc… it mostly depends on the environment, at least in my observations. There are kids that are brought up by parents that don’t allow such things to be talked about, including swearing…watching certain tv programs etc that contain content like that. Then there’s parents that aren’t very good at parenting at all. They either don’t care about raising their kid, or they just don’t know how. So their influence is either imprinted on them, or their allowance of outside influence is…when it comes to swearing, sex, alcohol, drugs, etc. But, in my opinion, it’s destructive either way. They’re just not taught properly about it I guess. At least in an organized manner.
As for sex, relationships, smoking, drugs, etc in my life… I have learned a lot about it from school programs and such, but I think I’ve learned a lot more about it from my friends/family’s experiences with it…well, and also my own common sense (which I guess isn’t so common since some people seem to be clueless about it). I learned a lot about sex and relationships by just looking at my friends. Many of them lost their virginity at a young age, and ALL of them had horrible relationships, ’cause they were too young, too immature to handle it, and weren’t even ‘in love’ (or at least willing to be open to love) to begin with, they just wanted a bf/gf just to have one (and sex). I’ve personally never been in an actual relationship, at least not a serious one. And I avoided it all these years specifically because I saw the shit my friends went through, and I didn’t want to bother with such stupid drama crap. So I guess if you’re not an oblivious moron, you could probably pick up on things like that too, like I did.
I’ve always believed that kids’ preparation for the ‘real world’ is completely dependant on parents’ actions. It’s the parents’ responsibility to educate them about necessary things like sex, drugs, smoking, alcohol. So perhaps…maybe not only having better education in schools, but also better education for parents about how to prepare them for it? But…even with that thought, it seems a bit out of the question, at least in this world. I know that seems a little negative…but I don’t think the people that have the power to do that sort of thing are willing to go that distance…they don’t realize what a huge impact it might have, so they don’t bother. And considering the path that the world is heading in, I doubt there will be anything done about it…ever. You’d think people would realize by now, that parents that can’t control and raise their kids successfully, that the majority of these people end up being criminals, and overall destructive people that only end up doing stupid shit in their lives that cause problems for others. But nah…people refuse to see it.
Anyways, I think I’m just gonna stay cynical, and believe that people will never learn, no matter what is done…as much as it hurts to say, even though it’s true. At least I know I’ll do everything in my own power to NOT be an oblivious moron. So, I know it doesn’t help much, but you can cross my name off on the world’s idiot list, Phil. 😉
You ever wonder whether the age at which kids start doing stupid shit will be pushed back to, say, 8? Sort of “Brave New World” style. If I ever live to see it, that’d be awesome.