Puritanical U.S. has Mixed Messages for Teens
POSTED BY: firefloozysuzie
UPDATED: Saturday, April 8, 2006 20:30
VIEWED: 5317
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Now that my daughter is eighteen years old, I guess I finally feel that it's okay to talk about what I see as the twisted, screwy view that this country has of teenagers.
Pick up any newspaper and tell me if this doesn't bug you: When a 15-year-old hurts or kills someone, even in an obviously immature act of unthinking rage, the newspapers never call that teenager a "child." Maybe a youth, but never a child. And often the prosecutors start pressing for that kid to be tried as adult.
If that same 15-year-old has sex?
Then she or he will be labeled a child; if his or her partner is older, then s/he is also labeled a "victim" of predators, because a 15-year-old is "obviously" too young to have given informed consent...never mind that 15-year-olds throughout time, and even now, in many countries, would be considered of marriageable age.
Similarly, an eighteen-year-old can walk up to any military recruitment office and sign up for four years of blowing up people in foreign lands. That same eighteen year old cannot legally buy a beer and soon, in New Jersey, won't be allowed to purchase cigarettes or, I think, lighters. But that same kid can be given a life sentence without possibility for parole, or executed, or labeled a criminal sex offender who has to register his whereabouts for the rest of his life.
As someone who really cares about kids, I think we need to do more to protect children from pedophiles, but I feel we dilute that effort when we label every adult who has an affair with a teenager a pedophile. That happens to be incorrect: A pedophile is a sicko who preys on CHILDREN -- as in, preadolescent. As in NOT SEXUALLY MATURE. Some pedophiles rape infants and toddlers. These are the folks we need to worry about, and track, and keep away from our kids.
A 23-year-old who has consensual relations with a 17-year-old is not a pedophile, no matter what the legislature says. I don't want my tax dollars wasted on tracking or prosecuting him.
Now, none of this is arguing that rapists and exploitive authority figures shouldn't be dealt with: It IS rape whenever someone in a position of power or authority coerces or forces another person. Children need to be protected from exploitation, no argument here!
But I have a real problem with the inconsistent and arbitrary assignment of "age of consent."
You're old enough if you're sixteen in one place, and you're a statutory rape victim if you and your older boyfriend go to a nice hotel in a neighboring state. This never made sense to me as a teenager, and it still bothers me.
Don't get me wrong: If some sleazy grownup guy had come sniffing around my little girl, I'd be out there smacking him upside the head with a shovel. However, if my daughter *had* been one of those girls who'd matured early, and IF she'd been the type of young woman who had an old head on her shoulders, and IF she fell in love with an older guy? I think we'd keep a watchful eye on their relationship, but I also think we'd have to respect her choice.
Bottom line: When I was growing up, there were plenty of nice married women in my neighborhood who got married while still in their teens. My own mother was nineteen when she wed, which is barely considered old enough these days.
Yet, just down the street, my pal Yuri's mom had married when she was only fourteen. Two of the other moms that I knew were married at sixteen.
It's sobering for me to consider that, in today's neopuritan, repressive, hysterically-fearful-that- TEENS-HAVE-SEX environment, every one of those nice ladies would be considered victims of child molestation, and all of their husbands would be registered sex offenders.
What do the rest of you think of that?
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It's not just for puritanical reasons, it's for business reason too.
A person might pay an adult ticket price but not be able to see an R movie.
Science has learned so much about brain development through life. Some things - drugs (including alcohol) and violence (including war and the fake TV kind) will form a brain up until about 22. That should be taken into account both for age restrictions and legal culpability.
OTOH it's not true that children suddenly get kicked out of the nest fully capable like birds. Even birds don't do that. There is a lengthy period of practice at being an adult. So there should be (IMHO) graded levels of independence and responsibility.
Many unwed mothers are teens who had sex with men who are at least 10 years older than they are. The problem is that these girls are naive and think that these men really love them, while their 'boyfriends' are not so innocent. There needs to be some accountability. *
So it comes down to a judgment call on each situation. Was this teen truly being exploited as does really happen, or was it a normal part of maturing which also happens?
* I have my own bottom line: no harm, no foul. But if disease is spread, or a child is not being supported, then the law needs to step in. And it makes sense to hold the older person accountable, who is usually (but not always) male. Personally, I would tattoo the offender in a private spot. Forewarned is forearmed.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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As the product of a 21 year old military guy and a 17 year old, I must admit that I'm glad my grandparents are reasonable people.
And I agree with a lot of what you said.
It's funny, our brains aren't fully formed until we're 25, so it would seem car rental companies are the only ones that truly have it "right".
Another annoying thing about the U.S.: Alcohol is more socially destructive and has farther reaching consequences than marijuana, yet it is legal.
I DON'T GET IT!
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And when you think about it, doctors can prescribe morphine but not MJ. Isn't that strange?
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Though Marijuana can have some pretty nasty and drastic effects on some people that they'll have to deal with for the rest of their lives.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
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NOT to help hijack my own thread, but...marijuana is one of the least toxic and most useful plants that the human species has yet found.
I read that in my college ethnobotany textbook, circa 1978. The scientists who wrote the textbook concluded that hemp had proven itself for millenia as a source of safe, efficacious treatments for a host of ailments; that is has no known toxicity, unlike most manmade pharmaceuticals, and that it should be legally available, at least for study and medicinal purposes.
Just thought I'd pass that bit of information along!
BTW, I've done a bit of study myself on human brain development and on sociology. I'm aware that there are physiological, developmental reasons why adolescents behave as they do. And I'm aware that kids are leaving the nest and forming their own households at an older age than their parents did, or at least that's the trend in increasingly complex (expensive) industrial societies.
The problem is that we have factors colliding: We've got kids developing earlier, physically, but they've got so much longer to wait before they are ready for the responsibility of having kids. They've got the urges EARLIER, but the means of caring for the potential product of those urges LATER. Big trouble. Thank God for condoms.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Firefloozysuzie:
NOT to help hijack my own thread, but...marijuana is one of the least toxic and most useful plants that the human species has yet found.
I read that in my college ethnobotany textbook, circa 1978. The scientists who wrote the textbook concluded that hemp had proven itself for millenia as a source of safe, efficacious treatments for a host of ailments; that is has no known toxicity, unlike most manmade pharmaceuticals, and that it should be legally available, at least for study and medicinal purposes.
I don't mean to hijack your thread, but this is only half the story and I think giving only this half is dangerous. For some people canabis use can lead to depression, manic and clinical, severe paranoia and schitzophrenia.
I've done my own research on the subject and I've experienced it first hand.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
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"Similarly, an eighteen-year-old can walk up to any military recruitment office and sign up for four years of blowing up people in foreign lands."
Dude, I understand your point, but those that joined the US military did not join to blow up people in foreign lands, we joined to save you from being blown up in your own land. I know, I serve. But I do agree with you about the drinking age.
Filter
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Though Marijuana can have some pretty nasty and drastic effects on some people that they'll have to deal with for the rest of their lives.
...
I don't mean to hijack your thread, but this is only half the story and I think giving only this half is dangerous.
That doesn't argue against medical use, rather than casual use.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&d
opt=Abstract&list_uids=16205721&itool=iconabstr&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_DocSum
Plant cannabinoids: a neglected pharmacological treasure trove.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&d
opt=Abstract&list_uids=15967965&itool=iconfft&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_DocSum
Conditional okay for cannabis prescription drug
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&d
opt=Abstract&list_uids=15857739&itool=iconabstr&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_DocSum
Cannabis use in HIV for pain and other medical symptoms
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&d
opt=Abstract&list_uids=15753439&itool=iconabstr&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_DocSum
Medical use of cannabis in the Netherlands
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&d
opt=Abstract&list_uids=15630971&itool=iconabstr&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_DocSum
Evidence for using cannabis and cannabinoids to manage pain
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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"Dude, I understand your point, but those that joined the US military did not join to blow up people in foreign lands, we joined to save you from being blown up in your own land. I know, I serve. But I do agree with you about the drinking age."
Too much violence at a young age truly does warp the mind, just as too much alcohol (or another drug) will. Joining the army in peacetime might be a safe route to college, but active wartime duty of younger people leads to higher rates of PSTD, violence, depression, drug use etc. Neither drugs nor war are good for anyone under (roughly) 22 years old.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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