Adolescence Invented
Between the middle of the eighteenth century and the middle of the nineteenth century many changes took place. Living conditions changed, definitions changed, and laws changed. As a result teenagers, treated as adults for thousands of years, began being treated as children. Western culture created a new “stage” of development which had never existed before.
Adolescence is still so new that most languages do not have words to refer to it. In English an adult female is a woman. A child female is a girl. What is an adolescent female? A “gal?” The dictionary says that is informal for “girl.” In English an adult male is a man. A child male is a boy. What is an adolescent male? A “guy?” The dictionary says that is slang for “boy.” When you address a group of teenagers as “guys and gals,” you are calling them boys and girls.
Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 show how adolescence was created so that we now treat teenagers as children rather than as the adults they are.