You Don’t Understand!
The voices in the hall grew louder and louder as the conversation became more heated. Sitting in the living room, Dad thought, Oh no. Here we go again!
Finally, Suzie said, “Mom, you don’t understand! You just don’t understand! Nobody understands!”
Dad heard the door slam, and he knew that the discussion between parent and teenager was over.
Left standing in the hall, Mom thought, That’s just a cop-out.
But Suzie was right. Mom did not understand. Neither did Dad.
Suzie’s teachers and minister did not understand either. Of course, Suzie herself did not understand. Hardly anyone in our culture understands adolescence.
If he would pull the dictionary from the bookcase, Dad would read that an adolescent is “a boy or girl from puberty to adulthood.” He might think, There’s the problem. Even though she looks like a woman, she’s still a girl.
Would Dad understand then? No! Unfortunately, even the dictionary would add to his confusion. Do you understand? Probably not. This scene could play in any one of thousands of homes, perhaps in yours. Even if you have checked the dictionary, you probably do not understand. Much has changed during the last century or two. The dictionary tells you the current meaning of adolescence, but it does not tell you the rest of the story. Since the definition includes puberty and adulthood, you need to know more about both.
What and When Is Puberty?
Today we think of puberty as the time when people are first able to have children. The dictionary tells us that, but it also tells us that the word puberty comes from a Latin word meaning “adult.” That is, among the Romans and throughout history, puberty was the beginning of adulthood itself, not the beginning of a stage between childhood and adulthood.
Not only has the meaning of puberty changed, but so has its age. Men may not always realize when they start producing sperm, but women can hardly help noticing their first menstrual period, which is closely related to when they start producing eggs. Although writers have mentioned the beginning of menstruation for more than 2000 years, scientists have studied it carefully only during the last 200 years. They have found that puberty now occurs much earlier than it did a century or two ago.
Before 1850 the average woman first menstruated at about sixteen years of age. Dr. Grace Wyshak and Dr. Rose Frisch at the Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Center for Population Studies reviewed more than 200 studies including more than 200,000 women between 1795 and 1981 (“Evidence for a Secular Trend in Age of Menarche,” The New England Journal of Medicine, April 29, 1982, pp. 1033-1035). Not a single one of the sixty-five studies done before 1880 found an average age below fourteen and a half. Many were seventeen or more. By 1950 however, the average was down to about twelve and a half or thirteen.
Puberty in men is not as obvious and has not been studied as much. However, when Bach was choirmaster at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig more than 200 years ago, boys often sang soprano until they were seventeen. Tenors and basses were men whose voices had already changed. Altos were those whose voices were changing. In 1744, Bach had ten altos, the youngest was fifteen and the oldest nineteen. Men’s voices changed at about seventeen years of age then, but at about thirteen or fourteen now (J.M. Tanner, A History of the Study of Human Growth, Cambridge University Press). This change takes place at about the age of puberty.
All of this means that people today experience puberty about three or four years earlier than they did only a century or two ago. Figure 1 shows how this change has taken place. The decrease in age during the last two hundred years is a summary of more than two hundred studies. The stable age before that is an estimate.
Figure 1. Major changes in average age of puberty in women during the last 3000 years. Puberty in men would be about two years later.
What and When Is Adulthood?
Just as the dictionary gave us a surprise about puberty, so it does about adulthood. Although the words adolescent and adult appear to be very different, they come from the same Latin word, one meaning “to grow.” Adolescent originally meant “growing one,” referring to the sudden growth spurt at about the age of puberty. Adult meant “grown one,” a person past his or her growth spurt.
As we read the current meanings of the word adult, we find two. First, it means a person grown to full size. Second, it means a person who has come of age. The problem is that our society has separated these two meanings. This separation of the two meanings is what we now mean by adolescence, the period between the time children become adults and the time we treat them as adults.
Although treating someone as an adult has many aspects, in this chapter let us concentrate on one we can trace throughout history. Since adolescence begins with puberty, a sexual event, let us look at when we allow people to marry, another sexual event—one tied closely to being an adult. As we look at the minimum legal age of marriage during 3000 years of history, we will see how we have invented adolescence only during the last century.
The Talmud, the vast collection of the oral law of the Jews, tells us that the ancient Hebrews could marry at puberty. Not only were they allowed to marry then, but they were encouraged to do so. God told Moses to tell the Israelites, “Do not degrade your daughter by making her a prostitute” (Lev. 19:29). Rabbi Akiba interpreted this as a warning against a delay in marrying a daughter who has reached puberty. He reasoned that since she was sexually mature, she might become unchaste if she remained unmarried (Sanhedrin 76a).
The rabbis taught that one should first study Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and then marry. The ideal was to study Torah at fifteen and marry at eighteen. Of course, we must remember that puberty for men was probably at seventeen or eighteen then. However, those rabbis said that if a man could not live without a wife, “he should first marry and then study” (Aboth V, Kiddushin 29b).
Not only would premarital sex become a problem if people did not marry at puberty, but so would sexual fantasy. Rabbi Huna said that anyone not married by age twenty would spend all his days in sinful thoughts (Kiddushin 29b). Rabbi Hisda claimed to be superior to other rabbis because he had married at sixteen. He said he would have been even better if he had married at fourteen, because he would have been free of impure thoughts (Kiddushin 29b-30a).
Two thousand years ago under Roman law, women could marry at twelve and men at fourteen. A thousand years ago under English law it was the same. Two hundred years ago under common law in the United States it was still the same—women could marry at twelve and men at fourteen. For 3000 years, the minimum legal age for marriage did not change. Of course, not everyone married at twelve or fourteen, just as everyone does not marry at eighteen today.
Then, just as the age of puberty was decreasing, laws increasing the minimum legal age for marriage were passed in the United States and Europe. This was a part of the creation of adolescence. Although they were adults and had been treated as adults for thousands of years, teenagers were redefined as “children.”
By the middle of the twentieth century the most common minimum legal ages for marriage were eighteen for women and twenty-one for men. This difference in age for women and men, like that of earlier laws, showed an awareness that women matured earlier than men. However, in the 1960s in nearly every state the ages were changed to eighteen for both men and women.
Figure 2. Major changes in average age of puberty and minimum legal age for marriage for women during the last 3000 years. The ages for men would be about two years later (except in the case of marriage during the last 20 years).
Figure 2 adds the minimum legal age for marriage to the curve for average age of puberty. Notice that at the same time that the age of puberty was decreasing, the minimum legal age for marriage was increasing. This was the creation of adolescence. For the first time people were not allowed to make adult decisions at the age of puberty.
Notice that we did not just coin a new word to describe something that had always existed. We did just the opposite. We took an old word and used it to mean something that we had just created. Adolescence now refers to the teen years, during which we treat people as children even though they are adults. It is not a matter of what we call teenagers; it is how we treat them.
Historian John Demos of Brandeis University and Virginia Demos in the Program of Human Development at Harvard University put it this way. “The concept of adolescence, as generally understood and applied, did not exist before the last two decades of the nineteenth century. One could almost call it an invention of that period” (“Adolescence in Historical Perspective,” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1969, 31, pp. 632-638).
In the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, David Bakan said, “The idea of adolescence as an intermediary period of life starting at puberty…is the product of modern times. . . . [It developed] in the latter half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century... to prolong the years of childhood” (“Adolescence in America: From Idea to Social Fact,” Daedalus, 1971, 100, pp. 979-995).
Adolescence has been created and handed to us. Like Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, our culture has created a monster and is having trouble controlling it. Some people call adolescence “a period of temporary insanity between childhood and adulthood.” They are right, but it is not the teenager that is insane. It is our culture. Our crazy culture invented adolescence about a century ago, and now we do not know what to do with it.
An Interlude—or Storm and Stress?
Let us consider another situation that happens in many homes. Early one warm spring evening Al, a high school freshman, and his father are talking.
“I’ll be glad when I’m out of school and can get a job. I’m tired of being a kid,” said Al.
“You don’t know how good you have it!” said Dad. “I have to work to support myself, your mother, and all you kids. All you have to do is eat, sleep, and have fun.”
“It’s no fun!” said Al. “I’m a man, but everyone treats me like a boy. I want to work, but I have to go to school.”
“If you want to work,” said Dad, “mow the lawn. Then after you study your algebra, you can hoe the garden. That’s work.”
“That’s not what I mean. I want to make money, and to make a difference in the world,” said Al. “I want to do something, but no one will let me.”
Who is right, Al or his father? People cannot agree. Some say one, and some the other.
Some people see adolescence as a time-out between childhood and adulthood. Not burdened with responsibility, teenagers can take time to think seriously about life. They can carefully consider careers and choose the one best for them. They have time to learn through the free education open to them. They can date many different people to choose their husbands and wives. In short, it is a wonderful interlude before the realities of life hit home.
Many adults, caught up in their world of work and responsibility, think teenagers have it made. How nice not to have to go to work every morning! How nice not to have to feed a growing adolescent! They say that teenagers do not realize how good they have it.
Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson called adolescence a “psychosocial moratorium.” He said it was a delay of adult commitments, a time in which people could try different roles to discover where they belonged in society. It was characterized by “selective permissiveness” by society and by “provocative playfulness” by youth. Adolescents could act irresponsibly in some ways, and adults would not be very upset about it. It was a time of sports, of horseplay, of cliques, and of parties.
However, not everyone has such a positive view of adolescence. Psychologist G. Stanley Hall wrote the first major work on adolescence in 1904. He characterized adolescence as being a period of Sturm und Drang, “storm and stress.” Rather than being an idyllic calm between childhood and adulthood, it was in his view a stormy time.
The National Commission on Youth, established by the Kettering Foundation, said that becoming an adult is difficult even in the best of times. Unfortunately, it is the worst of times for many modern youth. For many teenagers adolescence is characterized by confusion, pain, and uncertainty. It is a time when social and environmental stress produce great tensions.
Psychologist Arthur Jersild of Columbia University asked adults if they would do differently if they could relive their adolescence, given the increased knowledge they now had. All said yes. Then he asked them if they would actually like to relive their adolescence. All said no!
Why would they not like to actually relive it? Because even though they believe they would be able to have a better adolescence, they do not want to go back to being treated like children. Adults do not want to be treated like children, and that is the basic problem of adolescence.
What Does the Bible Say?
As Christians, our first response should be to turn to Scripture. The problem with that is that the Bible does not say anything specific about adolescence. Just as it does not tell us about automobile repair because automobiles did not exist then, it does not tell us about solving the problems of adolescence because, as we have seen, adolescence did not exist then. Unfortunately we sometimes misinterpret Scripture, thinking it is talking about adolescents. Let us consider some Scriptures that seem to be about adolescents but are not, as well as some that would probably mention adolescence if it existed.
In the Old Testament, King Solomon gave much good advice to his son in the early chapters of the Book of Proverbs. He said, “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching” (Prov. 1:8). “Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding” (Prov. 4:7). “Keep to a path far from her [an adultress], do not go near the door of her house” (Prov. 5:8).
Although we might think he was talking to an adolescent, he was not. “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth” (Prov. 5:18). “It will save you also from the adultress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God” (Prov. 2:16-17). The son was not an unmarried teenager, but a married man, told to rejoice in the “wife of his youth.” The adultress was a woman who had left the “partner of her youth.”
There are several passages in the Bible where we might expect to find a reference to the period of time between childhood and adulthood, but such a reference never appears. For instance, Moses is never referred to as an adolescent. “When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, ‘I drew him out of the water.’ One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people” (Ex. 2: 10-11). In verse ten he was a “child,” and by verse eleven he “had grown up.” Adolescence simply did not exist in Old Testament times.
Moses’ growth is described the same way in the New Testament. “By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter” (Heb. 11:23-24). In verse twenty-three he was a “child,” and by verse twenty-four he had “grown up.”
When the Apostle John was looking for a way of talking about people at different stages of maturity, he talked about children, young men, and fathers (1 John 2:12-14). We might think of the “young men” as adolescents, but they really were men. They were people in the prime of life. Like Solomon, John was not talking about people between puberty and adulthood, but about adults.
The Apostle Paul told us about his development. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me” (1 Cor. 13:11). Why did he not tell us what he was like as an adolescent? Because he never was an adolescent!
Figure 3. Childhood, adolescence, and adulthood before (top) and after (bottom) the creation of adolescence.
Of course, these passages of Scripture do not prove that adolescence did not exist, but they illustrate what we found earlier in the chapter. Before the nineteenth century we had childhood and adulthood, but no adolescence. We might picture the situation in their day as in the first part of Figure 3. Moses, Solomon, John, Paul, and others at that time went directly from childhood to adulthood. They were teenagers, but they were never adolescents. When they were in their teens, they were adults.
As you see in the second part of Figure 3, today we have a period during which childhood and adulthood overlap. This invention of adolescence has created problems primarily in the areas of identity, sexuality, work, and school. As long as we have adolescence, we will face these problems. Since our culture created adolescence, it can do away with it in the future, but that will not help those of us who are facing life with our adolescents today.
Although the Bible does not talk about adolescence as a stage of life, it certainly talks about teenagers. Of course, it treats them like adults, not like children. It is relevant to their lives, but has nothing to say to our practice of treating them like children. It treats them as responsible adults, and we should too.
What Can Parents Do?
The basic thing you can do to help your adolescents now is to treat them as much like adults as possible. Obviously there are some restrictions on what the law and other people will let you do. For example, the law will not allow them to work for wages, but you can see that they learn to work at home. Although they cannot legally earn much money, you can still see that they learn how to handle money wisely. The law will not allow them to marry, but you can help them learn how to get along in a family relationship. Even if other people expect your teenagers to act irresponsibly, you can expect them to be responsible.
Your first reaction may be, “This will never work. Expecting teenagers to act like adults is expecting too much!” I disagree. It worked for thousands of years, so why would it not work today? Treating teenagers like children in our modern culture clearly is not working. Why not try something that has been proven to work for thousands of years in many different cultures? Most of us keep using something that does not work (treating teenagers like children) because we do not like being different from those around us. We are more comfortable with something familiar, even if it does not work.
You may say, “Our culture today is much more complex than it was in former times. Teenagers simply cannot act like adults now as they did then!” Again I disagree. Life has always been complex.
We only try to flatter ourselves by thinking that it is worse now than then. Could we organize a society to rule most of the world as the Romans did? Throughout history teenagers have been able to live as adults in many different cultures. The world is not so different that they cannot do so now.
Expect the best. Your expectations as a parent are probably the most important factor in your teenagers acting like adults. In the next chapter, we will see that people usually behave as others expect them to. However, even if teenagers behave like adults, you will probably see them as acting like children—if you think of them as children. This was dramatically demonstrated in a study done by psychologist David Rosenhan (“On Being Sane in Insane Places,” Science, 1973, 179, pp. 250-258).
Dr. Rosenhan invented a “mental illness” and had mentally healthy people admit themselves to a dozen mental hospitals by pretending to be crazy in the first interview. After that they all acted perfectly normal while they were in the mental hospitals. They were kept in the hospitals for anywhere from week to nearly two months and given a total of 2100 pills. Although other patients recognized that they were normal and accused them of being reporters, none of the doctors or nurses did. Patients in mental hospitals are supposed to be crazy. Even if they act normal, doctors and nurses see them as acting crazy. In the same way, when you expect your teens to be immature and irresponsible, even when they act responsibly, you will not see it.
Just as you can make people worse (crazy or immature) by expecting little of them, you can make them better by expecting more. Psychologist Robert Rosenthal has investigated this in many experiments (Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, Pygmalion in the Classroom, Holt, Rinehart and Winston). In one of his early experiments he gave students in several schools an IQ test, then randomly picked out about 20% of the students. He told the teachers the test showed these students to be late bloomers and that they would suddenly get smarter that year. (He lied—the test showed no such thing.)
The teachers later rated these students as having a better chance of becoming successful, more curious, more interesting, and happier than the other students in the class. They also tended to see these students as better adjusted and more appealing. It is no surprise to learn that their grades went up. But when Dr. Rosenthal tested them eight months later, their IQs went up too. Just expecting them to be more intelligent actually raised their IQ scores.
In other experiments even rats learned faster if their trainers believed they were smart than if their trainers thought they were dumb. If you believe your teenagers are adults and expect them to act like it, they can—and will. Expect responsible, adult behavior, and you will get it. Expect irresponsible, childish behavior, and you will get it.
Do things with them. You probably say, “I already do things with them.” But do you do things with them, or do they do things with you? Remember that your teenagers are people too. They would rather do some things than others. The crucial thing is that it be the adolescent who decides what you do. Let us consider some examples.
My oldest son, Keith, became interested in photography. I had always been a “point-and-shoot” photographer, and I sent my film off for developing and printing. Keith wanted a single lens reflex camera so he could control the f-stop and the exposure time. He wanted to develop and print his own pictures. We did it. Some of our early attempts were hilarious, but I learned along with him and discovered the whole fascinating world of developing and printing pictures.
A neighboring family was at a park where Diana Ross and the Supremes were singing. They had spent the whole day at various attractions, including attending a concert by the Supremes. As they were about to leave, Joan, their teenage daughter, wanted to hear the concert again. The tired Mom and Dad wanted to flop down on a bed, not sit through a concert they had already heard once that day, but they went again. They did something with Joan, and it was a turning point in their relationship.
Contrast this with Don, another friend of mine. Don’s father took him fishing every weekend. This sounds like a teenager’s dream but Don hated fishing. He wanted to stay home, but every Saturday they were out trolling. If you had asked, his father would have told you he spent every weekend with Don. He did not. Don spent every weekend with him. The most important thing is who has decided what you do.
Share your understanding. Let us now return to our opening story. Suzie was right. Nobody understood. After reading this far, you should have an understanding of the problem, even though it may not yet be clear what you can do to solve it. The problem is adolescence itself. The scene we saw at the beginning of the chapter, so common now, would have been rare more than a hundred years ago. Most people then went directly from childhood to adulthood, so disagreements between parents and adolescents did not happen. There were no adolescents.
Who was right when Al and his father were discussing the nature of adolescence? Is adolescence an interlude, or is it a time of storm and stress? Both were right. It is an interlude between childhood and full adulthood, but too often it is a stressful interlude. It is an interlude that looks good when one is not in it, but feels bad when one is living through it.
Now that you have an understanding of the problem, you need to begin to share that insight with your own adolescents, so they will develop some self-understanding. Show them how the ages of puberty and adulthood have changed, and how they are caught in the middle. Tell them that you want to work with them to help them through this time that society has forced on all of you.
If you have children, begin to share with them as well. Preparing them for what is ahead will make adolescence easier when it comes in their lives. As they become adolescents, you can get a head start on solving the problems that are likely to arise.
Expecting the best from your teenagers, doing things with them, and sharing your understanding with them will not automatically make adolescence painless. Our culture has given us a very difficult task as parents. The suggestions in this book will make the task easier, not easy.
2005 Update
Since this chapter simply deals with the definition and invention of adolescence, nothing has changed since the first edition.