Hey, White People with White Kids

[haele]

106. Age has nothing to do with "child" or "adult"in anything other than legal sense.

Experience does. And too many children were raised by people who never had to or were not capable of taking responsibility or providing an example of being an adult and making adult choices. Throw in mental issues, and you can have a 40 year old man- or woman-child who just can't function at a level past what society expects a freshman in High School to function at. And many of these "children"

My stepdaughter at 18 was mentally no older than she was at 15. Certainly no more emotionally mature or personally responsible than she was at 12 - which is when we were finally able to get the Alabama courts to get her out of her abusive, isolating mother's custody and into her father's custody. She's got PTSD;physically abused, with some possible brain damage from the beatings and starvation she suffered until we could get her.

She's just starting to understand there's a world outside of her immediate wants and needs now that she's 22 and has a 3 year old girl. Her new husband, the baby's father, just turned 21, and still has no concept about being an adult. He's getting paid an allowance and room for "managing" the family apartment complex, and is just perfectly happy doing that until he wants to do something else. Maybe he'll go to tech school; his grandfather told him he'd pay him more if he learned to be an electrician, plumber, or HVAC tech. But then again, maybe not.



That's how he was raised. His father is the same way - a big kid with toys who plays in pool tournaments for fun. They all came from a good, middle class family that lucked into the ability to purchase some good multi-unit investment property back in the late 1960's pre-Prop-13, so it's going on two generations now that have never wanted for money - or opportunity if they wanted to take it.

Me, at 18, I was getting out of Boot Camp, going through C-school, and on my way to being a work-center supervisor by the time I was 20. At 18, my husband was fry-cook and later night shift (closing) manager for a small-town Dairy Queen and on his way to University.


So, you can call 18-year olds adults until you're blue in the face, but they aren't adults until they can handle being adults. Even if they are "legally" there. If the experiences and "teachable moments" that trigger emotional development and brain maturity have not occurred or has been hijacked, they can't even cconceive on what it is like to be an adult. Anything you try to say or show them is "blah, blah, blah..." until it clicks.

Haele