I guess the idea is that we prolong childhood/adolescence but direct it or protect it less. This can mean “a fulfilled, self-directed 20s and 30s and beyond”, with runway in becoming yourself, or “a nightmare of bad decisions and unlucky circumstances that you have to pay for for years, inhibiting your freedom”.
Building agency (the ability to secure your own well-being or liberty) is important, and supporting people in their development of agency might best be done by saying “You are supported, be good at interdependence, not independence.” (And then providing them good people with whom to be interdependent.) People need to make their mistakes in order to develop agency, but social and physical environments that are less dangerous foster that without injuring or killing people, and more supportive environments make injuries less serious so that they don’t get worse.
I think a “Western adult” is into independence more than interdependence, and so initiation into Western adulthood is “being thrown to the wolves”. But “being thrown to the wolves” is the name for when the initiation takes its bleak form, and there’s probably a different name people would use when the process goes more or less smoothly and successfully.
I guess the idea is that we prolong childhood/adolescence but direct it or protect it less. This can mean “a fulfilled, self-directed 20s and 30s and beyond”, with runway in becoming yourself, or “a nightmare of bad decisions and unlucky circumstances that you have to pay for for years, inhibiting your freedom”.
Building agency (the ability to secure your own well-being or liberty) is important, and supporting people in their development of agency might best be done by saying “You are supported, be good at interdependence, not independence.” (And then providing them good people with whom to be interdependent.) People need to make their mistakes in order to develop agency, but social and physical environments that are less dangerous foster that without injuring or killing people, and more supportive environments make injuries less serious so that they don’t get worse.
I think a “Western adult” is into independence more than interdependence, and so initiation into Western adulthood is “being thrown to the wolves”. But “being thrown to the wolves” is the name for when the initiation takes its bleak form, and there’s probably a different name people would use when the process goes more or less smoothly and successfully.