The Invention of the Teenager

"NEWBERRY MILLS, S. C. The unguarded wheel and belt at the
left are sinister neighbors for little girls' arms, skirts and braids."
- Child Labor in the Carolinas, 1909

625 years ago, the English poet Chaucer, in his Tale of Milibee wrote, “Idleness is the root of mischief.” Later in Chaucer’s writings we find the first rendering of a more familiar idiom, “Idle hands are the Devil’s tools.” So it is that the persistent struggle to find positive paths for our youth is not new. What is new is that for most of history there was no such thing as a "teenager," and for that reason we should forgive ourselves for still not having gotten it right.

As late as the 19th century, say 1890, a boy who reached the age of ten could, on average be expected to live about another 48 years...in other words, at age 50, that same boy would be elderly, for he would face the end of his life in a mere ten years or so, at age 60.

President Lincoln, murdered at age 56, had for some time been referred to as the "Old Man," not as a euphemism the way we use the term today, but because he was in fact elderly, statistically confined to a life that would likely have ended in a few years had he died naturally. Only 130 years later, Bill Clinton, at 46 was the third youngest president in history. In 1787 Hamilton was 30, Pinckney 29, Randolph 34, Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” was 36, and Jefferson, 44---an average of 34 years old if you set aside the aberration of Ben Franklin’s 81 years (the average age of our national legislators today is about 50). By age 17 or 18 most of the Founders had completed their classical education. One cannot imagine an idle youth for those men.

It is then that the expectation of a carefree, dependent existence from age 13 to perhaps 20 years old was held by no one in 1860, my great, great grandmother’s day, as the 20 year old would already be nearly halfway through his productive life. The 20 year old in 2010 on the other hand, still has a few years to figure it all out. Today’s teenager may expect to enjoy perhaps another 50 years of relative comfort and security, while the youth of just a few generations ago lived the exhausting urgency of a hard life expected to last only about 55 years, much less in parts of the country. Until WWII, 98% of Americans lived in poverty. There was no rehearsal or really any preparation for adulthood for our ancestors; they did not have to be told to keep moving; to work hard; to seek elusive security, for there was no alternative. Our great, great grandparents had two options---work or starve, most often from a very early age.
We have not, as a society, figured out what to do with the years from age 13 to 19 since for modern teenagers mere subsistence is not a priority. When we hear the cry, "Kids these days!"---We’re hearing the statement of a problem, the profundity of which is barely understood or appreciated. Yet a plurality of our resources as taxpayers, professionals, laborers, and parents are devoted to the well being of our teenagers. While crime rates have fallen overall, youth arrests and incarceration are up.

If ever there were a “community” issue in need of collective attention, it’s the well-being, security, and happiness of our children. Every remedy, from school to ‘boot camp’ to psychotropic drugs has been dreamed-up to address the teenage years, and dire statistics regarding the success of those remedies make it clear we have not solved the problem. Having removed from most of the population the constant necessity of survival, we now find ourselves awash in teenagers who must choose productive use of their time while waiting to become "adults," at which time we expect they will begin behaving like contributing citizens, exercising good judgment, and meeting real-world obligations. Most times it works out ok.
The greatest prize imaginable should be offered for one who dares to propose a viable solution, for all of the medically, sociologically well-intended explanations have not, and will not likely solve the problem soon. Still, there is much we can do until we fully understand.