Perpetual Childhood

Abigail and Dolley readers many of the aspects of this Healthcare take over bother me, sicken me, and infuriate me; there is one part that disturbs me.  We now allow children to remain on their parents health insurance until they are 26.  Is this now the age when we feel our kids finally need to be responsible adults?  Why does that age keep getting moved up and how is that possibly good for our families, society, and the kids themselves?


When my Grandparents were children, it was not unusual for a boy to take on the responsibilities of his family in his early and middle teens if the father was deceased.  My parents married out of High School, thus setting the age for adulthood around 18.  When I was coming up, it was understood that when I went away to college that I was on my own thereafter and would be independent from my parents at graduation - so I guess the bar was set at about 22 for me.  Now we are saying, 26?

I remember a line in Interview With A Vampire, based on the Anne Rice novel, (that I really only watched because I had this thing for Brad Pitt back then, but I digress), Brad Pitt's character is speaking of the time he was human.  At 23, he said he was master of the plantation.  Then unlike now, that was well into adulthood, he was a man.  I was not much older than that myself at the time and I reflected on the boys I knew that age.  They were not MEN they were boys or better yet, they were GUYS.

We do not expect our children to grow up, instead we indulge them in their selfishness and immaturity far too long.  When the voting age was moved to 18, we expected that our children would be adults at this time.  That was the case then, but is no longer the case now.  They are easily influenced and naive, they are not prepared for the world in which they are not the center.  We have failed many generations and specifically our men, who in turn fail our women because they do not know their proper role and place within society and the family.

We as parents must change this.  I am already speaking very strongly about this subject to my child and he understands that I expect his teen years to be very short and as painless for both of us as possible.  He will not be indulged in this area.  I will teach him and expect him to become a MAN, not a guy, not a boy, but a MAN and all that this entails.  Will you join me?