because if it didn't, adulthood would suck more
As an adult I have come into contact with a variety of people from all over the country. I was born and raised in Southern California. I spent a lot of time with your stereotypical rich white suburban, snow boarding, OC folks and then I went to college in San Diego. There I got the gambit that is California from San Diego to Redding. The west coast folks are similar but the NorCal vs SoCal distinction is still fairly prominent. I think NorCal folks are a lot like New Englanders in the sense that they are very liberal and educated. Very green minded people that like public transportation, Trader Joe's, and independently produced music. SoCal people are a bit more superficial. They don't shop in thrift stores as much (ie brand names matter), they are a little less liberal because LA has a lot of old money (no silicon valley/tech millionaires), and folks are a bit more chill meaning you get a lot of surfer/snowboarders with beach bum attitudes.
Ok so California has a crop of folks that are sort of interesting, big deal. After college I sacked up and moved to the opposite end of the country and landed in NE for grad school. Here, I have come across SOO many different kinds of people and because of my ultimate background, I have been across the country and have met people from varying walks of life and I have come to some conclusions about growing up and what it takes to be a well adjusted adult (at least in my opinion).
Life Experience - Something everyone wants but no one wants to get
In today's Internet world, life, beginning to end, all across the globe has been mapped out and documented. At birth people are thinking about college funds and educational paths that will land their son or daughter into the best high schools. Then you get through the educational melee only to go for the best of the best schools which will get you the best internships and the best jobs.
And don't forget about your retirement. Gotta get that 401K started early and make sure you have life insurance so that everything beginning to end is secure safe and perfect. You've also got Dr. Phil telling you how to raise your kids and a bunch of politicians trying to legislate morality and ethics.
So what is my gripe? Life sucks and there is a reason for it. Growing up isn't just about getting your training wheels off or graduating high school, it comes from fucking up. We have all been there. We say the wrong thing or hang out with the wrong crowd and get ourselves in a whole heap of trouble. No big deal, we all screw up, thats how we learn.
So what's the problem? Well the way I see it, everybody wants the perfect life now-a-days and beyond that, people just don't want to get screwed over. Parents shelter their kids with private schools and strict rules to prevent them from falling into the wrong crowds and getting busted. They are encouraged to stay abstinent and drug-free and for all intents and purposes these are all noble aspirations, but this really inhibits growing up. Yes, underage kids should not drink and do drugs but the rationale goes wayy beyond that. Avoiding these things should be the product of understanding them and choosing to avoid the consequences rather than dodging them because they are illegal, which seems to be the rationale.
Take alcohol for example. I never touched the stuff until i was 18. It was the week before my prom and I was going to stay at a beach house after prom for the weekend with some friends and there was going to be drinking involved. Rather than keep everything a big secret, I told my mom everything. We have a very close relationship and she understood the position I was in because, low and behold, she was actually 18 once. In any event, rather than dodge the issue and drink behind close doors with a bunch of teenagers, I asked her if I could get wasted at the house the week before. This may seem like poor parenting, but in reality, she gave me a relatively low risk environment with which to experiment. I got blitzed, I was hung over the next day and I learned in 1 safe sitting, some of the dangers associated with drinking. Had I not done this, who knows if I would have gone over board during my prom weekend and I knew going into college what I was in for and I avoided trips to the health center because I didn't over do it.
So when it comes to negotiating the alcohol issue with teenagers, telling them not to do it because it is bad and illegal is pretty useless. Yes the legal drinking age is 21 but kids rarely wait that long and even if they do, what? Are they are supposed to have maturity all of a sudden? I had a friend wait until he was 21 for the sole reason that it was illegal and on the day of his 21st birthday he had a great time and the thing he kept saying over and over was "Why did I wait so long? What a waste." He learned a lesson that day. Don't do something just because someone told you not to.
Anyway the point is that in order to learn you have to suffer and that suffering can come in a variety of ways. You can either get safe exposure to alcohol when you are younger and get an idea of the pros and cons or you can avoid the topic completely and then when it is handed to you, have no idea what the hell to do. Guess which situation results in more suffering? Things like girls getting taken advantage of at Frat parties and freshman alcohol poisoning, I think, result because people are unprepared. In any event, its ok to break the rules a little bit. They are political and bogus and the reality is, the drinking age is 21 because if it isn't states will not receive federal funding for highways. I dunno about you, but that is not the moral/ethical rationale I want governing my life.
In addition to alcohol, another topic that I think goes down these lines is sex, especially in women. Take the virginity issue. Women are conditioned to be abstinent to avoid things like teenage pregnancy, STDs and just making choices that they will regret. However, blanket abstinence is NOT the way to go about this.
Take the actual event of losing your V-card. This is usually going to suck for all parties. Take the ideal example and some girl gets her fairy tail wish of candles and soft blankets and her one true love and all that crap and has her first time in a beautiful environment. The only way that she will ever be pain free is if the guy marries her and I am willing to bet that most guys are looking to NOT marry their first. Anyway, they either get married or they break up. If they get married, for the rest of their lives they will have a very limited view of reality and when it comes to things like parenting and what not, they will just tell their kids "I married my first" which may have worked for them but good luck with your children. And if the couple doesn't get married, the woman will suffer the pain of NOT marrying her first and have to be relegated to find someone else and probably some one else after that and so on. In any event, the bottom line here is that life sucks and you don't always get what you want. People are self-interested and things don't always turn out the way you want.
Lets take the sorriest example (which I have come across a few times) and talk to a woman that didn't lose her V-card at 16 or 17 like most people and is now 23 or 24 living in an adult world. They now have NO idea what the hell they are doing. Everyone they try and date has already been through that experience and has learned from it. However, taking a woman's virginity at 24 or so is a daunting task because thats when couples usually start to think about getting married and scarring a woman at 17 is different than 24. You now have a woman who has held onto something her whole life because she was told to and now she has it and all she wants to do is think about something else. She has zero understanding of sex and having relationships in an adult world without an understanding of sex is pretty tough. Sex is like money, you can't understand it if you don't have it. Can you imagine taking financial advise from someone that has never worked a day in their life? They would have no idea what the value of a dollar was, how easy/hard it is to earn/spend or what to do with it.
In any event, the bottom line here is that you have to suffer to grow up. You have to go through a perilous experience that results in tears and frustration because you get SO much out of it. 1) you learn that life does go on, so when/if something like that happens again, you will have the knowledge that you can get through bullshit 2) you can anticipate dangerous situations both for yourself and people you care about and 3) you develop a more complex understanding of the topic at hand. If you talk to someone that has never drank, all they can think about is alcoholism and hangovers, but if you have drank before, you'd know that you can get a buzz without a hangover and you can drink without being an alcoholic. Same with sex. After learning that sex happens and people go their separate ways, you'll understand that just because two people have been intimate doesn't mean they need to marry each other. Say you are sexually frustrated in a relationship, which happens, if you have experience you know what you are willing to put up with and what you are not. If you are sexually inexperienced you have no idea what the hell you are doing and I am sure that while most parents don't want their 16 year old screwing around, they REALLY don't want a 30 year old child interacting in an adult world that can hurt and destroy an innocent mind, one with no protection.
So the take home is don't be afraid to get screwed over. Maybe this message is for teenagers, but I feel like risk taking is what life is about. Yes you can get hurt, but you'll never know unless you try. Life experience is learning from life and that only happens when you fuck up. It would be nice if we remembered our successes as much as our failures but we all know we remember the later more than the former. That is why growing up is so hard. You have to learn these lessons the hard way and what better time to do it than when you have your parents to help you out. Yes alcohol, sex and drugs can ruin someone's life, but that doesn't articulate the point well enough. All of them carry taboo standings because of political reasons which may be nice for elections and policy but is that what you want controlling your daily life? Wouldn't you rather understand what you are afraid of? Recreational use of each is possible, as is abuse and knowing the difference is what separates a child from an adult.
So parents, level with your kids. It isn't enough to keep them from danger, they have to understand it. Telling them to look both ways before they cross the street is easy because the consequences are real and immediate. However, avoiding sex, drugs and alcohol are not that simple, especially because they are "fun". The more you discourage "fun" the more "fun" it becomes. Rather than skirt the issue, why not attack it? It is no wonder that Europeans have kids drink at an early age because they begin to understand it, just like anything else, so that when they are 18 they don't start getting bombed at house parties and make all kinds of stupid mistakes because they don't realize what they are doing.
Same with sex. Abstinence is such a retarded concept. Preaching abstinence is useless because it fails to educate. People don't just all of a sudden realize what being "in love" is and when the time is right. They have to have the experience of having sex when it isn't time and when they aren't in love. This scars them, makes them hurt but it also helps them learn to not make that mistake again.
In end, life isn't perfect. It sucks A LOT and losing innocence is going to happen sooner or later. Perhaps it would be good to learn the sex, drug, and alcohol lessons when you aren't all on your own. I had a really tough childhood but now I know what I want and what I don't want. Very little scares me because I have been fucked over so many times. I have learned lose lessons and now I believe that I am a well adjusted adult. It took a lot of rough times, but I was a kid for 18 years and will be an adult for 2-3 times that. Wouldn't you rather suffer first and be happy second?
just my thoughts
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