Zach Paine

Psychology Today: Trashing Teens:

Imagine what it would feel like—or think back to what it felt like—when your body and mind are telling you you’re an adult while the adults around you keep insisting you’re a child. This infantilization makes many young people angry or depressed, with their distress carrying over into their families and contributing to our high divorce rate. It’s hard to keep a marriage together when there is constant conflict with teens.

Epstein goes on to argue that the infantilization of young adults is not only harmful, but that the whole notion of “adolescence” is a societal construct:

Many cultures do not even have a term for adolescence. But we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable. In 1904, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall said it was programmed by evolution. He was wrong.

I think this is the primary reason I was so frustrated as an “adolescent”.

(Via kottke.)