Death of the Adult or Death of Childhood?

It’s early morning and you’ve just realized the garbage needs to go out so you search around in the dark trying to find something that will cover you and you land upon a pair of sweatpants. You are still quite groggy as you slip each leg on. Your brain registers the pants are on but there’s something  . . . not quite right. You’ve put your sweatpants on backwards. That’s the same kind of reaction I’ve had lately when I’ve seen certain advertisements on television concerning children. Something is not quite right but you can’t put your finger on it. It wasn’t until I read the book The Death of the Adult by Diana West that I understood where that reaction was coming from.

Society at large is unaware that its desire to never grow up, to always be the rebellious teenager has created a coffin for childhood. We live in a society where Mick Jaggar and Paul McCartney, grandpas really, are still accepted and loved as the rebellious rock n’ rollers. Think about that, rebellious teenage grandpas.  We have botox and surgery and computer graphics making Martha Stewart look half her age. It isn’t all about looks, however. Adults have seemingly bought into this idea that children and teenagers have an uncommon wisdom that adults have lost. They know more than we did as kids and we look to them for answers. Teenagers define for everyone what is cool and what is not, what is in and what is out.

Adults are caught in a trap when they want to be the rebellious teenagers, the ones who never say ‘no’ or that’s far enough, and yet have to do so for their children not to grow up as uncontrollable menaces.  Even defining the child as an uncontrollable menace would be challenged. Who am I to judge him? Boundaries are the plague to teenagers. How often have we heard that society doesn’t want boundaries on what marriage means ( why does it have to be man and woman?)  or boundaries on family. ( Grandpa –aged Elton with his new son?)

What is forgotten is that childhood is the other side of the coin to adulthood, the two are connected. When we fail to define or expect adult behavior and the process of getting older, we lose childhood in the process. Diane West, as an example of how this plays out in real life, points to the little girls she calls “Baby Brittanys”. Diane calls it with breathtaking accuracy when she says that we have grafted onto little girls that which is meant for adult women. That is why it is considered entertainment that we have little girls dressed like women wearing tiaras on television.

But don’t be naïve like me in thinking this happens in California and not London, Ontario. Take a look at the nearest Wal-Mart, walk into the size two to six ‘x’ girls section and there for sale are articles of clothing for little girls that were once burned by feminists in the sixties. These undergarments are sized for small children, not girls going into puberty. Is anyone thinking about the consequences to these actions? Suddenly my uneasy reaction has turned into the avian flu.

It is a bit humbling to realize that the world has recognized this change in childhood norms much faster than I have. Not long after reading this book, I came across a 2007 Maclean’s magazine which had an interview of an author discussing her latest book Helpless. Her comments were that she was startled by what children wore and how they acted. So I went online to see if anyone else had seen this change. The online Maclean’s also had number of articles on the topic.

Feminists are mystified as to where this is coming from. Some blame it on the media, some on parents not saying no to their children and one even suggested that these girls were rebelling against the Muslim extremists’ treatment of women they see on the internet.

Muslim extremists, really?

Feminists lament that this new generation doesn’t see that they are not liberating women; they are subjugating women all over again.

I find this a striking picture of the very same thing that happened to the children of Israel. God commanded them in Deuteronomy to teach the next generation the things they had learned from God. Yet in Judges 2:10,11 we find the sad commentary that, “ After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.”

In the middle of the busyness of life it is hard to scratch out time to teach our children who God is. Learning about God is a good thing but it must not stop at mental acknowledgement. He needs to be real to them. The feminists did not remind their children of what they have fought for and why they fought and now they are reaping the fruit. What will be the legacy we leave behind?

What does this new culture of childhood mean for us as believers? Certainly it means that things are going to get tougher and tougher as parents. Parental resolve is going to have to be strong to stand against the tide of media, advertisement, peer pressure and child pressure. (“ But mommy, all my friends have one!”) We need to help our children remain children while they are still children. While there is a proper time for a child to grow up and become a man or woman, we need to guard their moral innocence while they are children.

We also must be careful to define for our children in biblical terms what it means to be a man or woman. The trickier part will be to live it out before them. This whole journey has really started me to rethink what it means to be an adult. May God give us all wisdom in this area that best glorifies who He is and what he has created us to be and become.

The Death of the Adult by Diana West is found in your local library, viewer discretion is advised.

Penny Laird