DO WE LIVE IN ‘CHILDISH TIMES’!?
Nico van Oudenhoven

At first sight, this is a silly, if not a childish question.
One has only to look at the picture of the Syrian refugee child three-year-old Aylan Kurdi who washed ashore on a Turkish coast in September 2015, to stand still, if only for one second, at the statistic that in the USA every week some 25 children die of bullet wounds, to reflect on the news that in Japan “Child Abuse and Child Pornography Cases Hit Record Highs”, on the feelings of heavily pregnant Roma women left homeless after their unlawful settlements in Italy were destroyed or on the ever deepening violence in young South Sudanese families, that our times are not really childish, naïve or harmless, but rather adult, and brute.

And these are just five random and recent examples selected from an uncountable number of similar or even worse things happening to boys and girls wherever and all the time. In many of these instances, they are given tasks, have to carry burdens or faced with hardships and challenges that far outsize what anybody, even the strongest and most mature among us could deal with.
And their numbers are beyond anybody’s comprehension. Save the Children put the number of children “who lost their childhood” at over 700 million. These are young boys and girls are in permanent poor health, face conflict and extreme violence, permanent hunger, have been married off to become parents themselves, don’t go to school but have to work hard for long hours.
It is a given that children show ‘adult behaviour’ at ever younger ages and conduct themselves ‘childishly’ way into adulthood. To sketch it roughly: it is now common for young adults between 23 and 35 still in the process of establishing themselves in education, in careers, form stable partnerships, have children, and become financially independent.
As children they become street wiser, access the internet and are sexually active at ever earlier ages. This trend seems to be global. The media specialist and educator Neil Postman interpreted this phenomenon as something that would do away with children as most people look at them, altogether. In his The Disappearance of Childhood he argues that children are more and more looking like adults as a result of having unlimited access to the Internet, having the same rights as adults, and taken as seriously as adults. To which could be added that also adults start looking ever more like children.

Childlike ≠ childish ≠ Innocent. One can only conjecture as to what Postman would have thought about a small news item in a recent issue of the Canadian Clarington this Week. Herein it is reported that some elementary-school children, yes, elementary-school, children are such a threat to their teachers that they have been supplied with Kevlar-type personal protective equipment, the sort of leather suits that used in motor bike races.
Six percent said they felt always unsafe in school. 12 percent said their classrooms had to be evacuated more than four times in one year. This is in Durham region, a part of Ontario, Canada, not an area that stands out as peculiarly rough or unsafe.
During this still extending childhood period so much is going on that could best be described as immature, irresponsible, infantile, puerile, lacking in complexity, foolish, ‘cute’, even senile, or, in any event not fit for adults.
Here, we take these attributes a few step further by using the label ‘childish’ also to indicate such phenomena as vastly indulging in instant gratification, accepting ‘alternative facts’, giving priority of ‘gut feelings’ to analytical thinking, simplifying complex matters, not looking much farther ahead in time than tomorrow, needing constant excitement, taking ‘the easy way out’, expecting praise and rewards for little or no efforts or achievements, looking for information that is largely entertaining or about conflict, scandal and celebrities, presenting an image of oneself on social media that has no rooting in reality…
Teachers in Canada are under pressure to give ‘asset’ rather than negative marks. Thus, instead of telling parents that their kid is disorganised and has a messy desk, they tell “Johnny consistently places his materials inside his desk in random order. He is highly encouraged to adopt a more streamlined organisational style, so that during in-class periods he his able to locate his materials with greater ease.”
Worrisome are the recent date coming out from USA on suicide figures among young people, which have more than doubled in the period 2007-14. Only around 9 percent of cases can be contributed to school disciplinary problems. Many cases had their roots in relationship issues, such as with family members or intimate partners. In addition, over half of the young people interviews reported to have mental health problems.
Social media, universally observed, is a mixed blessing. Rather a curse, though, according to the economist Emily McDool and her colleagues. Reviewing the situation in the U.K., she reports that their research suggests that spending more time on social networks reduces the satisfaction that 10-15-year-old children feel with all aspects of their lives, except for their friendships; and that girls suffer more adverse effects than boys.
Spending just one hour a day on social networks reduces the probability of a child being completely happy with his or her life overall by around 14%. They found that this was three times as high as the estimated adverse effect on wellbeing or being in a single-parent household – and larger than the effect of playing truant.

Running alongside these trends is the preoccupation with their safety, curtailing opportunities for risk taking and discovery, without actually making their environment more secure. Playgrounds are sanitised, strictly supervised, or removed altogether. There’s an overflow of stories about parents who are being vilified for having given their children supervised freedom.
These are the ‘helicopter parents’ and ‘helicopter families’ that hover constantly above their children and check their every move and refuse to cut the umbilical cords with their children, always on the ready to ‘help’ at the slightest request or hurdle. These are common phenomena, so are these children’s stunted developments as cryptographer Bruce Schneier points out how constant surveillances causes feelings of low-self esteem, depression and anxiety and strips young people from their self-esteem.
Traditionally time-consuming sports such as tennis and American football matches are now being shortened to accommodate the briefer attention spans of their viewers.
Book colouring has now become a favourite pastime for many adults and is becoming a world-wide trend. ‘Book colouring’? Was this not something little children used to do, not so long ago? The columnist Heather Mallick thinks so and sees it as a sign of growing childishness and notices that, at the same time, the majority these home-based artists doesn’t have any knowledge of ‘significant events’. Granted: for some, it soothes the soul and helps people find relief in this busy world and too much screen time. Psychologist Joseph Allen and his colleagues use the term ‘pseudo mature’ to describe the behaviour of many adolescents and see this resulting in such longer-term problems as alcohol and drug abuse and elevated criminal behaviour.
Generations ‘Z’, ‘F’ ‘Y’ and ‘I’. The 2017 Survey of University Admissions Officers in the UK presents data about the new university entrants or ‘Generation Z’. They suggest that while these young people are very demanding, many are also very needy and dependent on parents, teachers, lecturers, and Google, much more than previous cohorts and, ominously, that they are not able to think and learn independently. Their findings could, we think, be summarised as ‘they are still childish’.
Social scientist Onno Hansen-Staszyński describes current young people as belonging to the Generation ‘F’ –‘F’ stands for ‘fragmentation’. At ever younger ages they use digital devices jumping from ever-shorter information bites to the other, this in an environment where events come and go at increasing intensity and frequency. They try to multi-task but their brains are not built for it. The result is short-attention spans, fragmented conceptions of the world, lack of wider embedding and a deficient connectedness of events with a wider environment.
The documentary film maker, Adam Curtis also blames the Internet for people’s addiction and being controlled by it. He also notices a declining capacity in people to deal with and understand complex, intricate and ‘messy’ situations. These latter abound and are only increasing. There is a world-wide to tendency to manage perception and to simplify and manipulate reality so that it can be easily grasped and understood. Who’s to blame: almost everybody, foremost the Internet, media and politicians. And ‘Y’? These are the so-called millennials who were born between 1980 and 1995 and are seen as falling in this expanded stage of ‘emerging adulthood’.
The subtitle of the psychologist Jean Twenge’s book iGen [‘internet generation’] is revealing: “iGen Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood–and What That Means for the Rest of Us”. More than generations before them, they are preoccupied with safety, tolerance, and inequality. But they also suffer more from anxiety, loneliness, and depression.

These young people grow up more slowly: eighteen-year-olds look and behave like fifteen-year-olds a few decades ago. Alarmingly so, she concludes that “where iGen goes, so goes the nation and the world”. Young people also need progressively more time in becoming parents; almost everywhere the age of women giving birth to her first child keeps climbing up. In Great Britain, the average age for starting a family is 30, and the country is not an exception. A world with people, thus, who will look more childish and will need more time to mature.
Above all, there seems to be no profound interest or worry, at least among many adults and political leaders, about the fragility of their existence, the risks that surround them, be it advanced in science and technology, climate change, deepening inequality, or political instability. A NIMBY -not in my backyard – mentality may prevail.
The psychologist Michele Borba, is not the only one who sees that the effect of praising children for no good reason to boost their self-esteems, as is becoming common practice, works counter effective. By ‘bubble-wrapping’ them they end up living in a ‘all-about-me-world’ with fewer skills, forget that there are other children in the world, become more selfish, and dependent.

In other words, more infantile, a trait that endures into adulthood. ‘Bubble-wrapping also applies to physical care: In the US, and likely in a range of other settings, each little scratch that a child picks up, is treated very seriously and inevitably an antibiotic is advised and their environment is already turning out too clean and too sterile for their own good.
The anthropologist David Lancy notices that while in African villages, adolescents “are being reeled in and socialized to take their place among adults, our youth are distancing themselves further from society. Automobiles, smart phones, part-time jobs, and the prevailing atmosphere of high school and college allow adolescents to retreat from the world at large into a distinct youth culture.

Far from preparing youth to launch, this culture encourages the postponement of responsibility, career building, upward striving, and family formation.” This youth culture is also coloured by heightened sexual activity, yet, as sexologist Peggy Orenstein writes, “It is usual for young people, even when they are seniors in college, to be ill equipped about sex. So, they turn to porn as a means of Sex Ed, as their otherwise liberal parents would have been willing to answer all sort of question, but those about sex.”
The images of axolotls come to mind, Mexican salamanders that reach adulthood with retaining their adolescent features. Or in the words of TV presenter Sarah Beeny: “For me adulthood is realising there are no grown-ups and everybody is winging it’’


It’s tempting to become cynical about those young people who appear not ‘tough’ enough to cope with the demands and challenges of the ‘real world’ and dismiss then as ‘snow flakes’, or oversensitive kids as is not uncommon. Or as Daniel Heath Justice, professor of First Nations and Indigenous Studies, points out, to make them feel as subhuman, uncivilized, and uneducable -as is often experienced by First Nation or aboriginal young men and women, or that they don’t exist or shouldn’t exist -as happens to transgender and gender non-binary students. Here a kinder, more understanding and accommodating appreciation is called for. Such an approach may, of course, not be confused with treating them as children.

But then, we won’t even delve into the fact that one out three children in the USA is overweight, and that fat children are becoming a sight, wherever. Still, we mention this fact, which is less and less common to USA only, because ‘big business’ addresses the weak spots of children and extend these first into young and later into full adulthood.
Obesity is not, determined by a person’s genes by environmental factors ranging form the seemingly minor, such as kids’ plate sizes, to bigger challenges, such as school schedules that keep teens from getting sufficient sleep. And the list is even longer: the ubiquity of fast food, changes in technology, fewer home-cooked meals, more food advertising, a burst of low-cost processed foods and increasing sugary drink serving sizes, as well as easy access to unhealthy snacks in vending machines, at sports games and in nearly every setting child inhabit. And these are only a few of the external influences that make children chubbier, or call it more obese, and yes, more childish.
It’s hard to say whether the declining fertility rates in men is a sign of childishness; their exposure to common class of chemical called endocrine disruptors, found in plastics, cosmetics, couches, pesticides, and countless other products, seems to be a likely culprit. However, the advice to avoid alcohol, drugs and smoking and even anti hair-loss medications, but exercise, eat healthy and watch your weight suggest that an irresponsible, call it childish, element is part of the mix.
The grass-roots child-rights activist Lalit Mohan Mishra actually sees an increasing trend, willed by many, for ‘Childism’ as a new political ideology. He points out that democracies, although having taken root in many countries, are stagnated, and failed to grow in creativity and maturity, have created a disconnect between the public and government, with huge absenteeism during elections. He speaks for India, but the picture he sketches seems familiar to many other places as well.
Related to the question ‘do we live in childish times’ is of course the often-mentioned process that sees children getting cleverer, street-wiser, more sexually mature, computer savvy and globally connected at ever younger ages. Even in much safer circumstances, children are being exposed to material that used to be seen as mature or too adult.
Access to porno sites and typically ‘adult’ or highly disturbing information via the Internet, social media and TV is obviously the most cited. But also, exposure to ‘heavy’ news’, promotion school learning at the expense of play to increasingly younger boys and girls feels like making them prematurely wise, if not old. Even the ‘adultification’ of toys and cartoon figures, which is happening at a global scale, may well move children into adult-like lives.

At the same time, it takes more time for many young people to reach ‘independence’. With independence is meant having the skills, attitudes, access to networks to marshal sufficient resources to give direction to one’s own life, rather than these being under the control of other people.
The extension of childhood or youth beyond 18 years – the age by which according the internationally agreed upon threshold to adulthood becomes worrisome for those young men and women who are in foster or residential care, find them selves in youth prisons or just in school and at home. Many of them still need others to support, guide and, ultimately, make decisions for them. Sending them in the wide-open world would be like throwing them for the wolves. And this doesn’t seem to happen.
Free-lance journalist Kate Ashford in her BBC column, ‘‘Hi Mum, can I move back home?’, signals a world-wide trend of young people stay on living with their parents after graduating from university About a third of the adults in the US aged 18 to 31, or 21.6 million, were living in their parents’ homes in 2012. In the UK, 3.3 million 20- to 34-year-olds lived with their parents in 2013, up 25% since 1996, while in Australia, about 29% of young adults live with one or both of their parents.

The trend of young people living with their parents after graduating from university or in early adulthood is occurring worldwide. About a third of the adults in the US aged 18 to 31, or 21.6 million, were living in their parents’ homes in 2012, according to a Pew Research Center report. In the UK, 3.3 million 20- to 34-year-olds lived with their parents in 2013, up 25% since 1996, according to the Office for National Statistics. In Australia, about 29% of young adults live with one or both of their parents, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The pioneer of psycho-analysis, Sigmund Freud, as to be expected, has his own thing to say about men being childish:
“Indeed, the great Leonardo (da Vinci) remained like a child for the whole of his life in more than one way. It is said that all great men are bound to retain some infantile part. Even as an adult he continued to play, and this was another reason why he often appeared uncanny and incomprehensible to his contemporaries.”
It’s an open question whether grown-up people who act childish retain the same creativity that children have and that’s often lacking in older people. Pablo Picasso’s often-quoted “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up” comes to mind. So does recent research by the psychologists Alison Gopnik and Tom Griffith which shows that older people may be handicapped in their creativity because they know too much. They exploit their available knowledge, while younger children -and preschoolers do this more than basic-school children- act more as explorers.
‘Childish Times’: Indeed! Freud notwithstanding. We would also like to extend the definition of ‘childishness’ to including a range of what we see as lack of rounded mature adult features such as xenophobia, rejection of diversity, racism, denial of reality and, in particular, unwillingness or inability to take perspective and refusing to listen respectfully to others, especially those with whom one disagrees. These two faculties ‘taking perspective’ and ‘respectful listening’ are at the core of mature and adult behaviour.
A few recent studies may help to clarify this position. The journalist Thomas Edsall reports that the election of President Donald Trump coincided with the trend among Republican voters to resist open-mindedness, open borders, and an open society in general. And also, an increasing resentment against intellectuals. A childish reaction, one could say.
And there is a noticeable trend for teenagers to put off typically adult markers. Psychologists Jean Twenge and Heejung Park show that fewer adolescents are engaged in adult activities such as having sex, dating, drinking alcohol, working for pay, going out without their parents but rather engage in such wholesome activities as rock-climbing or talking about literature or music. This is in the USA, but likely to be observed in other places as well.

The columnist Emma Teitel offers material for an interesting discussion as to whether parents infantilize their children or not. She comments on the wide-spread phenomenon of children having strong attachments to non-living things, such as fluffy or stuffed animals, or a piece of cloth. They hold on to these wherever they go and often can’t sleep without them. When lost, these children may be heart-broken and it’s not uncommon to go at great lengths and marshal a range of sources, including the police and the Internet, to trace the lost Teddy Bear, or ‘Sleepy Dog’. Teitel argues that in doing so, other more important issues are being devalued and children unnecessarily coddled and kept childish.
How do these issues affect the lives of children and young people who live in a world they have been pulled, pushed, thrown into or otherwise find themselves in? A world that is not yet of their making, but has already shaped them in large measures, possibly permanently?
A world for which they may be accustomed to but not well equipped to deal with the ever-soaring number of challenges that only seem to get more complex and intense, where uncertainty and change seem to be the only certainties and constants? What purchase and guidance would be available to them, or are needed, on their journey through life, and that of their children?
Nico van Oudenhoven is the Senior Associate International Child Development Initiatives [ICDI] See: ICDI.nl; Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands
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