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Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

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Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#321

Post by ShredKazoo »

pengaru wrote: post #135
this_user wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, US colleges/universities seem more like boarding schools. Here, no university would think that they have any business interfering with students' personal lives or anything they do outside a lecture hall, because they are considered adults. More broadly speaking, there seems to be a tendency in current US culture of infantilising young adults. I have repeatedly seen people in their early 20s referred to…

> More broadly speaking, there seems to be a tendency in current US culture of infantilising young adults. There are obvious incentives for infantilising your population, from capitalism to governance. I find it unsurprising that the US would be exceptionally awful in this regard, when it's so good for business to convince your adults they're helpless children dependent on almighty corporate products/services. But if…

>There are obvious incentives for infantilising your population, from capitalism to governance. I find it unsurprising that the US would be exceptionally awful in this regard, when it's so good for business to convince your adults they're helpless children dependent on almighty corporate products/services.

This is not how CEOs make decisions. Nor college administrators. Your hypothetical cabal of wealthy elites steepling their fingertips and discussing how best to infantilize the population doesn't exist. Those elites have kids too and they want their kids to be productive members of society. For this theory to have even baseline plausibility, there'd have to be a trend where the kids of the elites went through some sort of non-infantilizing process so they'd be better equipped to rule, but in fact the kids of the elites at places like Yale are even more infantilized.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#322

Post by epicureanideal »

williamtrask wrote: post #166
tomrod wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like we need a united cause. Surviving heat death seems like one whose target can improve quality of life as a byproduct.

That’s a good start but IMO humanity already has the cause of avoiding death and that’s never been enough. We may need a new good to run towards, not just an evil to run away from.

Happy families and high quality romantic relationships?

We have lots of gadgets, but the simple things like being able to find someone to marry and have a family with are becoming much harder, and much more frequently ends in financial ruin.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#323

Post by remarkEon »

krapp wrote: post #193
remarkEon wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans have tried "we believe in nothing", throughout history, and yet ... I see no Cathedrals, no beautiful songs, no art, no science, no entire civilizations built to the honor of ... nothing. >which is why people are leaving it. Attendance at TLM is increasing , not decreasing.

>I see no Cathedrals, no beautiful songs, no art, no science, no entire civilizations built to the honor of ... nothing. Not believing in God isn't equivalent to a belief in nothing. Of course, plenty of songs, art and literally all of science have been created outside of the religious sphere. It seems regressive to the point of being archaic to dismiss the validity of all human effort not explicitly done in "honor"…

>You want a Cathedral built in honor of "nothing?" Have the Hubble Space Telescope.

Extremely bizarre to think that the Hubble Space Telescope is a Cathedral built in honor of nothing. Nothing? Peaking into the Heavens is ... nothing? Okay.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#324

Post by jdpigeon »

kazinator wrote: post #305
rychco wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stereotypical American helicopter-parent/soccer-mom can be viewed as a direct result of poor zoning practices & the resulting suburban sprawl. A typical child is completely incapable of going anywhere without the guidance of a car-driving parent. It is unlikely, either on foot or bike, that they are able to get to school, get to/from sports practice, meet with friends, shop at local stores, run errands, have a pa…

No amount of zoning reform can fix the fact that it's not safe for kids in America, because it's crawling with predators. Even if you have school, shop, friends, and all that, within four blocks of each other.

What the Fox News are you talking about?

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#325

Post by jdpigeon »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #314
brailsafe wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but many are, particularly modern cul-de-sacs

Cul de sac rollerblade hockey is how I spent much of my youth. So many good memories.

Indeed, the one upside of Cul-de-sac suburbs!

But really, kids should be able to do that in a park instead of having to scramble whenever a car pulls up.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#326

Post by comfypotato »

rychco wrote: post #221
jasonhansel wrote: post #9

> Chentsova Dutton said America has an international reputation for prizing autonomy, but her study opened her eyes to a more complicated picture. American parents tend to be overprotective when children are young, acting as if kids are going to live at home for a long time, like parents do in Italy. Yet they also expect children to live away from home fairly early for college, like families do in Germany. The result…

The stereotypical American helicopter-parent/soccer-mom can be viewed as a direct result of poor zoning practices & the resulting suburban sprawl. A typical child is completely incapable of going anywhere without the guidance of a car-driving parent. It is unlikely, either on foot or bike, that they are able to get to school, get to/from sports practice, meet with friends, shop at local stores, run errands, have a pa…

There’s something to be said here for neighborhood interactions among children of varying ages. I used to enjoy playing around building forts in the suburbs with some other young guys in friend’s neighborhoods that had lots on kids in the same age ball-park.

It’s not life-changing autonomy, but it was definitely free from any sort of helicopter parents for afternoons at a time.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#327

Post by Xylakant »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #123
jasonhansel wrote: post #9

> Chentsova Dutton said America has an international reputation for prizing autonomy, but her study opened her eyes to a more complicated picture. American parents tend to be overprotective when children are young, acting as if kids are going to live at home for a long time, like parents do in Italy. Yet they also expect children to live away from home fairly early for college, like families do in Germany. The result…

German and Italian youths have a lot of problems as well. Young Italians are facing crushing unemployment and Germans are facing increasing pressure from cheaper EU labor undermining their earning potential. From what I have been told by friends, being told “shut up and do your job or I’ll replace you with a cheaper foreigner” is a common experience. In addition the modern US campus experience is ‘in loco parentis‘ a…

Germany has a substantial labor shortage in practically all departments except low/unskilled labor. Unemployment hovers around 5% and falling.

There are regional differences, but all in all, the threat of “I’ll replace you with a cheaper immigration” is bogus, because there’s not even enough qualified immigrants to fill the open positions, let alone replace anyone with.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#328

Post by saurik »

Tade0 wrote: post #301
rychco wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stereotypical American helicopter-parent/soccer-mom can be viewed as a direct result of poor zoning practices & the resulting suburban sprawl. A typical child is completely incapable of going anywhere without the guidance of a car-driving parent. It is unlikely, either on foot or bike, that they are able to get to school, get to/from sports practice, meet with friends, shop at local stores, run errands, have a pa…

I see this explanation a lot, but then I look at polls like this one: https://reason.com/2014/08/19/august-2014-reason-rupe-nation... Sprawl is just a scapegoat, the real reason is in the mindset. In my corner of the world the idea that 12 year old teenagers should be, by law, supervised would be laughed at. And mind you, I live in a country where 36% of the population doesn't have access to public transport due to h…

Yeah: I grew up in suburban sprawl, such that it was theoretically possible for me to get somewhere by bike but like... no, not really, and yet my parents just let me wander around the residential suburban community as much as I wanted, alone, until it got dark.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#329

Post by carom »

watwut wrote: post #313
thanhhaimai wrote: post #214

> Chentsova Dutton and her team interviewed students from Turkey, Russia, Canada and the United States, asking them to describe a risky or dangerous experience they had in the _last month_. Both Turkish and Russian students described witnessing events that involved actual risk: violent fights on public transportation; hazardous driving conditions caused by drunk drivers; women being aggressively followed on the stree…

I personally think that American students not being engaged or treated by violent fights in public transport says something good about USA. The Russians being engaged in them says something about Russian society breaking. The "last month" thing is fairly standard through. They are looking for statistics of recent events, lifestyle "now". Not lifestyle 5 years ago.

To continue on this, it is saying that the US is not dangerous but people do not realize that. That is the implication, for the study to validate it there would need to be a question of how in-danger you've felt in that time. That way we could judge if taking an uber alone is considered similarly to being near a violent altercation.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#330

Post by endominus »

Swizec wrote: post #319
kazinator wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No amount of zoning reform can fix the fact that it's not safe for kids in America, because it's crawling with predators. Even if you have school, shop, friends, and all that, within four blocks of each other.

> because it's crawling with predators Indeed. The vast majority of danger to kids comes from people they know and trust. Most kidnappings are custody disputes, for example.

We just need to get kids away from their parents and everyone else they know. Then they'll finally be safe! Maybe those nice Mongolians will take care of them...
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