“Do you ever miss being young?” one of the teens asked, out of curiosity rather than an attempt to annoy or offend me.
I was in the kitchen belting out some tunes while doing boring middle-aged things such as loading the dishwasher in a manner that would definitely horrify my husband, and my friend who sends me photos of her husband’s dishwasher loading efforts, presuming I’ll be appalled.
But I’m too hip and cool to care about what goes on what shelf, which in fairness is probably why my teen felt compelled to ask the question he did.
“Sometimes,” I replied honestly. “Though I wouldn’t want to be a child again. And there’s other things I’d rather not live through again either. So, I’m not sure”, I said returning to my 1990s playlist.
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As I continued making a hames of the dishwasher loading, I tried to work out what part of being young I missed. Definitely the clothes. But with a mortgage, bills and a child from my early to mid-twenties, I was a proper grown up from a young age. Which meant both responsibilities and being told “you can’t wear that mini skirt. You’re a mother now”. Young in years, but not necessarily in freedoms.
Those were the days when all you had to do to afford a house was move to a different county and spend hours commuting each day to your job in Dublin. When we started school at four and college at 17. So we grew up, perhaps, if we wanted to, a little bit more quickly. Until we reached wild-Sundays-spent-loading-the-dishwasher-and-doing-laundry age, and lamented a youth spent largely being old.
Ivan Yates: 'My children struggle with what I do'
Ivan Yates is known for his controversial views on all manner of issues, and parenting is no different. The broadcaster admits the number of nappies he has changed in his time are in single digits and that 'learned helplessness' served him well. But Yates shares a more thoughtful side to him in this conversation with Jen Hogan. He speaks about how a lack of emotional warmth in his own childhood influenced how we would parent his own children, how he was determined they would be in no doubt how much he loves them and how is outspoken beliefs are not always well received by his sons and daughter.Produced by Aideen Finnegan.
Of course, it’s all different now. For one, no one can afford a house. So, it’s probably no harm that our children are leaving school, and college later. And many of life’s milestones follow now at a later age. We can live, then, in the desperate hope that by the time they’re finished their education and settled in a job, the powers that be might have sorted out the housing crisis and our offspring won’t feel quite so inclined to escape our island. What is it they say about it being the hope that kills you?
Anyway, back to the fact that children are starting and leaving school at an older age. It’s a good thing, we’re led to believe, and in many regards I agree. Starting school at five, and taking in transition year, which most students do, means more and more school students are 18 and 19 – adults – by the time they come to sit the Leaving Cert. More mature, we’re told.
What do 17-year-olds know about what they want to do with their lives? How could they possibly know what they want to study when they’re so young? How can they be expected to choose a career path at that tender age?
There is no light-switch moment when a young person turns 18. But there is a light-switch change in society’s expectation
I could nearly buy into this, if it wasn’t for the fact that 18 and 19 year olds, who have spent most of their lives in school, really haven’t had the opportunity for much more life experience than a 17 year old of yesteryear. They’re older, but are they any wiser? I, like many parents, have no desire to rush my children through childhood. I’m in no hurry for them to grow up and finish school. But I do question if we are guilty of infantilising our young adults within the school system, as most of us know it.
There is no light-switch moment when a young person turns 18. But there is a light-switch change in society’s expectation. You’re an adult now, with adult consequences. And yet our 18- and 19-year-olds, who can legally drink and vote, sit in school uniforms, call other adults “sir” and “miss”, require their parents or guardians to explain a lateness or absence, need to ask permission to use the toilet, and even have updates about their academic performance communicated to their parents.
And we’re largely okay with this, because we want to know. “Be an adult,” we tell them. “Take responsibility for your life and your decisions,” we encourage, as we treat them like children. There is merit in children being older starting and finishing school, but only if we begin to recognise that we now have adult students in school, who need to be treated as such.
By the time I turned 18 I was in college, already being treated beforehand like the adult I wasn’t yet. And with that came life lessons of their own. Lessons we’re needlessly waiting longer to teach today’s young adults. Generation Z may get a raw deal in the stereotypes stakes. But maybe the older generations have something to answer here.
Who’d be young, eh?