American Immaturity: How We Grow Up After We Grow Old
At the age of thirty-five, the author of such literary classics as I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell and Assholes Finish First has had something of an epiphany regarding the licentious lifestyle which informed his New York Times-bestselling tomes. As the years have worn on and life taken its toll, Tucker Max has conceded that copious sex and booze do not lead to happiness. Forbes’ Michael Ellsberg explains:
… this most public of “I-don’t-wanna-grow-up” males is in fact now in the midst of a serious, intentional and devoted period of cleaning up and growing up.
He is changing his ways of the past, and—gasp!—becoming a mature adult male, one is who seeking a committed, long-term relationship, leading to marriage, with an intelligent, substantive, accomplished woman.
The full account of Tucker’s rite of passage from reckless detachment to sober insight is well worth the read. What it speaks to, perhaps unintentionally, is the very nature of maturity.
The word “mature” is defined as “complete in natural growth or development,” also “fully developed in mind and body.” Left undefined is the standard for development.
Without here delving into the full philosophical proof, let us accept for the sake of argument that human maturity is the capacity to deal rationally with the facts of reality and to act to sustain your life and pursue long-term happiness. Consider, the reason children remain in the care of parents until they reach adulthood is because they lack the knowledge and experience to act rationally in pursuit of their own lives. Otherwise, they would have no need of parenting.
An animal is mature at a certain age, having developed to the point where its instincts and physical abilities are sufficient for it to act according to its nature without the aid of its mother. Human beings are different. We alone must utilize reason in order to survive.
By this standard, it is apparent to the casual observer that maturity is a rare trait among men and women. Physical development is completely disconnected from the ability to deal rationally with the facts of reality. Indeed, many make it into middle and advanced age without maturing in this sense. Some go their entire lives without truly growing up.
Its not hard to figure out why people today persist in their childish behavior well beyond the natural point of maturation. The leviathan welfare state has infantilized everyone by attempting to shield us all from the direct consequences of our actions. It is well known that the zeitgeist of the Hussein era is to “spread the wealth around”, which means, at bottom, stealing the earned output of the mature productive people at government gunpoint and “redistributing” it to the immature unproductive people. It is also well known that you will have an increase of that which you subsidize, which means, ultimately, that all of the incentives we’ve created are for people to continue childish behavior well into their adult lives. However, in the end, the house of cards collapses when the unproductive people outnumber the productive. And, with over fifty percent of Americans now on some form of government dole, the collapse is well underway.
Very well written and very insightful, Black Elk. You get what you pay for. We began, “innocently,” with LBJ’s AFDC, and now we have a national bastardy rate of 30% (you may choose to call it “illegitimate” or “single-mother families, but all of our ancestors knew it as bastardy, and did not think it was “a good thing” or “the new normal.”
Personally, every person getting a government subsidy I have known was defrauding the system. I briefly met a Moroccan on welfare in NYC who worked a side job as a waiter for “cash under the table.” The amount he contributed to our taxes was of course $0. Then I sold an old printer to some slob who was on unemployment. I innocently asked him where he was looking for work, and he casually replied that he wanted to “use up” the whole six months because it was so enjoyable to “write letters to friends” and so forth. The amount he contributed to our taxes was of course $0.
Finally, when I thought I had seen it all…I was studying programming at the now-defunct Control Data Institute, and had been doing so for 3-4 months when I struck up a conversation with a “fellow student” who told me that he was only showing up for classes to ensure his continued eligibility for welfare. This was a young man of 25!! He had the system figured out, and knew that going for a course in “job training” would eliminate the need to actually find a job.
Cogent response. HOW is it possible for this Moroccan to work for ready cash under the tsble? What employers manage their businesses in this way? Could it be the fish does stink from the top, and example begets followers?
Exemplary tax-dodgers among the most prestigious and lauded Congressmen, e.g. Johm Kerry, all the late and current Kennedys, Clintons, etal, other “representatives” of the People who are in the main lawyers. As representatives of +Americans – all Americans – they each swear/affirm oath to Uphold and Defend the Constitution of the USA, i.e. the pre-eminent law. Lawyers and oaths? And do so with their moneys secreted in safe out of country or other tax-havens. While all the time imposing more and more taxes and regulations on the productive responsible citizens. Those true citizens, responsible adults who drive the country in all major institutions with the passengers in their gravy train seats.
Known, apparently accepted and “forgiven” by citizens who elect them again and again to continue their dirty work. Where are those 50% of Americans who ARE paying their taxes. The self-governing via representation citizen adults with the Right/duty? to keep their representatives honest? Where are they and what are they doing. Paying cash under the table?
Interesting thing about the “Occupy” idiots: they claim to be adults when it comes to hedonism. (You can’t DARE tell them what to do if it’s sex and drugs!) But when it comes to anything involving true responsibility, they are then children who need to be taken care of. (“Pay for my health care, college education, transportation, retirement; make it illegal for me to be insulted or bullied; guarantee me a job that I like – not one that’s ‘beneath’ me.”) This is what proves to me that they are from a mirror dimension – a world opposite from the one the rest of us live in.
“President Obama’s currently proposed budget places the national debt on track to reach 900% of GDP by 2075. Are there any grown-ups among us prepared to deal with this reality?”
Don’t worry about it, the country will suffer hyper inflationary collapse long before 2075. Heck considering the “stealth liquidations” that is going on in treasuries at the moment, the ongoing efforts of China, Russia, Iran and now Japan to end the US dollar as the worlds “reserve currency” and the refusal of the Obama administration to end the bailouts and spending we may have our “Wiemar moment” as early as the middle of next year.
After all Obama did promise change…
He didn’t just promise “Change” he said “…five days from now we will fundamentally change America”.
I think you would agree that the destruction of our economy will help move the fundamental change part nicely.
We were warned.
I agree that worrying about what the US government’s financial situation will be in 2075 is similar to the Tsar worrying in 1911 about what the consequences of his current policies would be in 1975.
Tucker Max? Seriously? Immature capriciousness is the worst in modern women, brainwashed by feminism and brain damaged by The Pill and other pills. Average males are just fine, undersexed if anything, but unable to tame the uncontrollable shrews. Those who can, just use and abuse them, exactly what they want, until they find themselves 35 with an apartment full of cats.
I suspect men grow up TOO SOON, lacking the “skills” needed to woo and submit women. It’s unhealthy to learn to walk before learning to crawl.
Props to you, good sir, for speaking the inconvenient truth of the situation.
Tucker Max is a product of feminism and not some kind of refusal to grow up.
Tucker Max doesn’t see it that way.
Young men have been flighty and irresponsible for centuries.
Then one day they come to and realise they can do better.
Accept THAT reality and stop blaming feminism for every pathetic lout littering the roads of humanity, including yourselves.
It’s the women’s fault. Always, always, always the women’s fault.
“Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame… but I know… it’s my own d@mn fault.” -Jimmy Buffett
Seems similar to the Garden of Eden when Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Adam didn’t have to go along now did he?
“the ongoing efforts of China, Russia, Iran and now Japan to end the US dollar as the worlds “reserve currency”
The US has been eviscerating its own dollar since 1971 when President Nixon abrogated bretton-woods and created the Petro-Dollar system. There is no avenue for the USD to go but down until finally collapsing. There is nothing anyone can do to stop this.
If i were China, Russia, Brazil or Canada or any other country with exposure to international commodity transactions i would replace the US dollar as quickly as possible also.
There is no need for any country to do anything to end the USD as reserve currency, we are doing everything possible to end it just fine by ourselves.
I remember reading about this Tucker guy years ago and thinking what an arse he was. I am glad he has decided to “grow up” — whatever that means nowadays. As far as our nation goes in regards to growing up and acting like a mature, adult nation……I am not the least bit optimistic that we are going to survive the coming financial calamity that is headed our way. We are a nation of adolescents and we do not possess the national character any longer to fight the good, long fight.
“Instead of Teenagers, there were Youths. Youths were young people who wanted to become adults. However confused, wayward, or silly they acted, however many mistakes they made, they looked to the future. They knew that adult life was different than a child’s life. They planned to grow up, leave childhood behind, and become adults. They were aware that life is more than youth.”
I have heard the voice of God. This IS the truth. It’s strange, if you look at the kids before and during World War II, they look like little adults. They don’t really look like kids at all, especially the kids that grew up during the depression. After the war, espcially in the 1950s, it was all about kids, their music, their dances, what they wore and how they looked and acted. Teenagers acted like teenagers because they didn’t have to worry about pesky little things like eating and keeping a roof over their heads. The problem is way, way, worse today.
Most parents today weep if they can’t get their kid the latest Ipad or wring their hands in shock and disbelief if they can’t buy them the most expensive sneakers out there. For the sake of this country, this has to stop. To say that kids today are spoiled is a dramatic understatement, especially those in colleges. Those kids are treated like the unltimate deadbeats, able to party for most of the time while in “school” just to graduate with a really expensive degree nobody really cares about. If we don’t stop this now, we’re going to go the way of Greece, which really is our future. I have no doubt about it now, given what the Democrats and Obama are doing with this country. When it comes to how we raise our kids, I don’t think the Republicans are that much better.
We need to stop this. We need to teach kids that there’s more to life than the latest electronic toy. And I’m not talking about “feel good” programs like working at a food bank or washing the hair of an autistic child. That stuff is what makes good video for Oprah, but it doesn’t help our country if it is in real danger.
Right now we barely have enough soldiers to fight small wars like the ones in Afghanistan and Iraq. But if we ever (God forbid) really had another big war, something along the lines of World War II, one that required another major draft, I’m not so sure we’d be able to make it as a country. Perhaps that’s how all great nations fail, in the end, through their own success and with their own people. Greece is the word if you want to see what will happen to us because of our finances, Rome is the word if you want to see what happens when a people just don’t have the will or the determination to defend their country anymore, especially when you have colleges teaching fat, stupid, kids how “imperialistic” and “oppressive” our country is. The ancient world is telling us something, and we’d better start paying attention.
The baby boomers were spoiled by parents who had to grow up too fast during the Depression and WW2. Kids who never had a chance to be kids didn’t want their own children going through what they did. Unfortunately, giving your kids everything you never had is not the way to develop character. The Greatest Generation meant well, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I’d be loath to blame the Greatest Generation. Whether you were the best parent in the world or the worst, if your kid wants to rebel, he will rebel.
True, but the Greatest Generation wasn’t paying attention, and that’s when things went awry. The Progressives were taking over the school system, and the Greatest Generation didn’t notice until it was too late. The last thing they imagined was that the school system would be actively undermining the values they wanted to pass on to their children.
I come from a very long line of very strong-willed people. I have been raising my very-strong-willed children to become good, strong men and women. It was hard to do even being a full-time stay at home mother in a good marriage so I’m not surprised it was more than you could manage.
I’d cut the Greatest Generation some slack on this one. They were the last generation that had to work hard and struggle to survive. They had no concept of the post-WWII era, and couldn’t understand the problems they faced. It was a turning point in human history.
I’m more likely to put blame on the conservatives who grew up during the Carter recession, and experienced the Reagan recovery. They had history as a guideline, yet spoiled their kids much worse than the Greatest Generation.
We’re repeating the history of the early 70′s today. I just pray that there will be a Reagan to start turning things around. It’s up to us though, to ensure that the lessons of the past are not forgotten.
While there’s some truth in what you write, I think you overgeneralize too much. My parents were born in 1928. Their childhood was known as The Great Depression and their parents were rural Alabama sharecroppers. Their high school years were known as World War II. They married shortly after high school graduation (18 years old). Today, a couple of 18 year olds getting married is a formula for heartbreak. Back then, people grew up faster.
Like millions of parents with a similar background, my parents didn’t have a lot of money. They raised 5 kids on a carpendar’s and seamstress’s salary. Homemade clothes and hand-me-downs were the rule of the day. There was precious little spoiling going on but we had what we needed.
Like millions of other boomers (I was born in the peak year of the boom), I served in the military, completed my education, got married and raised a family. My wife just retired last week after a long career as a nurse. We resent being lumped in with the hippy-dippy Baby Boomers. There are millions of us out there who grew up long ago.
Simply beyond, “Bravo!” and all the way to a standing ovation!!
I think the real story behind the emergence of the teenager is the story of young people having time on their hands and a few extra bucks in large numbers for the first time in American history. Teenagers were pandered to by business who saw money in this trend; just look at the entire genre of science fiction films of the ’50s, a cheap way to spend time with a date devoid of a night club or restaurant; this exploded in the ’60s with music, magazines, TV, fashions and the whole nine yards – teenagers had a distinct life style and look from adults and that cost money. Today teenagers have more free time and money than ever.
The term “Youth” has always kind of creeped me out.
Socialist Parties around the world used this noble sounding word in order to draw idiots into their junior brainwashing organizations. It makes young idiots feel they are joining something noble with a future.
PRI Juventud in Mexico. The Workers Youth Leage in Norway. Labor Youth in Ireland. Sinistra Giovanile in Italy. Juventud Democrata in Mexico. Juvendud Sandanista in Nicaraugua.
Could you imagine the mumsers, social misfits, and kiss asses who join these organizations?
Kind of a tangent, but never liked the term.
Your comment is the first one that even brings God into the discussion. A country that has lost it’s faith in God will not be able to raise children properly. Coupled with the takeover of the school system by leftist radicals that is a formula for disaster. The Founding Fathers were very aware of this as they fashioned the Constitution around a principle that required Judeo Christian values.
Great article!
In the Sixties, the sheer numbers of Baby Boomers enticed an entire culture to worship at the altar of youth. The buying power of that era’s teenagers persuaded marketers to pander to youthful/immature impulse buying, something that continued as teenagers morphed into young adults. Affluence brought an enlarged college educated class capable of purchasing frivolities as well as enhanced necessities; the need to grapple with adult ideas was postponed. Even as Baby Boomers slide into the senior years, the mantra of staying young and impetuous is omnipresent in commercials, TV programs,and movies which are all created for children between the ages of prenatal to fifteen. With few, if any, examples of sober adults acting as such, no wonder postponing adulthood with its dilemmas and consequences is eschewed for the life of a child.
Let’s not blame government or Obama for the national immaturity crisis. Who hasn’t noticed that affluence delays maturity. After 60 years of more peace and prosperity than any civilization in history a generation was produced that voted for change because things were so bad (in their silliness). The election of Obama was merely the act of a population who voted on the basis of appearance rather than substance as children always do. The good news is that an Obama re-election will result in a devastating reintroduction to the real world; that ol’ appointment with the hangman may at least concentrate some minds.
** After 60 years of more peace and prosperity than any civilization in history a generation was produced that voted for change because things were so bad (in their silliness). **
I’m not sure if you’re referring to the baby boomers, or Gens X & Y (or all the above), but we’ve been at war for the last 10 yrs. (even if it isn’t as all encompassing for the country as, say, as WWII). I know, because my son’s been part of the last half of it. He’s been deployed to Iraq & Afghanistan several times. I’d say we can’t tar absolutely EVERYone in Gens X & Y with the same brush. And I’ll tell ya what — the young adults in the military ARE ADULTS. If not actually “seeing the elephant”, they’ve been trained and prepared for it, and what that entails. At 23, son has wife (4 yrs) baby, house (both 1.5 yrs), cars, bills, etc. In short, responsibilities – the assuming of which causes one to grow up in short order. Last yr. (before another deployment) he & his wife volunteered several very long days to help clean up tornado damage in their town (he’s stationed at Ft. Bragg). I’m delighted to call him son, even if there was an exhausting time before I was sure what I had to say “took”.
Even if our military is made up only of a very tiny % of people, I think we can count on them to be our backbone as long as needed. But how long THAT will be … I dunno.
Since 9/11/2001, the Department of Defense has been a war. America has been at the mall.
The sad truth is that, except for a brief period of unabashed and public pride in being American, the public has let it all slip out of their minds because, unlike WWII, nobody outside the DOD (with the exception of parents, siblings, spouses, and children of the serving members in harms way) is affected by it all. There are entire segments of the US population that don’t personally know a someone in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Air Force. Then there are those segments that not only don’t know anyone like that, they actively despise them for serving.
In fact, most of America was so offended by the thought that we are in the middle east killing our self avowed enemies that they voted to elect a man who would surrender to them, if only he could figure out who, exactly, could accept the surrender.
Pardon me if I’m not impressed by that Tucker moron. “…the way I did it was ultimately self destructive, and so emotionally bankrupt in a lot of ways.” How come I knew all that when I was in my twenties? I never got involved in that “get a load o’ me; I’m so outrageous!” lifestyle. The trajectory of it was completely obvious. My entire life I’ve only wanted to work hard, do a good job, be respected, and marry once and forever. I never understood drunkenness, hooting as loud as you can and belly-flopping on a coffee table.
It’s just too little too late from him. He’s added to the mess in a horrible way, and I really don’t believe he’s going to help clean it up.
What we are witnessing is the natural progression of the “turn on, tune in, drop out” generation. Deviancy has been so completely dumbed downward, that millions can’t recognize basic right from wrong, and amorality now the societal norm in large demographics of the population.
With their field of broken dreams in tatters and their promises of perpetual adolescence laying the nation to waste, their children and grandchildren have created their new revolution of “turn on, tune in, hand out.”
Most importantly for the rest of us who felt the need to grow up and have responsible kids of our own, the ‘burbs can’t move outward forever. We can no longer run from our sins of omission for allowing this to happen, or failing to hold pandering, mendacious politicians accountable for their self-serving actions. Too many of us have misinterpreted the parable of turning the other cheek. We have confused meek and substituted it with cowardice.
I believe that is why men like Andrew Breitbart struck a nerve. They not only carried the good fight, but made many of us realize our own shortcomings.
“What we are witnessing is the natural progression of the “turn on, tune in, drop out”
generationmovement.” FIFYTucker may have had an epiphany but so many of his contemporaries have/will not. Again, I speak of the hippies in our current rendition of government who refuse to acknowledge their irresponsible behavior, coupled by the enablers in the opposition party summarily orchestrated by Boehner who refuses to point out the national-socialists abuse of power, grabs for same and outright lies.
I guess it wouldn’t be “cool” to do that.
But it’s exactly the point the Mr Hudson is referring to, I think. An adult has to have the discipline to tell the child no. Yes, it will spoil the child’s fun. It will make the child angry and call the adult names. But there are more serious consequences by not telling the child no.
I myself was a young narcissist, (though I suppose I was too narcissistic to want to damage my beautiful body with excessive drinking). I was a part of the leftist counterculture and we thought we were changing the world. Well, maybe we did, is some very negative ways. But I grew out of it as I aged and I could see that way of life was nowheresville. What truly amazes me is how almost all my friends, though in their 60s and 70s now, haven’t matured one iota. They’re still living in 1968, they still smoke excessive amounts of weed (medicinal of course) and still appear unkempt and ungroomed. Worse than that, they’ve almost to a man become coots and crackpots, 9/11 truthers and raving paranoids, following the Occupiers around in order to relive their romanticized youths. Which goes to show that though beauty is fleeting, narcissism is forever.
A good example of perpetual adolescence this past week is Sandra Fluke of Georgetown University. She wants us to pay for her risk-free recreational sex life and that of her friends. If she’s representative of the people who will eventually become our national, state, and local leaders and the future electorate, there is no hope for us.
Read Diana West’s excellent book, “The Death of the Grown-up.” I highly recommend it.
Affluence, or the quest thereof has pressed more into two-wage-earner families, which also leads more to youth having their own culture. The average American has grown into this general way of doing business, not necessarily to the extreme of this Tucker guy, but certainly regarding what people perceive their children need, or should have. Most would prefer that their children be college-educated and get “that sort of employment.” The only thing that will change that is when the jobs are no longer there. The only reason people will change will be that they have to, but the vast majority fights kicking and screaming not to have to change in that way. It has become who we are and it will take real pain to change that.
I noticed in high school yearbooks from the 1930′s that the students looked much older than students from the 1950’s and later. I had heard somewhere that the “teenager” was an invention of 1920′s advertising. When my sons were in that age range, I informed them that I did not believe in “teenagers”, but that I would treat them either as a boy-child or as a young man; their call. Both of my sons became Eagle Scouts. In fact, the Boy Scouts of America and the requirements for Eagle Scout are really a remarkable throwback to that earlier culture.
I don’t think the analysis is quite right. If you go back to the early 1900′s you find the once popular Horatio Alger stories wherein the moral was “you make your future”. As time progressed, the moral changed to “your future is waiting for you”, giving the impression that when you’re ready to be a neurosurgeon then all you have to do is show up at the hospital and *poof* you’re a neurosurgeon. I’m always hearing people tell kids “you can be anything you want to be” which simply isn’t true. Wanting isn’t enough, you actually have to do the work. It doesn’t matter how much you want to be the CEO of some technology company if you can’t read, write, understand math and technology then you’re SOL.
In the early 1900′s we moved from a predominately agricultural society to a predominately industrial society; we’re now moving to a predominately knowledge based society but one key component is missing – knowledge. In a knowledge based society you actually have to know something and from what I’ve seen the majority of high school and college graduates don’t know much of anything. Our educational system has utterly failed in preparing students to be successful. If you listen to the “Occupy” crowd then you see, and smell, the problem. The ‘utes did what they were told: “go to college and have a bright future” but they were never told to study math, science, engineering and instead majored in The Beatles because they were going to be the next CEO of Volkswagen. They acquired a mountain of debt that they’ll never repay and whine “Bob sure got lucky in getting that job. He’s going to be one of the lucky 1%” and they’ll never understand that luck only played a part if luck is defined as “when preparation meets opportunity”. Bob did the work, Bob was prepared to succeed and he succeeded; they didn’t, they weren’t and they won’t.
If you don’t understand at an early age that you own your future then you’d better learn to like government cheese. Unfortunately, the Occupy crowd is still just sitting around waiting for somebody, anybody, to hand them the future they want. And some politician will announce a program for “How to Succeed in Life without Really Trying” and the Soviet Union will be resurrected.
I think there is an important distinction to be made between being immature and railing against staid conformity that seemingly exists for its own sake although his binge drinking is its own story. Tucker’s story of upsetting the Duke “nerds” waiting for tickets is worthy of the Marx Bros., Bugs Bunny and Monty Python and was pretty funny. After all, how mature is it to tell people to do a thing “because I say so?” Having said that one would wish to pick one’s spots since being contrary for the sake of being contrary is its own form of stupidity.
When I was a kid I can’t tell you how many times I was told to keep my hair short and my shirt tucked in by people who possessed all the light of reason behind their eyes of a monkey. When I was 6 a total stranger actually came up to me on the street and told me to tuck my shirt in. I agree that when it comes to the ’50s you don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater but some of the water really stunk.
In those days, any adult could discipline a child. “Tuck your shirt in!” Nothing wrong with that. If you heard it from enough sources, you either foolishly resented it, or you understood that this was one of the rules of society. They were doing you a favor by disciplining you.
Me, I never had to be told the rules more than once. My problem was, hardly anyone ever told me a rule. I was 17 before my Father told me not to swish my milk in my mouth. I was shocked. He’d never told me before, and I was 17. All I could think was, what the heck else has he not told me? Anyway, maybe, that’s the real problem today: No one ever tells them.
And here you are, years later, still resenting such kindness, such discipline. You resent a time when all adults cared enough about children to discipline them. They cared about you, and you think it stank. I only wish someone had cared about me like that.
The idea I would be a better person in any way whatsoever with my shirt tucked in rather than out is not persuasive to say the least. You might as well ask people to polish their elbows or recite poetry to a pile of salt for all the sense it makes. I understand discipline with purpose, I do not understand stupid red-neck bulls–t dedicated to faddish appearances. I wish I’d had the presence of mind when I was 6 to ask this busy body doof why he wasn’t wearing a powdered wig or codpiece.
As PJM contributor Theodore Dalrymple recently noted, “Our current way of dressing is a sign of our egotism, of our habit of living in a kind of portable solipsistic bubble that goes everywhere with us, like a shadow. ‘I am not going to make an effort just for you,’ proclaim our clothes. On the contrary, my life is so full of importance, so beyond the right of anyone else to have a say in it, that I shall just put on the first crumpled apparel that comes to hand as a matter of principle.”
That’d all be fine if I was at a funeral, cocktail party or graduation ceremony; you’d have a point: I wasn’t, I was walking down the street and being casual.
I don’t wear tuxedos when I climb volcanoes and don’t see the world as one big uniform parade where no one’s going to agree on the uniform anyway. What’s the point, that if I dressed like Barney the Dinosaur it’s be okay as long as I ironed my ass and tucked my tail in?
There is mindless conformity and constructive conformity. I don’t think my detractor was “solipsistic.”
When you were six they told you to tuck your shirt in for the same reason you might want to correct a six year old today who calls his parents by their first names. There is no point growing up if you are given adult privileges — both the very small ones like calling all family members by their first names and the very big ones like driving cars and spending money any way you please — without taking on adult responsibilities.
On what planet do kids call their own parents Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so? Calling my mother by her first name would’ve been insulting because it was too distant not too informal. I called her “mom,” that’s who she was, my mom.
Uniforms have a place, and an understandable one, in the military; there is no place for acting out the world view of a jar head Marine Sgt. heading up a platoon out in the real social world. We tend to forget that appearances usually affect the thoughts of a person and this white lightning’s still the biggest thrill of all to me was an anthem about people clueless to their own addiction while telling kids to go to bed on a Fri. night at 9 pm as if there was an actual reason. Rednecks: they got the whole world backwards and they were famous in my world for confusing routine and conformity with actual thinking.
Fail,
ZZZ didn’t say anything about kids calling parents by their last name; he just said we’d want to correct kids if they called their parents by their first name. I agree; I would want to correct them if they called their parents by their first name. I would resist the urge but if a kid calls me by my first name, I smile and say, “Oh. You can call me Mrs. _______.”
Beware those who want to leave their mark, who want to matter (see Obama, Pelosi, Reid . . .) — even if it kills us.
So a self-centered boy, approaching-middle-age, gets acquainted with consequences, common sense and basic morality. Isn’t that special.
I posted this same concept here on PJM a couple weeks ago in a long comment. Dang. I really need to learn how to write.
I hate modern popular culture. I hate modern popular culture. I hate modern popular culture. That has become my mantra ever since I had to raise children of my own. I hate Hollywood. I hate Las Vegas. I hate television. I hate hip-hop. I hate gangsta rap. I hate them all because of the lies, lies and more lies. They are evil. They are poison. If you have children, throw your television into the landfill, don’t just give it to someone else. If you don’t have children, throw it away, because what is bad for children is also bad for adults. You won’t miss television news, it is just blather and advertisements. Get your news from the print and online, it is so much broader and deeper. If you like sports go to the stadium, take you children or grandchildren. And then read in your spare time. Do projects. Make friends and visit. Travel. You will begin to wonder how you ever had time for television. And make sure your children don’t grow up with it. It is the spawn of pimps, con-men, hucksters, hedonists, mobsters, pornographers and propagandists. Real life is good; it is full of surprises and wonders, and opportunities to connect with other people who need you or whom you are in need of. Become engaged with the world and raise your children that way. We can take back our civilization!
I can’t recommend “throw your television into the landfill, don’t just give it to someone else,” but I do recommend devices like DVRs, DVD/Blu-Ray players, and Roku to use television as a playback device and carefully select what you watch, rather than just taking it all in passively.
EXCELLENT ADVICE for any right-thinking individual determined to control his own life with maturity, discipline, and a true sense of morality and ethical behavior. Sadly, that’s a dying breed in this infantile American society. The piper will be paid one day, probably not too long from now. I’m in my late 60′s–hope I get another 20 years of relative serenity before I pass. Not too hopeful about it the way things are going presently. Politically, it’s all too apparent that Power corrupts absolutely: the D’s for the most part contribute the most to the degeneracy; the R’s are not too far behind. I’ll vote “R” ONLY because they seem to be running this once-great nation more SLOWLY over the cliff into the abyss. Lovely, eh? We have an execrable traitor in charge, and 60+ millions of fools will STILL vote for their own destruction in November. Goodnight, America…
Whenever someone waxes nostalgic for “the good old days” when adversity and suffering allegedly built maturity and character, an alarm bell should go off in your head. No matter how much he rationalizes it, it’s just resentment that he isn’t admired more for all the obstacles he had to overcome.
I would rather have less adversity and less suffering, even if that means a little less maturity. Because not everybody overcomes adversity and suffering. The history books talk about the few who succeeded; the cemeteries are full of the many who failed, and had a miserable life too.
When my mom was an adolescent girl during the Great Depression, she didn’t just have to deal with poverty. She had to grow up fast, when her two younger brothers died of diphtheria before her eyes. They choked to death.
If the worst problem this Fluke woman has to worry about isn’t diphtheria or polio or air raids by enemy bombers, but how to afford her birth control pills, I think every previous generation that struggled with those horrors would envy her.
During the Cold War, Soviet propagandists used to denounce Western society–particularly American society–as soft and decadent. But they couldn’t convince their own citizens living in poverty and oppression what a rich character-building experience that was.
We Americans are doing all right. We just need to do some housecleaning in state and Federal governments, that’s all.
What you are missing Sinz54 is that the Real Problem isn’t Barack Obama and the Housecleaning that needs being done in State and Federal Governments.
The problem exists with the kind of people who will Electe a Pelosi, Obama, and various and sundry others in State and Federal Government in the first place.
Those are people who don’t grow up and look to Government to fill in the void left behind when they had to leave their parents house.
BaudaBing!
Americans are natural eccentrics; that’s always been our strength, how we think. I don’t think like Oprah nor do I follow Oprah’s rules. I don’t read books she recommends either. She doesn’t recommend Tucker’s books, therefore I’ll read them.
I understand what you are trying to say; however, Tucker Max is the wrong example to make broad assertions. If you read the Forbes article closely, it is obvious that Tucker had a horrible childhood, filled with neglect and infantile behavior on the part of his parents. He had a sociopathic personality, probably as a neurotic defense for what he had to put up with to survive as an infant/child (READ the article). That he has become self aware and is trying to heal himself with therapy and outside help is the miracle, and speaks to the fact that we can MATURE and become complete human beings even with such a blighted past. I know many young adults that enjoyed his books but for the fantasy they portrayed than any desire to follow in his footsteps. As both Scarlett and Tucker realize in the interview is that the only people that can live that lifestyle, are deeply flawed human beings, and this is a product of their early child development rather than in indictment of the culture.
For most of history, virtually all societies had an understanding that it was desirable for both boys and girls to reach intellectual and emotional maturity around or about the same time they reached physical maturity. For girls, this age varied, but most girls were expected to be married and start families sometime between the ages of 14-17. Teenage pregnancy was not considered abnormal or undesirable. It was normal. What is new in our time is not teenage pregnancy; it is UNMARRIED teenage pregnancy.
Boys took a little longer, but for the most part, the age of maturity ranged from 18-21 years of age. Many boys entered into an apprenticeship at age 12-14, either with their own fathers, or with some other tradesman. By the time they finished their apprenticeships, their bodies were physically capable of doing the hard physical labor commonly required in society, and they were ready to take on the mental and emotional burden of becoming the provider for their families.
Young people became young married parents, and being only a few years removed from childhood themselves (and in many cases having grown up taking care of younger siblings or cousins), they were well equipped to take care of their own brood of children. There was no prolonged adolescent phase except among the very wealthy who could afford to delay adulthood, but even if upper classes, they commonly married, started families, and otherwise engaged fully in adult responsibilities long before our recent modern generations do today.
This shift in demographic attitudes and performance has had profound affects. And it has impacted our ability to act morally according to traditional ideals, whether religiously based or otherwise.
It used to be that young people were expected by society to wait until marriage to engage in sexual activities. But that was not nearly the moral burden then as it is today. It is one thing to ask a young woman to “wait” until she is 14-17 years of age, or to ask a young man to “wait” until he is 18-21 years of age before they engage in sex. The “wait” was minimal and only slightly followed the onset of purely physical maturity. Legal ages of consent throughout the world were generally tied to the age of puberty, and no one thought it strange for a 14 year old girl to be engaged in a sexual relationship with her husband.
But now, for those who want to follow “traditional morality,” we have added an unfair burden of waiting for years and years after physical maturity. We irrationally expect young people to wait until their late 20′s or even early 30′s before getting married, and then wonder why the common morality of the people has declined?
Regardless of whether you believe that God designed nature, or godless evolution formed nature, there was and is a value to society to organize itself along moral lines. And when society chooses (and it was and is our choice) to organize itself against nature, and put a heavy moral burden on young people which is impossible to reconcile with their natural design, is it really that surprising when young people abandon morality itself?
I’ve had this discussion with “youth ministers” in the church, and for the most part, I feel like I’m talking to a wall. The expectation we put on our children in the church is to act according to Traditional Morality, but then live according to modern societal expectations of delaying emotional and intellectual maturity. Instead of teaching church raised children to embrace maturity in all aspects, and start taking on adult responsibility early, we indulge immaturity and somehow just ignore that physical maturity comes a lot earlier than society’s current standards want to admit. It is a recipe for moral failure – and that recipe has been fully baked. RESULT – 30% bastardy rate, in and out of the church.
It is a tragedy that it took until age 35 for Tucker Max to figure out on his own what used to be taught and understood at a much younger age – namely that selfishness is ultimately self denigration. How many other Tucker Max’s are their among both men and women who were never taught that you attain your highest fulfillment by serving something greater than yourself – that choosing to early acceptance of responsibility for yourself and others leads to greater satisfaction and self appraisal? How many reach mid-life today full of self-loathing and emptiness because they suddenly discover that a life spent in service of only yourself is a very small life indeed?
But is it really their fault? We can rant and rave about the immaturity of our young adults today all we want, but ultimately it is the responsibility of parents to parent. We are the ones who cripple our children by not insisting they learn responsibility earlier.
Ultimately, the depreciation in the moral standards of the society has a whole lot more profound impact on a society than a lack of education. Europe has a well educated, but morally bankrupt culture. And now we see the result in the economic and demographic crisis on the continent. Morality affects economics in profound ways – even if that affet is somewhat delayed. There is no way now for European mid-life and later-life adults to go back and remake the tragic choices they made. They cannot go back and have more children to populate the younger generation that is tasked with paying for their lavish retirement plans. And so those plans will go the way of the dinosaur. What cannot be sustained will come to an end.
And in America, we are not far behind the Continent. Until we begin to treat our young as valuable members of society, and demand that they participate, and train them to do so productively, it is of no value to point the finger and cry, “GROW UP!” What we are reaping now is the result of 100 years of so-called progressive ideology that presumed to know better than all the generations that preceded us.
We cannot go back. But we do have to recognize that the economic crisis we find ourselves in today throughout the developed world is merely the result of moral decay. By extending adolescence, we unwittingly fostered sexual immorality. And when generations of people threw off sexual morality, they also threw off the other manifestations of morality like honesty, thriftiness, ethical behavior, responsibility, etc. Instead of training our children (and ourselves) to curb their appetites, we trained them to indulge their appetites.
Until we once again learn self-restraint, no amount of stimulus plans, or economic plans will pull us out of our economic malaise. Training children to restrain their appetites and learn responsibility starts when the children are very small, prior to even school age. Children are not possessions. They are autonomous creatures who deserve to be given our guidance, not our indulgence. That includes teaching them responsibility early. If you wait until they are teenagers, you are already way too late.
I’m not an old man; I’m only 46. But my father became terminally ill when I was 16, and died when I was 21. I had three younger brothers, and learned the hard way that trying to “boss” them around didn’t work nearly as well as learning how to help them find their own potential and pursue it. I was lucky that the experience made me a better father. I had to become responsible early, and start helping make money for the family as a junior in high school.
My oldest son turned 22 last Sunday, and his two sisters are not far behind him. I always had it in my mind that I was not raising children. I was raising adults who happened to be children at whatever age they were along the way. I try to teach and instill traditional morality in my children. But I also have reasonable expectations.
Yes, I want my children to go to college. Yes, I want them to equip themselves to be successful in modern society. But that means that if they decide to marry earlier to uphold the values I taught them, then together we have to find a balance between the demands of modern society and the traditional morality that held society together for millenia. Practically speaking, it means that tertiary education is something I am willing to help them with even if they marry early. I don’t expect them to wait for sex until later. Instead, I hope and encourage them to find someone to be responsible with earlier, and do it in a way that fits into traditional morality.
Because I was required to mature earlier by circumstances, I learned the value of it. I worked my way through college while married. It took 7 years. My children also learned to work early. And because of that, they have a “self-esteem” that is rooted not in empty words of praise, but in concrete accomplishment. I wish I could say that it has been an unqualified success for all three of them. But they also are influenced by society, not just me. But I am hopeful, and barring the occasional screw-up, preliminary results are promising.
I hope Tucker Max’s epiphany on maturity actually comes from life’s lessons and isn’t just a tactic that many media “trendies” do to remake their public persona from time to time in order to avoid becoming yesterday’s news.
(It’s also possible the conversion could also be based on his changed Socio-Economic Status, since when you see him say, “I have money now and people know who I am.” that also translates into “My callous behavior combined with name recognition and big book royalty bank account now means I may be targeted by angry people I’ve used and dumped who have access to good tort lawyers.” If maturity comes from being unwilling to have a judge take away a large part of your bank account, so be it.)
So finally, someone says it is time for the grown-ups to be in charge. Well, I’m all for it. But, is the general population ready for it. I don’t know. Not from what I have seen and heard lately. A grown-up doesn’t believe in Utopia. He doesn’t think he can wish it so. {There is a left-wing as well as right-wing utopia] But, if a candidate comes forward that tells things as they are and does it in a way that is not dramatic enough, he is rejected as being cold and not warming up to ‘the people’.
A grown-up doesn’t whine and play the victim he soldiers on in the tough times whether things are fair or not fair. He doesn’t complain because it wastes time; time that can be used to fix the problem.
A grown-up doesn’t fight fire with fire; he fights fire with water. He has principles and ethics that he will not compromise even if it means loosing. And here is the rub. A grown-up who fights while maintaining his principles would win, if the majority of people around him had his back. But, the majority won’t back someone like that today. If he isn’t throwing fiery words and full of drama, If he isn’t painting some great Utopian dream, he is abandoned.
Grown-ups are leaders. Do people want leaders or do they want people that they can have a beer with? I don’t know. But, when it is safe for grown-ups to be grown-ups again we will have them and not one moment sooner. They already exist.
About ten years ago, I dated a little blond college student who was working on her Advanced Degree in Childhood Psychology (The running joke was that as long as we were dating, her diagnostic skills would never get rusty as I’m just a big kid at heart).
Anyway, she told me something that really got me thinking: some psychiatric organization regularly publishes the Average Age of Maturity for Americans (or something very similar) every year. She said that the Age was now 26 and has been steadily rising for a long time.
With our former level of financial security, we could indulge in such an immature postponement of adulthood. If there’s a bright side to be found in this current economic downturn, its the fact that we don’t have the money to spend as we once did. Time away from the bars, or a reduction of time spent in them, might be a good thing. With the distractions minimized, we have time to reflect on things, as Tucker Max did.
We live in a youth-oriented society formed primarily by the media. It’s no wonder we never grow up, except in some strange way that makes little in the way of sense. We expose children to the “adult” world of coarseness and vulgarity in order to make them “grow up” far sooner than they previously did. However, when kids reach the age of adulthood, they are encouraged to remain immature children, both emotionally and intellectually, by that same media.
As Max aptly demonstrates, there is no value in adults behaving as adolescents. But having never been exposed to anything such as great writers and thinkers, it’s no wonder they’re as intellectually stunted as they are. In order to look “cool”, those ideas are dismissed. As long as our society is molded and shaped by our media betters, all we’ll ever do is obssess over Snookie or the latest American Idol. Since this is how the rest of the world sees us, is there any wonder Americans are looked down upon by the rest of the world?
The good news is that we’re not really that shallow, but you’d never know it by turning on the TV.
“Americans are looked down upon by the rest of the world?”
Germany. David Hasselhoff.