Word: socializer
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Somehow, this obvious biological explanation for the explosion of teen problems has escaped the purview of social critics. Religious moralists would have us believe that the problems of pre-marital sex, teen pregnancy, etc. stem from the ills of 20th century society and the breakdown of American morality. Some even confuse cause and effect, emphasizing the pernicious influence of rock music (this means you, Tipper...
Their slightly more scientific brethren, known as sociologists, would pin the blame instead on broken homes, bad education, two-career families, and the premature influence of the sex-filled mass media. The diagnoses of both sociologists and moralists imply that we need to rebuild teens' social environments to condition young adults better. This is not a constructive recommendation, because it rests on the assumption of moral or social decay. Claiming that things were better in the good old days gets us nowhere...
...insight that biology has greatly exacerbated the complications of the teen-age years indicates that our social system and our anatomies have been working at cross purposes. Although children are maturing earlier and earlier, we are detaining them in high school as long as ever. As a result, people who are ready and able to assume adult lives continue to be treated as children...
This broad social measure would force teens to support themselves at an earlier age, encouraging them to marry younger. Teens' mental growth would be in closer harmony with their physical growth, so that "education" would not hinder the maturation of teen-agers into adults...
These, however, are short-term problems. Condensing and improving school curricula would be a long-term solution to increasingly pressing social problems. Granted, any exercise in social engineering carries with it certain risks and costs. But the alternative solutions to today's teen problems, which emphasize the inculcation of morality and responsibility, rely on abstractions that are even less subject to human control and, in any case, do not deal directly with the issues at hand...