Book Club: The Myth of Adolescence (chapter 3)

Have you ever wondered when the word teenager was invented? Take a guess.

Answer: 1941. In 1941, a Reader's Digest issue used the word teenager for the first time. Just like that, the expectations for people our age changed. We went from being children, then adults, to being children, then teenagers, then adults.

And as the Harris brothers show us in chapter 3 of Do Hard Things, the expectations for people our age shifted dramatically with that simple addition of a word to our English vocabulary. We went from being adults at fourteen to being teenagers at fourteen and adults at twenty. And we went from being expected to command battleships at twelve to being expected to make our bed every day at twelve.

The Elephant
This chapter begins with elephants. The Harris brothers talk about how in Asia, people who own elephants keep them from wandering off with a wooden post stuck in the ground and some rope tied to the elephant's leg.

The elephants could break free of the shackle with a single tug, but they have some invisible shackles around their mind: when the elephants are young, they are shackled to a tree with a chain for a few weeks. This makes them believe that if there is something around their leg, they cannot break free, even if in reality the shackle is as lightweight as a piece of rope and some wood.

The chapter says this: "Could it be that we and most young people we know are like that elephant: strong, smart, holding incredible potential, but somehow held back by nothing more than a piece of twine? Left almost powerless by a lie?" (page 28)

George, David, and Clara
The book goes on to discuss three young people born before the word 'teenager' existed.

• George became the official surveyor of Culpepper County, Virginia at age seventeen, working on the frontiers to record unmapped land.
• David was given command of a captured ship at age twelve and had to keep an unruly British captain under control.
• Clara cared for her seriously injured brother at the age of eleven and surprised everyone by being very good at nursing. By age seventeen she was a successful schoolteacher.

This people were all given responsibility at a very young age, rose to the occasion, and handled it well. What changed?
*By the way, you will find out the full names of these people in the next chapter! Can you guess?

So What Happened? The Power of Expectations
"...the teen years are viewed as a sort of vacation. Society doesn't expect much of anything from young people during their teen years--except trouble. And it certainly doesn't expect competence, maturity, or productivity. The saddest part is that, as the culture around them has come to expect less and less, young people have dropped to meet these lower expectations." (page 36)

Expectations are powerful things. The book quotes Henry Ford: "Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right."

The expectations of those around us greatly affect the way we live our lives. When the word "teenager" was invented, it brought along with it a whole new culture and way of life. It created a new set of very low standards for people our age.

What the Bible Says
The next section presents a surprising fact: the Bible does not mention the word teenager anywhere.

"Instead you'll find the apostle Paul writing in 1 Corinthians 13:11, 'When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.'

"Notice what he didn't say. He didn't say, 'When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But then I became a teenager and I looked like an adult, I sounded like an adult, but I still acted like a child.' No! He said, 'I became a man, and I gave up childish ways.'" (page 42)

God does not have different standards for young adults and adults. And if we are Christians, we are letting the Bible set our expectations and not our culture.

The consequence of meeting the world's standard for the teen years it that we waste these years of our lives and are unprepared for the future. We are like the elephant; we have so much potential but are being held captive by the Lie of Adolescence, the lie that tells us that the teens years are for having fun and goofing off.

The chapter ends this way:
"This is what we call the Rebelution: throwing off the shackles of lies and low expectations and returning our generation to a true and very exciting understanding of the teen years--not as a vacation from responsibility but as a launching pad for the rest of our lives." (page 45)

What do you think? Did you find this chapter inspiring? Do you agree that young people are being held back by lies?

Next week we will look at chapter 4, A Better Way. And if you haven't gotten a book yet, it's not too late to get one and start reading along!