Aeon Paula S Fass Adolescence as an idea and as an experience grew out of the more general elevation of childhood as an ideal throughout the Western world. By the closing decades of the 19th century, nations defined the quality of their cultures by the treatment of their children. As Julia Lathrop, the first director of the United States Children’s Bureau, the first and only agency exclusively devoted to the wellbeing of children, observed in its second annual report, children’s welfare ‘tests the public spirit and democracy of a community’. Progressive societies cared for their children by emphasising play and schooling; parents were expected to shelter and protect their children’s innocence by keeping them from paid work and the wrong kinds of knowledge; while health, protection and education became the governing principles of child life. These institutional developments were accompanied by a new children’s literature that elevated children’s fantasy and dwelled on its special qualities. The stories of Beatrix Potter, L Frank Baum and Lewis Carroll celebrated the wonderland of childhood through pastoral imagining and lands of oz. https://aeon.co/essays/adolescence-is-no-longer-a-bridge-between-childhood-and-adult-life?utm_term=0_411a82e59d-088c9514d3-69052605&utm_content=buffere9b3d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer Putting aside how many pinheads can dance on an angel, a good treatment of the topic. I agree that the age descriptions we use were created and not natural. Unfortunately, we've created permanent adolescence.
