>>But that's exactly why I say they should be allowed to be children longer. >>
No society has prospered once this action was taken, Not one. We would not be the first. The increase in knowledge requires that they be responsible for that increased knowledge at an earlier age, and remove the years of no responsibility.
I'd sure like to know what evidence you are basing that broad statement on.
The increase in knowledge requires that they be responsible for that increased knowledge at an earlier age, and remove the years of no responsibility
You all keep talking about childhood as years of no responsibility. That seems to be the problem in a nutshell.
My children had many more years of responsibility as children before I threw them out in the adult world and let them make adult decisions. Those added years of learning responsibility have helped them make better decisons when the time came for them to be fully in charge of their life.
Throwing kids out into the world at an early age might have seemed to work in the 'old days', but children were also raised a lot different than parents are raising their children now. Society as a whole was,at least outwardly, more moral. Children worked a lot harder and a lot more was expected out of them in terms of good behavior and perhaps they did learn more responsibility at a younger age.
I can't understand the people that seem to think that children getting married younger is somehow going to make our society more moral. That is just whack! We would only end up exchanging one problem for another, as cases of adultery would go up. I guess we would have a lot less problem with pedophiles, though.
I'm not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination, but I have to point out that in 'the old days' it was more prevelant for young girls to marry older men. While the girls might have been 13 or 14, the men was usually 19 or older. The girls usually had little choice in who they married due to the fact that their parents pick and chose who they could socialize with and marry. I don't think we can begin to imagine how many desperately unhappy marriages there were in the 'old days'. I would never condemn my daughters to making a life choice like that when they were 13 or 14. They don't even know enough about life to make a choice on a mate for life if it was up to their choosing.