[Willie Green]

Why are the 18 to 21 year olds so dumb? They didn't used to be dumb.

Sure they were.
All kids become dumb as rocks with the onset of puberty.
They lack the maturity to excercise responsible judgement in their own best self-interest.
Discipline and self-restraint need to be imposed upon them so that they learn to behave responsibly as adults. "Spare the rod and you spoil the child".

[discostu]

But why are they dumb? I grew up watching Little House on the Prairie, 14 year-olds getting married and starting families, how did our youds become so much dumber in the intervening years. See I don't think a person can learn discipline and self-restraint by having things denied them by others, how can somebody learn not to drink to excess when they aren't allowed to drink at all? All we seem to do is move the crisis period back, the longer it takes to expect them to behave responsibly the longer it's going to take them to learn reponsibility.

[ican'tbelieveit]

If you haven't instilled maturity and discipline into your children long before puberty hits, you are correct, you will see them become wild things at that stage. And don't hope that they will suddenly snap out of it if you haven't done the same thing, it just doesn't happen that way.

We are also commanded to "train up a child in the ways that he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Notice it says child, not teenager. Notice it says, when he is old, not teenaged.