Then when they grow up to be teenagers, they live in a cave and communicate mostly through grunting. I am at this phase with my children and I make inhumane efforts not to react and let it flow.
I hope that when their brain actually fires up when they are 25 or 30, they will be nice kids who realize what their parents when through to raise them.
Please comment only to confirm this, I am desperate.
>when their brain actually fires up when they are 25 or 30
Their brain fires up at about 14, and soon starts to figure out that life is actually a costume party, so they spend the next decade in their cave pondering about it while making up their costume, naturally grunting at you while you annoy them with your mundane down-to-earth already-costumed person considerations. Then at 25 or 30 their costume is ready and they start playing with you childishly again.
"I was ashamed of myself when I realized life was a costume party, and I attended with my real face." (Kafka)
"Parents who expect gratitude from their children (there are even some who require it) are like those usurers who willingly risk the capital to receive interest." (Kafka)
Both the op and the answer are great and even the plea is inspiring.
OP I am still a parent of 2 toddlers but I came to realise at almost 35 that I was an asshole to my parebts for a long part of my life. It is one of my biggest personal shames. On the other hand I believe such break up is needed to be willing to brave the world independently. We are one weird species, is my conclusion.
>I came to realise at almost 35 that I was an asshole to my parents for a long part of my life.
Two years ago, I helped my mother die (I was then still thirty-something, she was sixty).
In such vulnerable situations, the honesty between our coupling (dying mother to mortal son) left us in a constant stream of mostly-happy tears.
Hearing your mother, on her months-away deathbed, describe you as "a bully, absolutely; sometimes even an asshole. But I love that you mostly bullied assholes, even your most-difficult brother (you could always humiliate him when he NEEDED it) and even me, sometimes, when I was acting out."
RIP, Mom; I miss You immensely, even these two years later, but am so glad we were able to lessen the guilt and share in being human.
I agree with this, the 'firing up of the brain' and puberty are closely correlated in my experience as a child and as a parent. I'm not well read on Kafka but it seems he would agree as well.
Well, I could think of several, actually far too many more terrible body horror scenarios that will remain not communicated through my fingers applied to this BMI connected to the internet.
But, I meant that in the abstract sense of displaying a bent or filtered version of myself. Sometimes the ping-pong thoughts can't be allowed to all come out at once so my external presentation certainly fits some point in the range of my usual expressions, but may not totally accurately represent my internal state.
I don't know the whole 25 thing seems to be just mainly be something like a meme. You go out and you can meet extremely personable, social, and polite, teens all the time. You can also find the grunters. Sometimes it's just personality. Sometimes it's dealing with puberty. Sometimes it's genuflecting against authority. As long as you support them, give them guidance in a respectful way, and involve yourself in their interests, most teens end up totally well adjusted by the time they finish high-school.
(Also, I bet your teens would agree that your efforts are "inhumane")
>the whole 25 thing seems to be just mainly be something like a meme
It comes from the same place "scientific" racism did. It's an excuse to not even bother trying because "muh hormones".
Adult initiation rituals tend to be 13-14 in every pre-industrial society (current and historic) because that's when it happens biologically; it is therefore not a surprise, in Western countries where it's delayed by a decade, that the people from 14-25 are not developing correctly.
The first step to fixing this is to acknowledge the problem exists.
> Adult initiation rituals tend to be 13-14 in every pre-industrial society (current and historic) because that's when it happens biologically; it is therefore not a surprise, in Western countries where it's delayed by a decade, that the people from 14-25 are not developing correctly.
I don't know how to define 'correctly' here, but in politically and economically advanced countries they develop in much more healthy and productive ways. People who are forced to be adults at 15 often never get a chance to mature.
Pre-industrial society was a horrifying murder fest that gets worse the further you go back with people living in prehistoric societies 9 times more likely to die of violence. One needed to begin taking on responsibility very early both because early societies needed every hand available just to secure enough food but because you might not have long.
The operation of such societies should be regarded as an optimization for current circumstances rather than an optimal strategy. If you think what we are doing is poorly suited you are going to have to justify that position on its own merits.
idk preindustrial society requires every able body for manual labor and has a huge incentive to forgoe building of character and mind. i don't want that for my children
I don't know, 25-30 happens to be the age at which most people are having the most sex (at least statistically), its a time when you are still sharp and horny and haven't gotten bored of chasing sex but you have stupidly high self-confidence and your whole life and the the whole world ahead of you, when you become involved in real industry and make some of the most important social connections in your life.
It might be unique to our era (of capitalism), but its definitely true that even if those teenagers appear to be polite, you must remember yourself what it was like to be a teenager, how frustrated and angry and anxious you were all the time, how little you really knew about the world, even if you were nice in public. I don't think those basic impressions you get are definitive.
One essential - existential - skill that children learn is to please ADULTS (Authoritarian Domineering Unseeing Ludicrous Tedious Superhypocritals). Their actual survival (food, shelter, safety), their welfare, their happiness depends extremely on Adults. If you were in their shoes in regard to some authority - especially an authority that behaves as badly as Adults - you would learn too.
They learn how to not upset Adults (and how to effectively upset them too), how to be pleasing, how to stay out of trouble, how to utterly lie and not get caught. Teens are advanced children in this respect.
Now you might think you are too smart to be fooled, and that of course is your downfall (didn't you read in school about hubris and arrogance?). The kids are humans, it is very high stakes for them and they study and hone every technique. For them it is their most productive skill. You are massivly outgunned. Adult.
You might think you are good-willed and trustworthy, but you are inescapably an Adult. You have that unchecked power and have been corrupted by it. Even if you are truly a friend now you can switch on that power in a moment if something bothers you, at your whim, by your mood. It's like petting an unrestrained lion; no matter how calm and playful it seems, licking you, nuzzling you, purring ... you are paying very close attention and tailoring every move to its pleasure. What if something scares it?
I work to maintain great empathy for children's position (hard to do, because I am corrupted by unchecked power). When interacting, I keep my mouth shut - a whispered syllable dominates the conversation, even if to provoke resistance. I listen attentively: are they speaking with their own voice, for their own cause, of their own perspective? A good signal is if it's too pleasing, if it fits so beautifully and joyfully in my beliefs, relieving all tension - here is a child who understands! Lol. Other people, especially with the vastly different experience of a different generation and of childhood, will have very different ideas and perspectives, many hard to understand or uncomfortable. Just think what you sound like to them.
When kids do that pleasing thing, what response do you see? You see Adults compliment them - 'what fine children!' The Adults are suckers, and if you think back to your teenage years, you know it. Adults are so easy.
There's another issue here. I was once at a casual Adult dinner party and a couple had brought their only child, a 13 year old. The child, as far as I could tell, was the Adults' best friend and they said as much. I tried engaging the child away from their parents and give them some space to be themselves, to be valued as themselves. They said they wanted to be there, with Adults (lol), because 'who wants to hang out with 13 year olds?' So truly heartbreaking.
Eldest or only children often prefer the company of adults over other children, 2nd and further or kids from bigger families tend to be more comfortable hanging out with other kids. I think it's largely practice / what they are accomodated to and it's pretty normal.
It's also "point of reference" - kids more isolated from other kids will latch onto adults as their "reference people" they compare themselves to and model behaviours from while kids more socialised with kids will reference more onto near peers.
Isolated kids are commonly more intellectually precocious but less directly practical and (naturally) tend to have a bit more trouble connecting with peers. It's not unusual.
"Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them." -- Oscar Wilde
For me it's exactly the opposite. When I was a teenager I was always afraid and deferential of my parents, now I can't help but see them as narcisistic and abusive.
They are doing the reasonable thing to create differentiation between their personality development and yours. They are likely accurately identifying aspects of your behavior that are maladaptive to growing up in their era. The alienation is an effort to create room for themselves to become something else. You can respect the wisdom of their inclinations, or continue to prove them right by not doing so. Either way, they will make themselves as they need.
> I hope that when their brain actually fires up when they are 25 or 30, they will be nice kids who realize what their parents when through to raise them.
My wife and I never had much anger towards our parents, but whatever was there totally dissipated when we had our first child.
I wonder if many millennials will never get that realization, after having kids a decade later in life than their parents did. We had our daughter in our mid-late 20s, as we were finishing law school. By the time we had our boys 6 and 8 years later, we had a house, we’re established in our careers, etc. The parenting experience later in life was very different, and much easier—aside from less physical stamina—than it was earlier in life.
Probably the best thing for the young chimpanzees is to be out of the house most of the time, be put into a bunch of sports/programs. At that age they start to resent their parents, and they learn a lot more when they're outside doing stuff.
Forcing them to be out of the house is a great way to ensure they never have the time to practice their expressed interest in programming that can eventually lead to a lucrative career.
Seriously maybe? What's so special about playing sports with friends? Why is that sooooo important? I never had an interest in sports, and so I made friends with other kids that had no interest in sports.
It’s good to expose kids to aggression, understand group behavior, working as a team, also good for physical/mental health. Learning a little aggression/to recognize aggression is good later in life. I don’t like the stereotype of the smart nerd being taken advantage of by the less smart bro he works for.
The juveniles suffer from some of the weaknesses of their parents and all of the weaknesses of the species.
The context of the social group may also have instilled poor social habits in both the juveniles and the elders.
When the elders have gathered enough simple experiences to understand these factors clearly instead of simply seeing the juveniles as being unquestionably destined for greatness in Learning and Civilisation, it is likely that a real social bond can be formed.
Improved communication and gestures of mutual caring have often been observed subsequently.
Confirmed, happily. My step-kids from my previous marriage are reaching this age and after several years of grunt-only communication, suddenly they are back in my life. It was obviously hard for them and lots of things happened that were out of any of our control, but even in this situation, they came back. It's a joy.
Yes - 100% confirm based on my experience as a grunting ape, and watching my nephew and nieces and cousins grow up. I have toddlers now, and am dreading the upcoming cave phase, esp because once they reach adulthood (real adulthood - 25/30), I'll be dying age.
Decreasingly-recent ex-teenager here. I was a pretty terrible teenager but after my brain fired up, I made it clear to them how grateful I was for the immense personal sacrifices they both undertook to raise my siblings and I.
That is correct, at some point after 25 their behavior shifts. The change is extreme, eventually they complain about other child/teenage humans and forget they themselves were in that stage not that long ago.
The article indicates that you might have to react sooner, for them to stop sooner.
I remember when I was younger, and I did that, but because I was their third child they were kind of already annoyed, so my parents' reaction was immediate and usually quite shouty.
I do find it adorable seeing these juveniles annoy the elderly.
Game theory does not tell us that tit for tat is generally optimal. It tells us that it is optimal for a specific game with specific rules and payouts.
It is a mistake to try to translate that to using a tit for tat strategy in general, where the rules and payouts are usually quite different.
It's not even always the optimal strategy playing prisoner's dilemma. If all your opponents are playing "always defect", playing Tit-for-tat will consistently lose (because of the initial good-faith attempt at cooperation).
Right - if I recall, the story is that there were computer-simulated tournaments in which different strategies for playing the iterated prisoner's dilemma were pitted against each other, and tit-for-tat is the strategy that emerged to be the winner. So it's an empirical result showing that it is generally the most successful strategy, not mathematically shown to be optimal against every strategy.
It's not about the specific game nor the specific payout. When raising children, it's more important to teach/demonstrate that negative behaviour does have negative consequences.
Our teachers used to admonish us "no monkeying around" and "no horse play". The literal connection for the first was pretty obvious, even to us north american kids, but I was in my twenties before I learned that the latter refers to geldings' preferred method of play: biting little bits of fur off each others' faces.
>If, for instance, a young ape teases another and the second one does not respond, it tells the first individual how far one can go with the second individual, providing vital information about growing up within a social group and establishing hierarchies.
It’s funny being the parent of teenagers and witnessing this behavior. It’s frequently frustrating and hurtful so it helps to realize that it’s just part of life and not something truly directed at me.
It’s the simple things like ape genes, and having basic needs met.
I kind of feel like it’s all this little stuff that bubbles up. Like keeping inflammation low in general.
Seems like a good thread in which to recommend Chimp Empire on Netflix. It's beautifully shot, and quite dramatic. I wondered whether they had manufactured some of the storylines from the thousands of hours of footage, but according to a couple of interviews with uninvolved scientists that I read, it mostly checks out as an accurate portrayal.
Kittens are demonic and will pester adult cats for as long as they can stay awake. Mature cats always end up taking refuge on elevated perches kittens can't reach.
Then when they grow up to be teenagers, they live in a cave and communicate mostly through grunting. I am at this phase with my children and I make inhumane efforts not to react and let it flow.
I hope that when their brain actually fires up when they are 25 or 30, they will be nice kids who realize what their parents when through to raise them.
Please comment only to confirm this, I am desperate.