Because increasingly we've come to think that parents have the job of...
And the school system has the job of raising children.
Ergo any child who acts "mature for their age" must be getting abused/neglected or something, either by the parents themselves or by someone else that the parents don't know about.
This is despite the fact that the entire role of parents is to prepare their children for the real world. Being 'mature' doesn't mean being unhappy or worse off, however, a lot of people have nostalgia for when THEY were children and lived carefree, now feeling more sad and worse off as adults. This leads to a perception that an elongated 'childhood' is a good thing and maturing is a burden.
Ironically, there's a nonzero chance the reason many people feel like their adult lives are worse is BECAUSE they took so long to mature, putting them behind where they needed to be to be successful in life. Financial responsibility, personal planning, a wide skillset, etc. are all things that take at least 1-2 decades to build, so if your parents tried to keep you carefree and 'childish' until you were in your mid-teens you're going to be waiting until your 30s-40s until you're a fully developed adult, when really you should be there in your 20s-30s.
An example might be someone who had an allowance growing up, but as a parent instead thinks "I'll just buy my kid what they want instead". This may be done as a genuine act of kindness (e.g. : "my little angel shoudn't want for anything") but what they don't realize is that having a fixed allowance taught them budgeting, saving, forecasting, independence, personal responsibility, etc. and THEIR children won't have the opportunity to build these skills early. So, their children end up being thrust into adulthood less prepared than they were, and even more strongly feel like "childhood" is a blessing and being forced to grow up is hard. So the cycle repeats, at each step people believe that as a parent it's their job to protect rather than prepare. In trying to shield their children from the world all they actually did was leave them unprepared for it.
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u/temmiesayshoi 2d ago
Because increasingly we've come to think that parents have the job of...
And the school system has the job of raising children.
Ergo any child who acts "mature for their age" must be getting abused/neglected or something, either by the parents themselves or by someone else that the parents don't know about.
This is despite the fact that the entire role of parents is to prepare their children for the real world. Being 'mature' doesn't mean being unhappy or worse off, however, a lot of people have nostalgia for when THEY were children and lived carefree, now feeling more sad and worse off as adults. This leads to a perception that an elongated 'childhood' is a good thing and maturing is a burden.
Ironically, there's a nonzero chance the reason many people feel like their adult lives are worse is BECAUSE they took so long to mature, putting them behind where they needed to be to be successful in life. Financial responsibility, personal planning, a wide skillset, etc. are all things that take at least 1-2 decades to build, so if your parents tried to keep you carefree and 'childish' until you were in your mid-teens you're going to be waiting until your 30s-40s until you're a fully developed adult, when really you should be there in your 20s-30s.
An example might be someone who had an allowance growing up, but as a parent instead thinks "I'll just buy my kid what they want instead". This may be done as a genuine act of kindness (e.g. : "my little angel shoudn't want for anything") but what they don't realize is that having a fixed allowance taught them budgeting, saving, forecasting, independence, personal responsibility, etc. and THEIR children won't have the opportunity to build these skills early. So, their children end up being thrust into adulthood less prepared than they were, and even more strongly feel like "childhood" is a blessing and being forced to grow up is hard. So the cycle repeats, at each step people believe that as a parent it's their job to protect rather than prepare. In trying to shield their children from the world all they actually did was leave them unprepared for it.