1Soc Perspective 2: Coontz's Teen-Parent Conflicts

As students arrive, please look over the reading for today, Stephanie Coontz's "Putting Teen-Parent Conflicts in Perspective". 

Syllabus questions?

Fired Up?

Listen for the Silence

Answer questions 1-5 on the Google Form for this lesson.

1. Be honest - did you read the whole article?

2. What reading strategies did you use? (mark all that apply)

PRO TIP: The best reading strategies are:

Look for claim/thesis and evidence

Annotate - forces active reading, marks info for finding quickly

Have a "conversation" with the author/reading 

3. What do you think Coontz’s claim/thesis is? Find a passage from the text that summarizes her claim or write your own thesis that summarizes her claim. 

4. What is some evidence she provides that supports her claim? 

5. How confident are you that you understood Coontz's claim and evidence?

Discussion of Coontz's Claim and Evidence

Below is a graph of the median age of first marriage in American history from the US Census Bureau:

6. After we discuss the reading, was your evaluation in number 5 accurate?

7. What do you think worked/didn't work for number 6? What should you continue to do or improve on?

The idea of a teenager has only been around since the 1940s.  Before that, individuals went more from childhood to adulthood very quickly and distinctly.  Now, the process of childhood has a long, drawn-out middle period.  This encompasses the "teenage years" but it also includes what sociologists call "young adulthood."  Sociologists estimate the average age of independence in the United States to be 27.  That is when (on average) individuals can be self-sustaining financially and emotionally and socially enough to have a family and residence of their own.  So this leaves a long middle period between the age of puberty (10) and independence (27).  And throughout that time, there are many mixed messages being given to young adults.  This results in "rolelessness," or a feeling of not knowing what is expected of you during those years.  One example was the lack of meaningful work.  Teens generally have jobs that society deems as unworthy or meaningless.  This can leave teens feeling like they don't matter.  Can you see how Coontz makes that point?  Do you see how that can be true?  

Large Group: Make a timeline of the milestones throughout an average American's life - What are the milestones?  

BIRTH ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 80

Small Group Discussion:

Which milestones are natural?  Which are social? How do these differ?

When is an American independent?  

What are the most important events that consider someone an adult?

For more on the difficulties of determining adulthood:

This 2004 article from Contexts magazine about research showing different routes to adulthood depending on one's race, social class and other factors. 

 

This 2016 brief, called Grownups, from Contexts magazine highlights,   

A new paper by Scott Eliason, Jeylan Mortimer, and Mike Vuolo in Social Psychology Quarterly that seeks to better understand individuals’ perceptions of having finally become grownups. 

Growing Up is Harder to Do.2 - After the Great Recession (Contexts November 2016 is a nice follow-up, highlighting both how sociology explores the ways that inequality shows up n society and how society is dynamic so follow-up research is necessary.

Discontinuous Society?

Small group discussion:  Think about the timeline of events as Americans grow up.  What are the ways that Americans are viewed opposite from childhood to adulthood?

Another way to look at the conflicts sociologically is what Ruth Benedict called continuous and discontinuous societies in her seminal work, Patterns of Culture.  Benedict said that some societies are continuous citing her own studies of indigenous cultures and Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa.  (The relationship and research of Mead and Benedict are detailed in this 2019 article in the Atlantic.)

However, Benedict argued, culture in the U.S. is discontinuous because culturally, children have such different/opposing expectations from adults, especially: 

• irresponsible   -   responsible
• asexual            -   sexual
• submissive      -   dominant
• dependent       -    independent

Kids Up Parents Down is a funny take from Jerry Seinfeld on the discontinuous nature of childhood and adulthood in the U.S.:

Hine's 13

Not the ketchup - that's Heinz 57.  This is Thomas Hine's examination of age 13 and the difficulties that come with being a teenager.

Thomas Hine's book, The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager examines how society has created teens and how it affects them. You can hear the author discussing his ideas here. According to Hine,

Our beliefs, about teenagers are deeply contradictory: They should be free to become themselves. They need many years of training and study. They know more about the future than adults do. They know hardly anything at all. They ought to know the value of a dollar. They should be protected from the world of work. They are frail, vulnerable creatures. They are children. They are sex fiends. They are the death of culture. They are the hope of us all.

Do you see these contradictions in your own life or in the teens around you?