Why Do Liberals Refer to Teens as Children

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]clip11 wrote:

[quote]GorillaMon wrote:
Loads of adults refer to anyone much under the age of 20 or so as kids, lads etc. I’m not convinced (at least in this country) this is a mostly a liberal thing. [/quote]

No I don’t mean as an expression. I mean as in treating them in most ways as if they really are children. It’s like a lot of people see no difference between a 7 year old than a 17 year old as if they’re one and the same. For instance Mark Sanchez, the 24 y/o QB for the Jets had a 17 y/o gf and a lot of people were just freaking out about it. You would think that he rides his car to the local kindergarten and tries to lure little kids into his gingerbread house. What I couldn’t understand is why people freaked out about him having a 17 y/o girlfriend. And people saying teenagers (14-18) will be “emotionally scarred” by having consensual sex with someone 21+ is bullshit. Do you really think girls that age are a bunch of virgin Marys that would faint at the mere mention of a word that rhymes with sex???

If you come to Detroit, alot of 14-18 y/o girls have been around the block a time or two and know exactly what they’re doing. In fact, they may be able to teach some suburban middle age feminists a few tricks.[/quote]

7 years is a huge difference at 24. You can pull off age differences when all parties involved are adults. It’s not the age number so much as the difference in the threshold of developmental phases. A 17 years old is still very much in the throws of late teen stage of development. It’s more than body it’s mind as well.
Should the starting QB of a professional team be messing around in a relationship where the other person is still dependent on parents, just bare finishing or about to be finishing high school? I don’t think so. If he really loved her, he can wait 'til shes 20 and an adult herself.

Dating is a different ballgame. I don’t give a shit how someone looks, or how mature someone appears to be. 17 is to damn young a lady for a grown ass man to be contemplating putting his dick into, period.[/quote]

Boy’s got some serious issues if he can’t get a full-grown woman. I agree he ought to be castigated like he was for it. Shows complete immaturity on his part. [/quote]

He’s a NFL QB he gets sex for being on the team roster.

  1. Just because a pro athlete has a girlfriend (or wife) doesnt mean he is getting sex from groupies. So what evidence do you have that he “can’t get a grown woman”? Comparing apples and oranges. Who’s to say he has a 17 y/o gf, but not a 30 y/o mistress on the side?

  2. Men are visually oriented above all else. I don’t have to explain why any 20 something man that isn’t a homo would want a pretty 17 y/o girl.

  3. Up until quite recently, young women that age were marrying and having children, many times with men in their 20’s. Besides what society says, whats the difference between a 17 y/o young woman in 2011 and a 17 y/o young woman in 1951? A 17 y/o girl then would be looking for or already found a husband, and he probably would be older than her. As a bit of anecdotal evidence, I was reading a book written by Mamie Till, the mother of Emmett Till. She was born in the early 1920’s and she mentioned where she was from, it wasn’t uncommon for girls to be married and have their first child at 16. She was considered an “old maid” because she didn’t marry until 18 and have her first child until 20.

  4. I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t work. I would hope Mark Sanchez would pull a Charlie Sheen and tell anyone who has something to say about it ‘fuck you’. I would hope he wouldn’t grovel and kow tow.

22

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]clip11 wrote:

[quote]GorillaMon wrote:
Loads of adults refer to anyone much under the age of 20 or so as kids, lads etc. I’m not convinced (at least in this country) this is a mostly a liberal thing. [/quote]

No I don’t mean as an expression. I mean as in treating them in most ways as if they really are children. It’s like a lot of people see no difference between a 7 year old than a 17 year old as if they’re one and the same. For instance Mark Sanchez, the 24 y/o QB for the Jets had a 17 y/o gf and a lot of people were just freaking out about it. You would think that he rides his car to the local kindergarten and tries to lure little kids into his gingerbread house. What I couldn’t understand is why people freaked out about him having a 17 y/o girlfriend. And people saying teenagers (14-18) will be “emotionally scarred” by having consensual sex with someone 21+ is bullshit. Do you really think girls that age are a bunch of virgin Marys that would faint at the mere mention of a word that rhymes with sex???

If you come to Detroit, alot of 14-18 y/o girls have been around the block a time or two and know exactly what they’re doing. In fact, they may be able to teach some suburban middle age feminists a few tricks.[/quote]

7 years is a huge difference at 24. You can pull off age differences when all parties involved are adults. It’s not the age number so much as the difference in the threshold of developmental phases. A 17 years old is still very much in the throws of late teen stage of development. It’s more than body it’s mind as well.
Should the starting QB of a professional team be messing around in a relationship where the other person is still dependent on parents, just bare finishing or about to be finishing high school? I don’t think so. If he really loved her, he can wait 'til shes 20 and an adult herself.

Dating is a different ballgame. I don’t give a shit how someone looks, or how mature someone appears to be. 17 is to damn young a lady for a grown ass man to be contemplating putting his dick into, period.[/quote]

Ok, instead of dating, what if he just screwed her and that was it? And its not just that, in Philly, the cops dont want you defending yourself against flash mobs because they’re just “children”. Yeah, children strong enough to break your jaw and send you to the ICU. I’m all for locking up 14 and up convicted of violent crimes in adult prison and giving them adult time. Not none of this “he didn’t know what he was doing” crap!

23

[quote]clip11 wrote:
I’ll have to disagree with that. I remember when I was in high school, there were some guys 6’0 and up with full facial hair and girls developed enough to be mistaken for teachers instead of students. I wouldnt say they were ‘just kids’ because they were under an arbitrary age range.[/quote]

Exception doesn’t disprove the rule.

24

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
LOL! I just did a 2K on my Concept2 ergometer in 7:43 (7 min, 43 secs). Top that, sonny…XD
[/quote]

I don’t have a Concept2 at my disposal, so I wouldn’t be able to top it.

25

[quote]clip11 wrote:

[quote]GorillaMon wrote:
Loads of adults refer to anyone much under the age of 20 or so as kids, lads etc. I’m not convinced (at least in this country) this is a mostly a liberal thing. [/quote]

No I don’t mean as an expression. I mean as in treating them in most ways as if they really are children. It’s like a lot of people see no difference between a 7 year old than a 17 year old as if they’re one and the same. For instance Mark Sanchez, the 24 y/o QB for the Jets had a 17 y/o gf and a lot of people were just freaking out about it. You would think that he rides his car to the local kindergarten and tries to lure little kids into his gingerbread house. What I couldn’t understand is why people freaked out about him having a 17 y/o girlfriend. And people saying teenagers (14-18) will be “emotionally scarred” by having consensual sex with someone 21+ is bullshit. Do you really think girls that age are a bunch of virgin Marys that would faint at the mere mention of a word that rhymes with sex???

If you come to Detroit, alot of 14-18 y/o girls have been around the block a time or two and know exactly what they’re doing. In fact, they may be able to teach some suburban middle age feminists a few tricks.[/quote]

In the UK, we only have compulsory education up to the age of 16 as opposed to 18, that plus a lower age of consent, buy drink etc could explain the difference (at least in America vs the UK).

26

In texas 17 year olds are considered as adults, and can sent to prison for fighting a minor(16) with child molestors…

what can you say about this?

27

[quote]miros11 wrote:
In texas 17 year olds are considered as adults, and can sent to prison for fighting a minor(16) with child molestors…

what can you say about this?[/quote]

Still too young. I like women above the age of 25, or at least act like they are older than 24.

I keep my standards high.

28

[quote]miros11 wrote:
In texas 17 year olds are considered as adults, and can sent to prison for fighting a minor(16) with child molestors…

what can you say about this?[/quote]

I’d wonder why you and the child molesters ganged up to fight minors. :wink:

I grew up in Texas and I’m sure it’s not that much different from the rest of the world. Although there is a pretty large gap in maturity between a 17 year old and a 23 year old, I’d say there’s also a huge gap in maturity between most 24 year olds and 30 year olds. That doesn’t necessarily mean the 17 year old is not mature enough to take responsibility for her actions. I’m actually of the opinion that 17 year olds should be considered full adults, and treated as such, for better or worse.

I also believe that our society has had a large role in extending childhood WAAAAAAYYYYY beyond what it should be. I own an English school in Japan,we teach from little kids up to high school seniors. MANY of my students, including jr, high and even elementary school students, study at my school because they, not their parents, voluntarily decided they wanted to improve themselves. Pretty much all of my high school kids are like this, and while they may still possess certain adolescent traits, for the most part, they are all lovely, mature, ambitious, charming PEOPLE (not kids) whom I would be proud to call own.

American, maybe western society in general, has this tendency to infantalize and postpone at all costs the privilege of allowing people to take personal responsibility for their actions. I think it is sad and unfair, and I think that the arrested maturity we tend to see is actually exacerbated by our tendency to place so much emphasis on it. Kids and adults are not as different as we would like to think, and people will generally grow into what is expected of them. If you expect your kids to act like kids, they will. If you demand more of them, though, and truly believe in them, I think many would be surprised to see just how mature “kids” can turn out to be.

Just my 10 years experience in working with kids of all ages in two difference hemispheres.

29

I’m of the opinion that 13 years and older is pretty much an adult, though I question America’s tendency to kick kids out after they are 18 years old.

I guess it comes with people growing up slower, when they reach a certain age their parents are just tired of being responsible instead of other cultures in which the parents are living with basically another responsible adult that happens to be their kid.

30

I remember reading how the terms ‘adolescent’ and ‘teenager’ were terms developed in the early 1900s (at the same time companies were beginning to market heavily to kids and began to define their markets by age.

Now we have ‘tweeners’ but did not 20 years ago.) Consider that most cultures right of passages occur around the 13th to 16th birthdays. Meaning they bore the responsibilities of adulthood within that community.

31

[quote]Jab1 wrote:
I’m a liberal and completely agree with the OP.

What now. Another sweeping generalisation disproved? Oh noes![/quote]

No one ever claimed every liberal has done it.

I could ask why registered republicans vote for republicans, but the fact that one republican voted for a dem once doesn’t invalidate the point.

32

Who knows. But if you look at their platforms and voting records they like to treat full grown adults as children too.