I spent nine years in junior high school. I admit that I was a late bloomer, but not
that late. Seven of those years were
teaching junior high school 30 years ago.
In other words, I’ve spent a fair amount of time being and then teaching
those ages. I’ve also seen who these
children become, as some of my earliest students are now in their early
50s. And based on those experiences, I
believe that it’s insulting to children to compare the current president’s
behavior to theirs.
Yes, pre-teens/teens can be petulant, petty, emotional,
rash. Yes, they can speak without the
benefit of prior thought. Yes, they can
make up names for people and denigrate people without forethought for what that
means for those people or to their own humanity. They can lie incessantly and almost without
knowing they are lying. They can play
one friend off of another to gain advantage over both. And, yes, those are all traits of the
current president.
But children of that age are also incredibly inquisitive,
deeply loyal, willing to work hard and commit, idealistic, and above else able
to learn and evolve as humans – not characteristics that anyone would ascribe
to the president. They will “hate” one
minute and “love” the next minute in their march toward adulthood. But that’s part of the malleability of their growth. As they cope with life changes, new-found
responsibilities, and challenges, they adapt.
They become talented musicians and plumbers and scientists and bus
drivers. They become us, the adults of
the society. And that transformation
isn’t something that somehow magically occurs at some age or stage. It’s a slow process of maturation that begins
in childhood and gets tempered with time and life.
Contrast that to a fully formed adult who exhibits the destructive
behaviors of a 13-year-old child. When a
child is petulant, rash, and hurtful toward others, we help the child modify
those behaviors. That way, the behaviors
don’t hinder that child’s long-term emotional and social growth. Eventually, most children learn the
difference between ineffective and effective ways to engage the world. So it’s unfair to compare a fully formed
adult like the president to children because, as an adult, he had opportunities
to change. An adult who doesn’t change
those behaviors reifies the behaviors into how he experiences the world and
expresses himself in it. That’s very
different than what children do as they learn from mistakes and mature beyond
ineffective and destructive mannerisms.
So let’s stop the unfair comparisons to our children.
