The decay of youth and cognitive development in teens and kids (an essay)

One thing I notice about the modern world is the lack of childhood innocence. The very thing that I feel most of Gen Z grew up with. That feeling of your mother helping you play educational games or the feeling of reenacting your favorite scenarios with toys. Kids back then were more focused on just being kids, with a set of interests handpicked to be age appropriate and safe. Sure, Gen Z may have had their fair share of trauma online, but that was about it.

But nowadays I see kids constantly dependent on devices for entertainment, extremely spoilt with it even, and screaming around jokes that annoy everyone. Sure, kids back in the 2000s were annoying but at least not the degree of cringe that these newer kids are. With the constant consumption of themes and content that focus way too much on pure consumerism, not making way for the same creativity or love and care put into our good old childhood cartoons and IPs. I'm talking about the era in which My Little Pony went through the trouble to sell sing along CDs that not a lot of parents were gonna buy anyways, or when toys put extra effort into allowing for more creativity to children. While we still have DIY toys today, it just rarely comes off as the same level of creative, educational or explorative as the old ones.

I like to reminisce on my childhood, remembering how my childhood was about watching My Little Pony and playing dress up games on websites. Or my little brothers' childhood with his Hotwheels and the Monster Truck games he would play as a child. Everything that a child should be thinking about. But now, I see the younger generation more focused on trying to be "more adult" with the feminine obsession with skincare and the masculine obsession with memes like "skibidi toilet". The occasional annoying screaming and crying of these kids is no longer directed for toys, but for memes and/or products intended for older audience. They feel it's more "mature" compared to normal things like mythical creatures, play dates with friends, tea parties or pretend play work.

It feels like everyone is too obsessed with growing up too early.

Gen Z isn't free from this either, with the constant social pressure to have strong political beliefs, whether left or right. There is no longer just pure teen angst or finding their own identity, it's all just trying not to get left out of social circles. And while sure, even back then the social circle issue was a thing but nowadays it's even tainted niche subcultures intended to help these kids find their crowd.

Take for example, the corruption of the scene subculture with this weird kind of sexual purity culture (condemnation of taboo fetishes, fantasies, etc.), despite being a culture built upon layers and layers of sexual deviancy. I'm not saying the creeps in the subculture are okay at all, but the subculture itself was built upon offensive sex humor and was supposed to be a sort of safe space for teens among themselves to express that (as risky as that is considering it's something that creeps can easily leverage).

If even niche subcultures intended for those with deviant interests is being tainted with the social pressure to stay PG, then where can these kids safely be as unhinged as they want in terms of self-expression, which is an essential building block in creating a self-identity? Back then, we had separate social circles for those who could never fit in with the norm. But now, these new kids are trying too hard to blend subcultures into the norm when that's just not what they were made for. The constant sexual puritan rhetoric going on with fiction as well isn't helping either, being that fiction is supposed to be a safe outlet for these deviant interests so these kids can look back at it as a cringey phase and prevent them from actually engaging in those behaviours in real life.

Every teen is inevitably to have deviant interests, it's something that forms naturally with exposure to the world. Whether it be the suicidal self-cutting emo phase, the desire to break rules, obsession with taboo themes or weird sexual fantasies, as creepy as this is, it's just how we develop our moral, sexual and personal identity. With the outlets used to express and put these interests into retrospect, we can pick out and choose which ones are appropriate or a big enough part of our identity enough for us to take to our adulthood. Which is why the whole social pressure to keep things clean is an issue. Sure, you can just express yourself in private as this developmental stage is intended to be done but seeing how kids will be "exposed" or "outed" for liking certain media has teens too afraid to express themselves at all. Feeling guilty for these feelings like they don't deserve to live when it's something that happens to everyone who explores themselves.

Our parents also have a hand in guiding us through that retrospective phase. By preventing us from doing things we will regret later on like teen pregnancy or suicide. We should be allowed to express these desires very subtly in our personality as parents keeping an eye on us making sure we don't carelessly act on them. It's better than us not making it visible at all, until the very last day before we do something we'll regret for life. And kids with abusive parents should be allowed to use these themes as a way to vent.

The ability to look back on your teenhood in retrospect helps build critical thinking, it helps you differentiate between topics that are necessary to prioritize, it helps to build multilayered reasoning skills, and it helps to build good problem solving skills. By condemning your thinking to a single strict hivemind, whether it be political or moral, you are potentially blocking that developmental phase.

On to the topic of modern day parents, oh god... I just can't even with the Ipad moms. You can't just leave your child to be raised by a device, a child is a complex human that needs to be guided in development. That mother's love is what makes their childhood matter. I understand the economy is fucked and single parents gotta work. But if you're on a day off or just have time to kill, go ahead and use it to develop your child. It's better than them sending you off to a nursing home when they grow older feeling like you never cared even though you actually did. It's okay to take some time away from your kids but you need to make sure you're there for them, be somebody they'll miss.

Conclusion, youth is something we take for granted nowadays. It's something we don't want to talk about much in fear of being judged or accused of things but somethings just have to brought up. But everyone's trying way too hard to grow up too fast, which will really mess up your brain in the long run. It's better to ease out, and enjoy your youth as it should be.