21 Means Inexperienced? (Piggy Back from Pam's Question)

Thank you!!!

I didn't agree with the whole writers perspective, but i find it extremely rude how many people said the writer was basically ignorant soley based on his/her age.

I am 25, and have had many harsh life experiences, and I feel like people don't realise you don't have to be 40 to be world smart and savvy. I am not ignorant to the ways of the world and how the govt really works.

An interesting fact for folks to consider here, is that statistically speaking based on testing and "life experience"....a person is at their MOST INTELLIGENT they will ever be in their life - at age 21.
They are the most educated and most open to influence an opinion at that age than at any other time in their lives.

So, for most of us, we're getting dumber each day. :)

Food for thought, for those that are saying "no way" to the 21 yr old's perspective.

At 21 i had 2 babies and was married. We struggled terribly. My dad's philosophy was you had to fall to learn how to get up. We learned and are stronger for it. I was a very responsible 21. My first priority were my children. Working that hard (well we still do) gave us a nice home, 4 beautiful, happy daughters, a puppy and two cats :) This is one chaotic house and i love it! There are some out there like us, very rare though. My sister is 21, pregnant with her second and clueless. Trying different jobs, living off my mom's money and the government. I wish she would have had the strength and sense of responsibility to get her own butt on the right path.

I have an old soul and a lot more 'real world' experience than most people my age. It truly depends on the person and their maturity level.

I wouldn't be caught DEAD doing what 80% of the kids I went to high school with are doing now: living reckless, partying, trying to re-live their party college years, mooching off their parents, (occupying! LOL), not having a steady job, etc...

Age is just a number. It's sad that people judge based on age.

@Kari, what are you talking about? ACTUALLY, I was on my own by 16 and cared for my 2 young brothers, held a full time job AND managed to graduate from high school. Had my first ____@____.com again, STOP JUDGING!! :)

BTW, I can name at least 10 people over 50 who can't hold a job, lost their homes, etc... because they're irresponsible. Saying someone's incompetent because of their age is plain IGNORANCE.

By the time I was 21, I had experienced a poverty-ridden life as a nomad with a severally mentally ill mother. I held 2 jobs at the age of 15 while going to school (some of it illegally since I had to skirt around child labor laws) and knew a lot more about life than kids with golden spoons in their mouths. I thought I was mature beyond my years and in many ways I was but looking back now, in many other ways, I WAS still immature because of my age. Its like a 5 year old who has suffered a hard life (i.e. no parents). that 5 year old will be more mature than other 5 year olds but at the end of the day, he's still 5. There's a wide range of maturity levels in 21 year olds but in my opinion, that range is still limited just by the sheer fact that you can only experience so much in 21 years of life and some wisdom only comes with time and trial and error.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, regardless of age.
And there are plenty of 21 year olds with intelligence and real world experience. By age 21 I had survived a nasty, dysfunctional childhood and had already been supporting myself for 4 years.
But I am 43 now and I can assure you I have a LOT more knowledge and a deeper understanding of the world than I did then.
Every generation thinks they know better than the generation before them. I didn't understand that when I was 21 but I sure do get it now!

Several years ago, there was a lady who wrote in about her cousin who was constantly deriding her choice to stay at home with her new baby. This woman had gone to college, married, worked, and then given birth. Her cousin, who had just graduated from college (if I am remembering right, give me a little leeway), decided to become a "life coach". She was in her early 20's - I'm sure I'm remembering that part right! She told this woman over and over that there was no point in her having gone to college if she was going to waste her life being a SAHM.

I'll bet you can imagine the tone of THAT thread, from both sides - SAHM's and WAHM's. All telling her that if mothers didn't go to college, how would we raise intelligent children? If no women went to college, our whole society would be dumbed down. And all of posters told this woman what a beotch her cousin was. AND how ridiculous it was that at HER age, she would call herself a life coach.

And it IS ridiculous.

The thing is, Mom, that some people live a lifetime by the time they are 30 than others do by the time they are 50. Not all that many 21 years olds now, at least from where I have lived, have worked 20 hours a week, gone to school full time, from the time they were 15. Or paid for their car and insurance and been responsible. Most kids are growing up a lot later. I agree with the poster on that thread that this kid sounded like a Baylor student with no experience at all around people who are LEGITIMATELY struggling. The mindset that you throw the baby out with the bathwater is prevalent, regardless of the person's age, I am so sorry to believe.

The person who has worked since they were young, didn't have a lot to brag about compared with their peers, works their way through college and does without to do so? A lot more grown up. I see NOTHING in that editorial that tells me that THIS kid has done ANY of that. The person who thinks he or she is too good to start at $15,000 a year after school because it's beneath them, that kid is way too young for me to pay credence to their selfish ideas.

Dawn

I am one of the posters that answered that it didn't surprise me it was written by someone who was 21, because it was idealogic in it's tone.

My actual statement was "it's either written by a youngin' or by someone who thinks they should have the right to control others behavior".

And that's because GENERALLY at 21 MOST AVERAGE kids in America have just gradutated or will graduate from college - otherwise known as NOT reality. Where your teacher cares if you are sick and you have student health available to you and your mom and dad or aunt or uncle send you money every week.

NOT ALL. MOST.

And that's a good place to be. I don't knock that place. But it's a place that's not grounded in reality. It's from someone who MORE THAN LIKELY based on statistics have never had to make the choice to go file for unemployment because they were completely out of options to feed their child. It's from someone who understands the frustration of having a good job that they worked hard for and a marriage that they worked hard at and having it all explode right in their face. And the demeaningness of knowing that you can go work at Mc Donalds and it doesn't pay for 1/2 of what you owe.

I NEVER felt the way that poster felt, even when I was 10, because that thought process and complete lack of empathy was a value with which I was not raised. That tone of "I know better about how to run the world" is a thought process that even in my younger days I didn't really entertain because I was raised with more global thought process.

I don't think it's an age thing - as much as it is an experience thing.

Pam's opinion column, written by a 21 year old, was very alarming. I felt disturbed by the level of classism espoused (and celebrated ?!?). Should racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, xenophobia, etc., be condoned because of a person's age? No, I don't think so. An ace is still an ace, no matter who holds it. (Although I do think it's useful to try to understand how we develop/learn, en masse, our values - and what opportunity each of us has to check and evolve our cultural competency.)

That being said, our external experiences (and timeline) are not necessarily indicative of our internal process or 'milestones', nor of what we have learned or gained from the experience itself. It's very difficult to quantify wisdom, understanding, experience, struggle, meaning, etc. We can go through very similar events and come out with very different perspectives.

In other words, while identifiers (age, sex, sexual orientation, class, nationality, religion, etc.) may be useful in gaging where someone is at / what their values and life experience have been, our sum can not be determined through status or age alone. It is unfortunate that we dismiss others based on age (ex: oh, they are just young/old so what do they know).

Ideally, we could learn a lot from each other, particularly when what we can bring to the table is often unique and valuable and influenced by our identifiers. A diverse discourse can be richer and more beneficial than one that only allows a limited frame of reference.

I am one of the people who said it was the rant of a person with no experience and having faced no adversity. I could CARE LESS what the persons age is, and wasn't really focused on the fact that they are "21"...I was focused on the fact that their ANGRY, HATEFUL rant was obviously full of self-importance, inexperience, and misplaced self-righteousness.

It has nothing to do with age. Yes, a person can have some experience at 21. Not as much as they will at 30, or 40, however. But really, it's not about age...it's about wisdom, compassion, etc...which that person has NONE OF, in my humble opinion. And my opinion comes from a place of TOO MUCH EXPERIENCE.

There is no set age where a person's ideas can't be shrugged off. There is no set age where intelligence sets in. Some people never have ideas that are worth a damn.

I said *most* 21 year old people have not struggled. What I meant was that most 21 year old people that I know or knew (back when I was that age myself) have no idea or concept of anything outside of themselves. Some 21 year olds are brilliant....some are still children. Most of the 21 year old people that I know/have known have are still in college, getting help from mom and dad and have no clue what it is like to have to struggle to put food on the table, pay all their bills, maintain insurance, etc.

What are you really referring to? Life experience or spoiled? Two different things. My 8 year old might or might not be "spoiled" but it still has no bearing on his "life experience.
I'm 48, and what I *thought* knew at 21 seems light years--and experience--away. That's just a fact of life.
Can a 21 year old safely raise a child and put food on the table and pay the rent? Sure. Some do, some don't. Do they know, what I would consider "a lot" about life, society and politics? Probably not.

I think people are grown up enough to have an opinion when they're able to verbalize it. Yes toddlers have opinions and it's best for their relationship if the adults listen and respond to it in a positive way.

Having an opinion that is taken seriously is not a matter of maturity. Maturity is recognized when the person can think thru their opinion and make responsible and successful choices based on their opinion. There is no magic age for doing this. Some adults never reach that level of maturity and some children do at least part of the time.

I didn't see Pam's post and so my answer may not be what you're looking for. I'd read it but I don't know how or even if it would be possible to find it.

It's an overgeneralization, which, as you and your brother prove, does not apply to everyone. People make easy comments about 21 being too inexperienced because so very many (if not MOST) people that age have not lived on their own outside of college and haven't seen much of the world. Of course there are exceptions, which only highlights that the generalization is unfair. Then again, simply by virtue of being younger, you have less experience and knowledge. I don't think young people should be written off as ignorant, but as you get older so much of your thinking may change, so even smart and independent 20somethings may grow and learn tremendous amounts the more experience they gain.

Let's see. By 21...
I had been helping raise my niece for 6 years
Been working since I was 12
Bought my own car
Lived on my own for 4 years
Paid for my own college
Didn't drink, do drugs, or anything else
Was responsible
Traveled some
Donated and volunteered in my community
Traveled to Mexico 4 times, to build houses for the needy

Yet, I was STILL treated like I was unintelligent, incapable, and ignorant. It would have been nice to be judged by my merits, rather then age. Since I look younger then I am, I still get judged. I'm 29, been married for 6 years, a mother, own our home, own our cars, have no debt...I'm still judged, because I'm "young."

I honestly can't wait to have the wisdom of an 80 year old. There is just so much to learn and experience in life, and with every decade, I am learning just how immature I was the decade before.

Rachel:

Some people have more maturity at 18 then some others do at 50.

Some of them by age 18 - have watched their parents struggle with addictions and basically parented their parents. I believe we have one or two mama's on here who have done this.

Like your brother and other soldiers - they have experienced more before 21 than others do in a lifetime...how does one judge experience?

I wouldn't set an age. It's easy for people here or anywhere to judge the words written in the other post...his opinion is just that - an opinion and many people want to take that as "Fact" and say "oooh rude young boy..." he wasn't rude, he wasn't ignorant. He was putting it out there - more than some will do - easier to complain about it than actually lift a finger and DO something.

He made a case. People didn't like it. Oh well. He had a plan. He made it clear - you can CHOOSE do use it or not. If you are going to take my money - here is how you will use it. People don't like that. It's too controlling. Oh well. Then find another option.

You are right that we all make assumptions about others based on our own experience. And we also base our assumptions on what we've learned from our own families, and from the culture at large.

No matter what we believe, we are all right to the degree those stereotypical assumptions are based on some truth. There are hard-working ants, and lazy, fun-loving grasshoppers.

The problem is, the poor are mostly working and struggling, and are only a hair's breadth away from financial disaster. A crisis that would be a difficulty in an upper-middle-class familly can have dire consequences for the working poor. A serious illness or parent or child can get a poor mother fired. An accident, an unplanned pregnancy, a theft of workman's tools – I've watched all of these, which would hardly phase a rich family, result in loss of critical income, home, or car.

I knew a mom whose two children were placed in foster homes because she lost her job through no fault of her own, lost her rented apartment, was unable to get a job because her car had no address, she had no telephone (before cell phones were available). Friends gave her and her kids a place to crash, eat and shower when they could, but her friends were low-income, too, and could only help so much. So she lost her beloved babies. It was a heartbreaking situation to watch, and to have no power to change.

Finally, a taxpayer-supported social program helped this mom retrain for a better-paying position, and an agency found her a job. It still took a couple of years for her to "earn" her children back, even though that would have cost "us" less than the foster homes they were in. She was one of the hardest-working, eager and hopeful people I've ever known. Not the brightest, but then, how many of us can realistically be "The Brightest"?

The rant by the 21-year-old posted earlier had no room in it for people like this, who I'm pretty sure, based on my own experiences as a low-income worker, are not the exception.

So I would say that inexperience does not necessarily link to age. Certainly the quality of the response does link to inexperience, however, and the age of that ranter was placed in the spotlight in that earlier post.

Hiya Mom2KCK,

I fully agree with your post! I did read the other responses and was surprised that the 21 y/o "author" was immediately written off as young, arrogant, ideological etc. We don't know what paths in life this "author" has been down.

I also agree with others that there are pleanty of young, ignorant "know it alls" in our world, who's opinion I would chalk up to inexperience. There are lots of em' out there. On that same note, there are a lot of 40 something's out there who are equally as ignorant and who lack common knowledge that you would think the average 40 y/o or even 50 y/o should've acquired. Age doesn't make you smarter, just older! I could be 21 and very well informed by extensive research, with amazing comprehension skills and great life experiences above and beyond the average, maybe this "author" was just that....

Well said. I don't think there is a particular age in which you are suddenly wise and educated enough to give an opinion. I am 44 and have four kids. Do I have enough experience to give my parenting opinion? Sure! I have never been divorced. Do I have enough experience in that to give an opinion? Heck no, but guess what? I will still have one! Opinions are just that, not fact. No matter what, people will take what they want from them and throw the rest out whether you know what you are talking about or not so we have to learn to not take it personally. I'm still working on that! ; )

Maybe experienced, but the brain is not even finished growing at that point. Counteless research shows shows the portion of the brain that regulates decision making, impulse control, and logic isn't fully formed until 25. Yes, fully incredibly intelligent. But not all thought processes are completely mature yet. The world is still black and white based on limited perspective and theories are untried. Something you feel strongly in your tweinties may turn out to be folly by the time you reach your thirties and look back on it. Hopefully at least, we all grow and continue to learn and mature and figure stuff out along the way. So, in this example, no, I would not let my 21 yr old run the world! School would start at 10 and be over by 2 and drinking age would be 18.

Because there are so many walks of life there is no one size fits all. There are some pretty pampered 21 year olds who don't get it....My lil' sis is among them. Spoiled and pampered and so dumb when it comes to financial responsibility. She is 25 and is in so much debt (her doing) that if I were in her shoes I'd wanna jump off a bridge. Totally overwhelming but she made those choices.

Then there are those who because of circumstances beyond their control or life threw them a curve ball had to grow up fast and take responsibility an be an adult. I applaud all you Mamas.. We all have the freedom of choice its a matter of making the right and best choices at any given moment in time. Of course I do see a correlation of age and growing wisdom but let's face it a lot of 21 year olds are far maturer than their older counterparts.

I find that at every age I think I've finally gotten to the point of having some wisdom. I'm now 52 and have realized that it's never going to happen - I'm never really going to get to that place where I've arrived.

But this is what I do know - some people, usually those who have had to work for everything they have, have attained a certain level of wisdom and life experience by the time they reach age 21. For some people it's more wisdom age 21 than others attain in a lifetime. But, many 21 yr olds, however, are still pretty green and while thet think they have it all figured out they really don't. I think a lot of it has to do with how they treat others - particularly those who don't agree with you - like mother-in-laws. (No I'm not a MIL.)

I finally understand the expression that "youth is wasted on the young" - meaning I wish that I had the energy, physical condition and beauty of my youth now that I've earned some level of wisdom gained by experience. But alas I guess it's God's way of compensating us - when we are young & brash and less wise we have the advantage of speed, agility, energy & beauty of youth. When we get older and begin to lose those attirbutes but we gain the advantage of wisdom (hopefully).

All I know if that I have come to a place in my life where I am less certain of most things about which I was firmly convinced in my younger years. It seems that I know less now than I thought I did at 25. ;o) I knew more at age 18 than I'll ever know again (said with tongue firmly in cheek). ;o)

Bottom line is that some people never gain wisdom and they don't learn from life experiences - it doesn't matter how old they get - they'll always be a fool. Others are wise beyond their years becuase they do learn from experience. There's nothing worse than an old fool - but we are willing to overlook a young fool most of the time.

I agree with you that SOME kids know struggle by then. I certainly did. I had been homeless, walked 7 miles in high heels to get a job, took busses with babies, was abused by my husband, started working 7 days per week, 24 hours per day at the age of just 20, had 2 children by the time I was 20, never had anything given to me... yadda, yadda.

My daughters have not struggled unless they wanted to. They each moved out early. They have known their share of struggle. One came back home pregnant and she has pretty much had everything given to her EASY in the last couple of years. BUT, I will say she appreciates it and works hard with it. College paid for-- Works hard, good grades.... Doesn't pay rent-- Works hard to take care of her own personal expenses and her son's expenses...mostly... Has she struggled much? By who's standards? As her mom, I don't want her to struggle too much.!

I was also one of the people targeting age as a factor in her response to the issue at hand.

I read through your So What Happened comments and you make the point I will repeat here. Many people at 21 and beyond only look at life through their own experiences. Some people as they grow and mature choose to look at life through many different factors not just limited to their own experiences.

I teach my children an adult is someone who takes responsibility for their actions or inactions.

At any age, any one can have an option or an idea but when you make sweeping statements like the one given be prepared for the fall out. I'm still considered young if I'm having a conversation with the 60-80 and beyond set.

Heck in my own family I in my late 30's is when I finally got invited to the adult table for conversation. We still have plenty of the family in my mom and dad's age range and they still consider all of the children, children. I hope this clears some things up.

There is no magic number. Life experiences happen at different times for different people. The fact of the matter is that none of the people bashing the writers "age and inexperience" know anything about that persons life experiences. They simply used their age as an attempt to discredit their opinions because they didn't agree with them.

By the time I was 21 I had been married for a year and been living with my husband for 3 years. We both worked, payed taxes and got no help financially from either or our parents.

I see plenty of people my age (I'm 31) that make some really stupid decisions. Oh and I've been married for 11 years.

I didn't slam her age on that post. I actually commended her for being so young and having constructive thoughts, whether they were wrong or right.

I think it was a good example that while we all like to think we are progressive up-to-date contemporary moms w/our hands and hearts on the pulse of modern day society and culture, some of us really are small minded and back wards enough to be quick to judge, as in all those age-insulting posts from Pam's question.

I don't think there's "an age".

By 21 I had

- Served in the USMC (signed on and left at 17)
- Worked private/paramilitary
- Been working for more than 10 years
- Been raped and pregnant
- Been tortured
- Been homeless and broke
- Been VERY well off ($250k+ a year well off, and yes "my" money, NOT my parents.)
- Watched people die (both combat related and illness/injury related, adult and children)
- Watched loved ones die
- Watched people starve
- Lived on 3 continents, and had traveled to upwards of 20 countries
- Loved and lost
- Read over 5,000 books (maybe double that)

All by 21... and quite a bit more, as most people's lives contain far more in the details than in the highlights and lowlights.

And yet... having my son at 23 taught me that 30 is a GREAT age. Very little happened in my life between 23 & 30. Normal and relaxing. Like my profile says "On hold MANY things."

The only real difference those 7 years have made is the respect of strangers.

____________

Added... <laughing> YES, I think we -many of us at least, and myself certainly- are VERY biased according to our own personal experiences. My gut response was being surprised the OPed writer wasn't 16. So WHEN was it I was an adult out on my own in the real world? Yep. 17. I'm sure others who were first really on their own equate THAT as "the" age. I know for sure that even at 32, I'm still called "the baby" by most of the adults in my parenting circle. I don't make a point of bringing up my past (see above). Instead... what they see is a woman 10-15 years YOUNGER than they are, and in college. I've made a point for 9 years not to bring up my age. It makes people's brains go from 5th to 2nd gear and fall out of their heads in most cases. Because it's very very hard for MOST of us to really see someone else's life without it reflecting our own. My life doesn't "mesh up" with most people's lives. S'alright with me. I think people are fascinating... but it throws new people for a loop when they find out certain things about me, just because it's so different from their own lives. (Which is why I don't bring most of it up IRL). I suspect many people are this way. It's not that we're ashamed of our lives, it's that it's a conversational nuke. Nope. No nukes today.

At 21, I was living a real adult's life. In my family, turning 18 meant that you were expected to support yourself. I worked fulltime since a couple of weeks before turning 18. At 21, I had my own apartment in a crappy neighborhood in NYC, worked fulltime in an insurance office in a low paying position and was putting myself through college at night. I had nothing that I didn't pay for myself. If I couldn't afford it, I didn't have it. I didn't know to apply for any financial aid for school, I often walked almost 2 city miles from work to campus to save on the subway fare, washed clothes by hand to save on the laundromat and didn't get medical checkups (in the days pre-HMO, when you had to pay a deductible and then pay for your visit and get 80% back. Not everyone at 21 leads a carefree, college student's life at their parents' expense. Some stuggle, some lead grownup lives, and at 23, I owned a house and paid a mortgage.

Hi, Mom:
It's interesting about the dialogue going on here.
What difference does it make?
Some young people have good intuition to made appropriate
decisions for themselves. Some older folks have finally learned
to make appropriate decisions for themselves. Living life is hard.
It takes a village to raise a child.
Taking care of society is linked with solving
social problems.
We learn that everyone has their own ideas. Do we practice
civility in our lives so we don't have to make someone feel small because
we don't understand their ideas.
I just wanted to add my 2 cents worth.
It is an interesting dialogue.
D.

THe reason I said that the person was young is because her letter was obviously young. Such simple black and white solutions almost never exist. The writer lacked empathy and understanding. Sometimes those things come with age. Plus...YOU may be in the minority here. Yes, some people have children when they are young...but I would venture to guess that the majority does not. And like I said in the other thread...until you experience LIFE it's hard to take you seriously (you...universal you).
Thank your brother for serving his country. It kills me that we send boys over there to fight a man's war. His life had barely started and he has sacrificed so much.
L.

Depends on the person. Sadly, many 21 year olds have NO idea what the real world is. I was married at 20, and had 2 children by 23, was well able to support them, even at a "low" level. I now have a 20 year old, and he well knows that it is HIS responsibility to do for himself, because I cannot do so ( he has several younger siblings that DO need help!). I don't think there is anything wrong with that picture. We would be better off IMO if people in their 20's stepped up a bit.