Is it bad that teens are developing slower?

Well, that depends. Is it bad that teens are arguing less with their parents, are waiting to have sex, consuming less alcohol and drugs? After all that leads to fewer teens running away, less teen pregnancy, and a decrease in drunk driving. But at what cost? Teens are feeling more scared of the world and don’t progress, we now have 14-year-olds trapped in an 18-year-old body.

It’s easy to assume that every change in the landscape must be either good or bad. But that is never the case. The full picture is a bit of both. We are too quick to identify trends as something we want more of or less because more than anything we fear change. Seeing it come like a wave, is indeed excruciating, even when we lie to ourselves about the type of wave we think it is out there on the horizon.