(no subject)
I've had a couple of new comments lately on Black Ships, so if you're just finding my work, welcome! Please feel free to ask questions or comment.
One reader said, "I was struck by how young all the main characters are. And yet they seem like adults!"
Modern society has a very different idea of where adulthood begins than most other peoples and times. At seventeen Gull is an adult through most of human history. It's only our society that would say she's a child or unable to be fully responsible. And that's our expectation -- we give far less responsibility and trust to young people than most societies have -- far less than most young people are capable of. For example, we would never expect a twelve or thirteen year old to be an apprentice, running a shop or making things that people use or seriously learning a craft. And yet in most of human history twelve and thirteen year olds have been doing these things. It's not that they're intrinsically incapable -- but that modern society has not prepared them for it.
Neas, at twenty four, is a leader of his people and again in most societies a man twenty four is a husband and a father. We say he's barely out of college and too young to have "found himself." Xandros at twenty is a captain and already widowed. We'd say he was too young to drink. Gull, having her son at eighteen, is perfectly normal for her society rather than a "teen mother."
I think one of the big disconnects in our society is the frustration that comes from infantalizing young adults instead of expecting them to step up to maturity. They have the exact same potential as young adults have had throughout human history, and yet they're relegated to the nursery. They're not supposed to be working, making, and doing. They're not supposed to have relationships, form families, have children. And so I think there's this enormous frustration that comes out in unhelpful ways because they aren't actually allowed to do the things that they would normally do in most human cultures and times. I think that's often the root of destructive behavior -- the inability to do anything actually meaningful. In fact, the very term "young adult" is a problem. How about just "adult?" How about not putting an eighteen year old in a sandbox? How about having the expectation that an eighteen year old is perfectly capable of adult interaction and responsibility? We know that most are, as most eighteen year olds have been throughout human history. I hope that Black Ships illustrates that.
One reader said, "I was struck by how young all the main characters are. And yet they seem like adults!"
Modern society has a very different idea of where adulthood begins than most other peoples and times. At seventeen Gull is an adult through most of human history. It's only our society that would say she's a child or unable to be fully responsible. And that's our expectation -- we give far less responsibility and trust to young people than most societies have -- far less than most young people are capable of. For example, we would never expect a twelve or thirteen year old to be an apprentice, running a shop or making things that people use or seriously learning a craft. And yet in most of human history twelve and thirteen year olds have been doing these things. It's not that they're intrinsically incapable -- but that modern society has not prepared them for it.
Neas, at twenty four, is a leader of his people and again in most societies a man twenty four is a husband and a father. We say he's barely out of college and too young to have "found himself." Xandros at twenty is a captain and already widowed. We'd say he was too young to drink. Gull, having her son at eighteen, is perfectly normal for her society rather than a "teen mother."
I think one of the big disconnects in our society is the frustration that comes from infantalizing young adults instead of expecting them to step up to maturity. They have the exact same potential as young adults have had throughout human history, and yet they're relegated to the nursery. They're not supposed to be working, making, and doing. They're not supposed to have relationships, form families, have children. And so I think there's this enormous frustration that comes out in unhelpful ways because they aren't actually allowed to do the things that they would normally do in most human cultures and times. I think that's often the root of destructive behavior -- the inability to do anything actually meaningful. In fact, the very term "young adult" is a problem. How about just "adult?" How about not putting an eighteen year old in a sandbox? How about having the expectation that an eighteen year old is perfectly capable of adult interaction and responsibility? We know that most are, as most eighteen year olds have been throughout human history. I hope that Black Ships illustrates that.