Delaying Adulthood

A hundred years ago children were finished with school by the 8th grade. At 14 formal education ended and children went on to help the family on a farm or other family business. Sons moved on to start a trade. If you were a daughter you most likely would be getting married and were fully equipped to run a household, bear and raise children who would successfully grow up to do the same.
One could argue that in today's world it is not possible to know everything you need to know by the 8th grade. That our lives are much to complicated and the technology of our time requires a longer school career. The world is a big place but I am not so sure that this overindulgence in education is making for more successful adults, in fact I would say that just the opposite has occurred. I have seen the 8th grade graduation test for 1863 and I could not pass it. On top of that they had to know life skills that we will never need to know. I believe that compensates for all the things we must know but they did not. They had skills that the children of today will never have to learn. Society a hundred years ago was civil, organized and stable. Today we have 20 year olds who are still in school, have accumulated a life time of debt and seem to be unable to function on their own as adults. There seems to be no shortage of children who are not motivated to live on their own and who seem unable to successfully manage their own lives. The latest trend is children moving home after having been on their own for years. I recently read an article that stated that men were not emotionally mature enough to marry until they were in their mid thirties. It believed woman to be to immature for marriage until the age 26. A full ten to fifteen years older than the average marriage rate of a hundred years ago. Even 20 years ago the average marriage age of a woman was 19. The difference in years is spent in self indulgent behavior that does not benefit society and certainly does not benefit the person who is indulging.
I believe that this delayed adulthood and lack of taught personal and society responsibility has numerous costs for our society. By delaying marriage woman attend college longer and pursue careers outside of their homes. There is nothing wrong with this except that they accumulate debt from college and are later unable to quit work to raise their own children becoming dependent on day care and unable to transfer their values on to their children or sustain their marriages because of their conflicting priorities. This has been largely responsible for the destabilize of our society. The men of our country no longer feel obligated to be responsible for their families. They do not have generational understanding of their roles and suffer from confusion with what they are supposed to be and do. Where once were a patriarchal society we are now a matriarchal society.

The baby boomers are retiring and planning on riding off into the sunset in their Rvs leaving the rest of us unprepared to deal with the deficit of workers and huge debts left behind to pay for their medical care and social security. Unfortunately the torch was never passed and society is not prepared to pick it up. The next generation is to busy being educated to practically care for the mess about to decent on them.