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Rikard's avatar

Uhm. . . you can't cure stupid. You can (let life) whack the spoiled out of the brat though. And you can let people disqualify themselves from life through their own actions, harsh as it may sound.

"We have three basic institutions that teach adulthood..."

I'd add a fourth: marry and become a father. That did it for me. Started working when I left school at 16, married at 20 and became a father the same year. Worked a gamut of menial jobs until I managed to qualify for university, so I didn't come into academia proper until I was about 30.

And you know, I think having to work a year or three being a doorman or working at a sanitation company cleaning up apartments and houses were people had been lying dead for days or weeks or combining night school and delivering morning papers and mopping floors (or military, if it's real military and not a rainbow parade) - I think having done something real before going into academia is essential for most of us.

Adult we may be, but maturity needs experience to blossom.

I remember thinking when I held my son for the first time, "I may not amount to much, but I'll do right by you!". To me, that moment in the delivery room is when I graduated as an adult.

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fiendish_librarian's avatar

She'll have a long and productive career as a useless academic "expert", and end up as that crazy woman down the hall who claims you pee too loudly.

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