In my teaching and writing for the diocese, I very often warn parents against the isolated “teen culture.” The modern school system encourages adolescents to learn socialization from each other. I often declare, “I don’t know who thought that letting ignorant, unformed adolescents socialize each other was a good idea.” Yet, critics of homeschooling most often state “lack of socialization” as their reason for opposing homeschooling. Children who do not go to school will not be socialized, they fear. The fact is that socialization can only truly happen when adolescents learn what it means to become adults and to live in adult community from adults. That is not happening.

Chuck Colson, a popular teacher on the importance of forming a Christian worldview and intellectual life, has often warned about the same phenomenon. “A World of Their Own,” a BreakPoint commentary, offered an excellent explanation of the isolated teen culture, which happens to precisely coincide with my own observations as a highschool teacher. After explaining one of the many school shooting tragedies that have happened in our country, Mr. Colson says,

If you’re wondering “Where were the adults?” it’s clear you don’t know how most American teenagers are growing up today. American teenagers operate in what has been called a “parallel culture” that operates free of adult interference.

As Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, wrote in the New York Times, American high schools are the site of something unique in American society: “a gang in which individuals of the same age group define each other’s world.” This definition includes the imposition of standards that have no relationship to what’s needed for success in the real world.

Ironically, the claim by proponents of those who support “traditional” schooling is that children need to go to school in order to learn how to deal with social conflict and with the complexities of the social world. They fear that homeschooled children will grow up sheltered from the real world, and will therefore be unprepared for adulthood. What they fail to see is that the school culture is not a reflection of the real adult world. It is a unique culture that is often reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, devoid of adult rules and guidance. This culture produces such head-scratching cultural anomalies as “sexting” (sending nude photographs of yourself by cell phone), as well as increased risky behaviors involving alcohol, drugs ans sex. And the worst part of this teen culture is that adults are afraid of it. Or, at least adults think that they have no right to interfere in it. As Chuck Colson says,

So we’ve got American kids operating from an artificial set of rules unrelated to real life; they’re going to schools where adults don’t question those rules, watching media that validates those rules, and being wooed by advertisers who tell them how insightful they really are. Worst of all, their parents are complicit in the creation of the parallel culture.

Whether it’s because of a lack of time, or a desire not to “repress” their children, American parents have adopted a hands-off approach to parenting. Instead of direct supervision they get what’s called “guilt money” — money given in lieu of real parental involvement. The lack of supervision and the money reinforce the parallel culture. It’s created a creature I call the “autonomous teenager.”

The immediate result of the teen culture is alienated young adults who see themselves as alien to the adult world, who are incapable of relating to their parents, and who don’t have the first clue how to interact with the civilized world. Most young adults don’t even greet you when you enter their place of employment, and sometimes don’t even serve you with any sense of politeness or interest.

The long-term results of the teen culture are going to be even more serious. We already see people from my generation, currently in their thirties, who have never grown up. This trend is going to get even worse if it doesn’t turn around. We are losing sight of the purpose of culture and society, creating societies that alienate and isolate us rather than bringing us together in true social interaction. Raising a generation unable to socially interact within an adult world, incapable of true conversation (vs. the empty, shallow communication they are almost constantly engaged in), disinterested in intellectual discourse, independent rather than interdependent and ignorant of politeness and civility, is only going to damage it more.

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