[crush-n-spread]

I see what you're saying about how they're being responsible by holding off on sex, cars, and drinking, but there is an opportunity cost in holding off on those three things - They miss out on the enormous compounding effects of having their own relationships, vehicles, and high-impact social gatherings happen 2-3 years earlier.

Maybe an anecdote will be useful. I started dating, drinking, and driving at 15-16 y.o. All three of those activities have been formative in building my career as a tech worker. I had a choice to move to a big tech hub, and having a potential partner living in the target city was a key factor in moving. To even consider moving to the city, I needed to already be comfortable with packing up my life in my car and physically driving, which I had already been doing for years. Moving to the city was insanely stressful for 10 consecutive months, and I found that having an excessive amount of beer with a good friend was pivotal in helping me navigate my stressful, heavy emotions.

In conclusion, you cannot grow up slowly and expect to do big things. You need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. There's no sense in keeping your kids away from real learning because you have some notion in your head about "responsible ages to do things". There is no goodness in slapping age requirements on activities and then stopping to think about it.

And one more thing, WW2 produced the greatest generation of all time, the baby boomers - That war gave our nation a widespread sense of purpose and unity that has not been seen since. So while war is bad you must also consider that the stress of war creates great men that make great leaders.

[jimmaswell]

The baby boomers are the ones who were born after WW2. "Hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men make hard times" is something I recently heard in regard to the ww2 and boomer generations, the implication being the boomers were the "weak men."