The Death Of The Grown Up?

We often hear about teenagers who refuse to act like adults. But what about adults who refuse to act like adults? The call goes out--to "grow up" and set a good example--in this edition of Get Ready to Lead!

Will the "death of the grown-up" lead to the death of Western Civilization?

Diana West hits hard for a girl. And she does it all with a word processor. Her recent book The Death of the Grown-up challenges one of the fundamental assumptions of the modern age, namely, that it is a good thing to seek youth and embrace immaturity.

Taking note of people who are concerned with the passing of the baton from one generation to the next, she says:

Even as age has been eliminated from the aging process, they have a hunch that society has stamped out more than gray hair, smile lines, and cellulite. What has also disappeared is an appreciation for what goes along with maturity: forbearance and honor, patience and responsibility, perspective and wisdom, sobriety, decorum, and manners--and the wisdom to know what is "appropriate," and when.

So what is the solution? It's simple, according to West: learn to say "no." In the Epilogue she calls to mind the first issue of National Review, from 1955, in which William F. Buckley wrote,

If National Review is superfluous, it is so for very different reasons: It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.

Maybe I'm becoming a dinosaur, but in recent weeks I've found lots of practical ways to apply this advice: saying "no" to a speaking engagement that would take me away from my family for too long, asking a restaurant server to turn down the music that was unnecessarily loud and impeding conversation, and turning around to two non-adult men in an airplane and asking them to refrain from using vulgar language.

In each case, I was grateful to have my entreaties accepted gracefully. It wasn't nearly has hard as I thought it would be to say "no," and I'm getting used to it. In fact, I'm starting to like it!


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