PROLONGED YOUTH
Student
Over the past twenty years a phenomenon called "youth" has supplanted the period once known as adolescence. The latter was an interlude within one's teens, in which those called adolescents awaited adulthood. It was often a painful span of years, with anxieties over acne and "being popular." It typically had some minor rebellions, largely involving being home by midnight. Indeed, adolescents usually couldn't wait to become adults. "Youth" is a much longer period, starting earlier and extending well into the twenties. And it is skeptical, even cynical, about the lives adults lead. In fact, youth may best be seen as a separate country, in which young people take out citizenship. That nation has a culture of its own which now reaches every hamlet.
