Society worships youth – but we must let young people grow up

By the time she was 25, the Virgin Queen had suffered years of house arrest, survived several attempts on her life, and was reigning as England’s monarch. By the time he died at 25, John Keats had already composed some of the most lyrical poems in the English language. As for William Pitt the Younger, he was a mere 21 when he became PM.

So when the otherwise admirable Howard League for Penal Reform argues that anyone under 25 convicted of a crime should be given a more lenient sentence because they are “still maturing”, it is difficult not to think – what about our inspiring legacy of young heroes? If, in their 20s, Elizabeth could rule a country and Keats pen masterpieces, surely today’s 20-something should be able to stand in Court as a grown-up? There were 144,000 crimes committed last year by 18 to 24-yearolds. That’s a lot of “innocent” burglars, violent bullies and worse.

Ok, so the Howard League has a point about the young adult brain, on which it is basing its argument. Neuroscience proves that it keeps on developing until the age of 25-26 – not 20 or 21, as had previously been thought.

But the infantilisation of young people is about more than science or the law. It is about culture.

Our society worships youth for its vigour and health and potential. They are the Instagram followers that advertisers chase. Theirs are the faces that TV executives promote. And theirs are the voices that pollsters seek.

Yet while they have pride of place in certain quarters, young people are routinely ignored at the decisionmakers’ table, whether that be at Westminster or in the courts of justice. The sliding scale of acceptance is even more confusing when you think that at 16 you can get married but not vote, and at 18 you can fight in a war but, these days, still be living at home. This must be deeply frustrating for millennials reared on Harry Potter and the Hunger Games’ Katniss – young heroes thrust into adult situations in which they have to grow up fast.

In real life, structural obstacles prevent the young from being actors in their own lives: unemployment overall has decreased but for young people, it remains over 10 per cent. Universities were once free; they now land a young person with a £30,000-plus debt. Mobility is harder too, because of the prohibitive cost of car insurance for young drivers (and the price of a ticket on Britain’s unreliable trains).

But propping up these structures are the parents. Tiger mummies who push their children to overachieve; helicopter parents who hover over protectively; and – new to the list – “lawnmower parents” who mow down all the obstacles and challenges that lie before their child. For too many parents, a child is not an independent individual but a reflection of mum and dad. Any failures are their fault. In a culture where parenting has become a 24/7 competition, this is hard to stomach.

The problem is that, as any pedagogue will tell you, failure is the only way to teach a person how to succeed. So yes, the developing brain is one issue. Economic constraints are another. But if we really want our children to fully enter a state of adulthood, we must allow them to actually grow up. Youth may be in the eye of the beholder, and 50 the new 40. But that doesn’t mean we can ditch the idea of being an adult entirely. Let’s be grown up about it.

FOLLOW Christina Odone on Twitter @Cristinaohq ; READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion