</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
"It is human to have a long childhood; it is civilized to have an even longer childhood. Long childhood makes a technical and mental virtuoso out of man, but it also leaves a life-long residue of emotional immaturity in him."

— Erik Homburger Erikson (1902-1994)


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I think it takes longer and longer as society progresses for most people to figure out who they are and to assume adult roles. It makes sense since we have so many more options to explore than there ever were before. In recent history there weren't teenagers because when you started to look like an adult you went to work just like your parents did. We have more time now, and childhood is longer. And they are saying that the brain doesn't actually mature until around the mid-twenties. I wonder if brains used to mature earlier in the times when people had to assume adult roles at 13 or 14.