Long road to adulthood

According to Eric Dechavannes and Pierre-Henri Tavoiot, two scenarios predominate in how we think about our relationship with time today.

The first, optimistic, speaks of the “disappearance of age”, that the most important thing is for everyone to remain themselves, no matter how many years have run up on their “counter”. The second, more pessimistic approach claims a “generational war” in which the old and the young are called upon to fight against each other, much as they do in a caste society.

But philosophers believe that the truth lies beyond these two scenarios and lies in rethinking the very idea of ​​adulthood, starting to see maturity not as an end state, but as a process.

In the face of this confusion of opinions and concepts, philosophers offer every person – as well as political institutions – to look at the problem of different periods of life differently. To redefine childhood, not to succumb to the dictates of “eternal youth”, to embrace maturity and, finally, to continue to live with interest in old age – these are the spaces of freedom that they invite us to explore. Naturally, everything is in order.

Redefine childhood

Psychologies: Why is it necessary to reconsider ideas about the first epoch in life?

Pierre-Henri Tavoyo: Let’s consider such a common phenomenon: parents want their child to develop ahead of schedule, as they say, “beyond his years”, but they hardly put up with the fact that he grows up and moves away. We seem to want the development of the child to be as early as possible, and maturation as late as possible.

Modern education constantly fluctuates between two poles: on the one hand, the child is looked upon as a special being in a special world—the world of innocence, imagination, play. On the other hand, from the very beginning he is perceived as an adult with a critical mind and complete independence. In both cases, he, in fact, has no need to grow: he is either an eternal child or already an adult.

How do you define childhood?

Eric Deschavann: We started from this question: “What can be considered the opposite of a child?” And they came to the conclusion that the antipode of a child is not an adult and not young, but someone who does not want to grow up, for example, Peter Pan. And the child wants to grow up more than anything in the world. It is not the child himself that needs to be protected, but his desire to grow.

Meanwhile, all modern legislation prevents him from gaining responsibility. This is the whole problem of a child who was very much wanted … But are the parents of the “desired baby” sure that they also passionately wanted a teenager or an adult? Therefore, the question of how and why to grow up again sharply arises in adolescence.

Disagree with the dictates of “eternal youth”

You describe the cult of youth that has gripped society. Where does this craze come from?

P.-A. T.: Youth for the modern world is an age-symbol erected on a pedestal. This is the age of freedom, open opportunities, when a person has not yet become ossified in any one role, when it seems that all the doors are open. This is how today’s humanism describes a person: he is capable of self-improvement, he is not limited to any one state.

For us, freedom is the ability to act consciously within the limits of our finite existence, and therefore youth today is an embodied ideal. The main thing for the majority of contemporaries is the idea that it is the young people who will change and how they will transform the world.

Probably because youth is perceived as something pure, unspoiled …

E.D.: Yes. And in comparison with the ideal freedom of youth, the entry into adulthood can be experienced as a deprivation of it, a disappointment. An adult causes antipathy: after all, he parted with freedom, closing himself in his professional and family role. Through an adult, an image of inert existence is maintained in captivity of social norms that prevent a person from being himself. All these are unpleasant consequences of the cult of youth.

In addition, it is already obvious to young people that becoming an adult is not so easy. Their adolescence lasts forever, and the point here is not so much in their desire to remain young forever, but in the fact that it is difficult to match the image of an adult, it requires considerable effort.

Adult life today begins later and is accompanied by greater uncertainty (due to the instability of the family, threatening unemployment …), but our desire for self-realization and ambitions go off scale. And all these contradictions cause us constant anxiety.

Today, everyone, regardless of age, can feel that he is still far from maturity: “I lack culture, character, I still have so much to do,” etc. The crisis is not that no one wants to grow up from now on, but that it is difficult to become an adult.

Accept your maturity

Family, work, financial independence – doesn’t that already mean being an adult?

P.-A. T.: The novelty today is that you can enter adulthood without becoming an adult. Previously, the father of the family, a soldier, a citizen, was considered an adult. These meanings have disappeared, erased. We now see maturity not as an accomplishment, but as a constant development. This is the horizon. And the nature of the horizon is such that it is impossible to reach it…

You mention Zinedine Zidane, who at the age of 35 reached the ideal of maturity that he set for himself as a teenager…

P.-A. T.: When Zidane retired from the sport, another great footballer, Michel Platini, said: “He will have to notice that when you stop playing, you begin to grow up.” It turns out that athletes are not grown up teenagers who immediately become young pensioners. They skip adulthood. Maybe that’s why they are admired.

Freud said that a person becomes an adult when he learns to love and work, and I would add: when he learns to do both at the same time. This is difficult, because the adult is most often “the one who does not have time.”

But our era does not abandon the ideal of maturity. It’s just that his criteria have become very individual. Ask your friends: when did they become adults? Everyone will have their own milestone: the first child, the first salary … There are no more generally accepted rituals, but there is a stage that becomes part of personal destiny.

And yet there is an ideal of maturity?

E.D.: Firstly, it is an experience that helps to cope with what you have not encountered before. Secondly, responsibility, when you are responsible not only for your actions, but also for others to whom you give without expecting anything in return. This is a form of parenthood, even if you don’t have children… And, finally, identity to yourself.

We need a synthesis of these three dimensions: experience as a relationship to the world, responsibility as a relationship to others, and authenticity as a relationship to oneself. The goal of man is a kind of higher harmony, reconciliation with himself, with others and with the world. This very difficult task, the solution of which was once the lot of the wise, now becomes our common lot.

Living truly in old age

You say there is a moment in life when there is a kind of stability. Is this the beginning of old age?

P.-A. T.: The beginning of old age is not the end of “maturation”, it is a time when maturity becomes deeper and wider. You can often hear that in our world, with its cult of “efficiency”, getting old has become pointless. This is not true. Look at the famous athletes admired by the whole world: football player Zinedine Zidane, boxer Mohammed Ali… They are pensioners!

People who live “the rest of their lives” and no longer compete with anyone … This status is very important in our consumer society, this is a condition for maintaining social ties and confidence. In our opinion, one of the successful models of this age is the model of traditional societies, where, aging, a person becomes great as he approaches the understanding of the meaning of the past.

Psychoanalyst Jean-Bertrand Pontalis argues that mental health is the ability to internally return to yourself as a child, yourself as a teenager, yourself as an adult.

E.D.: This is close to Victor Hugo’s position: “One of the privileges of old age is to have everyone else in addition to your age.” Retirement age paradoxically becomes the age of opportunity: you can travel, return to college, live another life. But it also has a limit. Then comes the “second” old age, with its arrival everything slows down, the horizon narrows.

Deprived of autonomy and the opportunity to develop, a person risks losing himself. For others, this is another reason not to stop seeing him as a person. We all hope to die “on the run”, but our duty is to be prepared for the impossibility of an independent life, both for ourselves and for our loved ones.

Old age is not a disease, and you should not think that it has enough care and treatment. An old person needs to be accompanied – this is a complex, important task of society. Today, age is not a social role, but often an existential crisis. And every such crisis a person needs to be helped to comprehend and survive in a new way.