I think I was extremely fortunate to have not quite been in the 'norm' for intergrade and age-differential relationships. In that, I grew up with a good friend across the road who was a year above me, and that was never a Thing. Or we hung out with the years below us, and that was also never a Thing (right up until we graduated highschool).
Additionally, I made friends with adults quite easily, though I can't recall why exactly. But I remember, for example, going out for a highschool graduation dinner with the librarian (like a year later), and we hung out and chatted. She was 70, and I was 17.
When I was about 15, I paid to use the library's internet to use the internet (we didn't have it at home or at school). I discovered usenet and then php pagan forums. The bulk of the people there, back then, were in their 40s and 50s, and even people in their 20s were considered young. At first I never mentioned my age and no one asked me, but eventually everyone found out I was a minor. I could be looking back with rose coloured glasses, but no one ever condescended to me or talked down to me, and some of them commented positively on the enthusiasm of 'seekers' (what we call newbie pagans), and how contagious that can be, and how it's good to have young people around for that reason.
As a result, I became aware pretty early - not as young as 6, but perhaps younger than some - that age is...often quite irrelevant. I met people in their 20s more compassionate, even-tempered and thoughtful than people in their 70s and I'm pretty sure it blew my mind the first time. It was a very clear: 'everyone's the same, just with different lived experiences.' (Which I know most of us know objectively, but I got to internalise it at that point - sometimes in really unpleasant ways. Like, I have seen 60 yo pagans flounce off forums after a tantrum of screed better suited to someone not emotionally developed, only to be moderated by an 18 yo, lol).
As I grew up, I encountered more and more ageist gatekeeping on both sides. A friend saying they'd never want to see a doctor younger than them. An older person saying they couldn't work for a 'younger manager.' A young service worker saying the manager couldn't manage because they were 'past it' age wise. Casual ageism is everywhere. Though it's never been quite as noticeable to me since like, Tumblr's teen push to have adults declare their ages, or adults saying that they won't allow *anyone* under the age of 18 to follow their blog in their tiny 'about me' sections.
These days, I generally try and catch myself when I start to disparage something the 'youths' are doing. Lol. A lot of the time it's not just the 'youths' anyway (purity culture / wank is not a 'young tumblr' thing, I honestly think it's an 'all ages' thing - but that the bias falls towards younger people possibly because they *generally* have more energy and vigour to press it forwards. But some of the nastiest grossest voices in the purity wank culture shit are those of older people who never let go of their hatred that they've nursed in fandom sometimes for decades).
I remember the first time I saw like, people come up with autochorissexual as a type of asexuality and I was really mentally disparaging about it. Like 'okay that's gone too far, typical of teens trying to categorise everything they don't understand, like pathologies, this is like ridiculous.' Maybe it *is*, I don't know, but I'm wary of that part of my brain that becomes more rigid and inflexible as I get older, just for the sake of being rigid and inflexible. It is sometimes really easy to be like 'back up, this is fine, you're just not used to it yet' and sometimes really *hard* to do that, and it can be super challenging. (Tbh that's not an age thing, that's an everything thing for me).
I really enjoy in the spiritual group I'm in, that there's two teens (one 15, and one 18, I think). Sure, you have moments of like 'Oh I recognise that thinking pattern from when I was a teen you'll probably grow out of that' (which there's no point in saying because you have to grow out of it, lol), just like they probably have moments of 'oh, they don't understand this aspect of my lived experience because they're an Old and don't Get It / weren't here for that.' (Which is also often true lol). But overall, I'm just mostly humbled by how much they have to share and teach. Like all the other members of the group, really.
I do think the point with adults talking in a way that's not alienating/confusing being a sign of say...someone just doing something to appeal to you is not always necessarily true. I grew up with a brother who is only just now 21, and consequently, I grew up with lingo shifts that means I can discourse like I'm one of his mates and we're used to that. To me, that's not like...a way of talking I do for him, that's a way of talking. There are a lot of reasons to explain why and how adults can discourse with teens at their level, from 'it's my job and I'm a YA writer' (with varying degrees of accuracy), to 'I'm a babysitter' to 'I'm on Tumblr and this is just the way I like to talk because linguistic shifts are fun and don't come from posts where people denote their age so it's hard to know if this is coming from 'cool 18 yo tumblr' or 'cool 30 yo tumblr' and no one really knows.'
I mean if I meet a 70 yo in a space (irl or online) dropping all the acronyms and memey goodness and all the other stuff I'm less likely to think 'you're kind of creepy' and more likely to think 'you have a Tumblr.' So while I think teens need to be warned away from predatory behaviour, I also think that adults speaking to teens 'on their level' (Tumblr makes this a grey area, contemporary lingo doesn't just belong to teenagers, especially in places like Tumblr) may actually be - for some - the very sign of flexibility and non-rigidity you're advocating for here in the first place. Just, a much more successful and natural attempt at it, where it's not a mask put on just to put a teenager at ease, but a natural shift in lingo because the environment has changed.
no subject
Additionally, I made friends with adults quite easily, though I can't recall why exactly. But I remember, for example, going out for a highschool graduation dinner with the librarian (like a year later), and we hung out and chatted. She was 70, and I was 17.
When I was about 15, I paid to use the library's internet to use the internet (we didn't have it at home or at school). I discovered usenet and then php pagan forums. The bulk of the people there, back then, were in their 40s and 50s, and even people in their 20s were considered young. At first I never mentioned my age and no one asked me, but eventually everyone found out I was a minor. I could be looking back with rose coloured glasses, but no one ever condescended to me or talked down to me, and some of them commented positively on the enthusiasm of 'seekers' (what we call newbie pagans), and how contagious that can be, and how it's good to have young people around for that reason.
As a result, I became aware pretty early - not as young as 6, but perhaps younger than some - that age is...often quite irrelevant. I met people in their 20s more compassionate, even-tempered and thoughtful than people in their 70s and I'm pretty sure it blew my mind the first time. It was a very clear: 'everyone's the same, just with different lived experiences.' (Which I know most of us know objectively, but I got to internalise it at that point - sometimes in really unpleasant ways. Like, I have seen 60 yo pagans flounce off forums after a tantrum of screed better suited to someone not emotionally developed, only to be moderated by an 18 yo, lol).
As I grew up, I encountered more and more ageist gatekeeping on both sides. A friend saying they'd never want to see a doctor younger than them. An older person saying they couldn't work for a 'younger manager.' A young service worker saying the manager couldn't manage because they were 'past it' age wise. Casual ageism is everywhere. Though it's never been quite as noticeable to me since like, Tumblr's teen push to have adults declare their ages, or adults saying that they won't allow *anyone* under the age of 18 to follow their blog in their tiny 'about me' sections.
These days, I generally try and catch myself when I start to disparage something the 'youths' are doing. Lol. A lot of the time it's not just the 'youths' anyway (purity culture / wank is not a 'young tumblr' thing, I honestly think it's an 'all ages' thing - but that the bias falls towards younger people possibly because they *generally* have more energy and vigour to press it forwards. But some of the nastiest grossest voices in the purity wank culture shit are those of older people who never let go of their hatred that they've nursed in fandom sometimes for decades).
I remember the first time I saw like, people come up with autochorissexual as a type of asexuality and I was really mentally disparaging about it. Like 'okay that's gone too far, typical of teens trying to categorise everything they don't understand, like pathologies, this is like ridiculous.' Maybe it *is*, I don't know, but I'm wary of that part of my brain that becomes more rigid and inflexible as I get older, just for the sake of being rigid and inflexible. It is sometimes really easy to be like 'back up, this is fine, you're just not used to it yet' and sometimes really *hard* to do that, and it can be super challenging. (Tbh that's not an age thing, that's an everything thing for me).
I really enjoy in the spiritual group I'm in, that there's two teens (one 15, and one 18, I think). Sure, you have moments of like 'Oh I recognise that thinking pattern from when I was a teen you'll probably grow out of that' (which there's no point in saying because you have to grow out of it, lol), just like they probably have moments of 'oh, they don't understand this aspect of my lived experience because they're an Old and don't Get It / weren't here for that.' (Which is also often true lol). But overall, I'm just mostly humbled by how much they have to share and teach. Like all the other members of the group, really.
I do think the point with adults talking in a way that's not alienating/confusing being a sign of say...someone just doing something to appeal to you is not always necessarily true. I grew up with a brother who is only just now 21, and consequently, I grew up with lingo shifts that means I can discourse like I'm one of his mates and we're used to that. To me, that's not like...a way of talking I do for him, that's a way of talking. There are a lot of reasons to explain why and how adults can discourse with teens at their level, from 'it's my job and I'm a YA writer' (with varying degrees of accuracy), to 'I'm a babysitter' to 'I'm on Tumblr and this is just the way I like to talk because linguistic shifts are fun and don't come from posts where people denote their age so it's hard to know if this is coming from 'cool 18 yo tumblr' or 'cool 30 yo tumblr' and no one really knows.'
I mean if I meet a 70 yo in a space (irl or online) dropping all the acronyms and memey goodness and all the other stuff I'm less likely to think 'you're kind of creepy' and more likely to think 'you have a Tumblr.' So while I think teens need to be warned away from predatory behaviour, I also think that adults speaking to teens 'on their level' (Tumblr makes this a grey area, contemporary lingo doesn't just belong to teenagers, especially in places like Tumblr) may actually be - for some - the very sign of flexibility and non-rigidity you're advocating for here in the first place. Just, a much more successful and natural attempt at it, where it's not a mask put on just to put a teenager at ease, but a natural shift in lingo because the environment has changed.