The Death of the Grown-up

On today's 'Calling For Truth' Radio Program, our guest will be Diana West, Author of the book, 'Death of the Grown-up: How America's Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization'

Diana West is contributing columnist for TownHall.com and a Washington Times columnist writing a weekly commentary column for Newspaper Enterprise Association. She is a conservative with a strong bent for cultural commentary.

Additionally, Diana West has contributed essays and features to many publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, etc.

On the program today, we will discuss America's preoccupation with perpetual adolescence and the ramifications this attitude has upon our society.

On her web site, West notes; 'Once, there was a world without teenagers. Literally, 'teenager,' the word itself, doesn't pop into the lexicon much before 1941. That means that for all but this most recent period of history, there were children and there were adults. Children in their teen years aspired to adulthood; significantly, they didn't aspire to adolescence. Certainly, men and women didn't aspire to remain teenagers.

Today, turning thirteen, instead of bringing children closer to an adult world, launches them into a teen universe. And due to the hold our culture has placed on the maturation process, that's where they're likely to find the adults.

Most of us have grown up--or, at least, grown--into this new kind of adulthood, this perpetual adolescence so much the norm that it's difficult to recognize it as the profound civilizational shift that it is.'

Is this really a fair analysis of American culture? If so, what are the