The Missing Village: The Danger of Young People Growing Up Without Adult Guidance
There is a growing problem that deserves far more attention than it receives:
young people can become surrounded by people their own age while becoming increasingly disconnected from healthy, experienced adults.
At first, this may seem harmless.
Young people naturally want independence. They want to make their own decisions, communicate with friends, build their own identities, and eventually separate themselves from their parents.
All of that is a normal and necessary part of growing up.
But there is an important distinction between independence and isolation.
A young person can become independent while still having mentors, teachers, coaches, employers, relatives, neighbors, and other trustworthy adults who provide perspective.
Isolation is different.
Isolation means attempting to navigate an increasingly complicated world without access to people who have already traveled through portions of it.
And when young people lose meaningful interaction with healthy adults, they can lose something extraordinarily valuable:
the opportunity to learn from experience before they have to experience everything themselves.
Parents Cannot Be the Entire World
Parents are enormously important.
But parents cannot realistically be everything to a developing human being.
A parent may be loving but inexperienced in a particular area.
A parent may have excellent intentions but poor communication skills.
A parent may be emotionally unavailable.
A parent may have unresolved problems of their own.
A parent may make excellent decisions in one part of life and terrible decisions in another.
A parent may also simply have a worldview that their child eventually needs to challenge.
None of this means parents are unnecessary.
It means something more fundamental:
Young people need a network of healthy adult perspectives.
A child shouldn't have to receive every lesson about life from the same two people.
The world is too complicated for that.
Adults Carry Something Young People Don't Yet Have
Experience.
This is not about intelligence.
A teenager may be more technologically sophisticated than an adult.
A young person may understand social media, artificial intelligence, gaming, digital culture, or emerging technologies far better than someone twice their age.
But there is something experience provides that information alone cannot:
pattern recognition.
An experienced adult may recognize a bad business deal before signing it.
They may recognize manipulation before becoming trapped in it.
They may recognize an unhealthy relationship before it becomes destructive.
They may recognize an unreliable employer.
They may understand the consequences of debt.
They may know that one bad decision doesn't necessarily define a life.
They may understand that emotions change.
They may know that today's humiliation can become tomorrow's insignificant memory.
They may have already experienced failure, rejection, heartbreak, career changes, financial problems, parenthood, illness, success, and recovery.
A young person doesn't need to agree with every adult.
They need access to adults whose experience can expand their field of vision.
Peer Advice Has a Natural Limitation
Friends are important.
Young people need peers.
Friendships teach cooperation, loyalty, communication, empathy, negotiation, humor, and social confidence.
But there is an inherent limitation when almost all advice comes from people who are experiencing the same developmental stage.
Imagine asking someone who has never flown an airplane how to land one.
They may have watched hundreds of videos.
They may have opinions.
They may be extremely intelligent.
But they haven't landed an airplane.
Experience matters.
A sixteen-year-old asking another sixteen-year-old how to navigate a difficult adult relationship may receive sincere advice.
But sincerity doesn't equal wisdom.
The friend may be equally confused.
The friend may have the same blind spots.
The friend may reinforce the same assumptions.
And because the advice comes from someone they trust, the young person may never realize that another perspective exists.
The Internet Can Make This Problem Worse
The digital world has created an enormous paradox.
Young people have access to more information than any previous generation.
But access to information is not the same as access to wisdom.
Algorithms can continuously provide young people with content that confirms what they already believe.
A teenager can become surrounded by thousands of people who think exactly like them without ever having a meaningful conversation with someone who challenges their assumptions.
This can create an intellectual bubble.
The young person begins believing:
“Everyone thinks this way.”
But they may actually be seeing only what an algorithm has learned to show them.
Healthy adults can provide something algorithms cannot reliably provide:
context.
They can say:
“I understand why you see it that way, but there is another side you haven't experienced yet.”
That sentence can be incredibly valuable.
Young People Need Adults Who Can Say "No"
Another important function of healthy adults is establishing boundaries.
Young people need people around them who are willing to say:
No.
No, that's dangerous.
No, that's disrespectful.
No, you shouldn't send that.
No, don't sign that contract.
No, don't lend that person money.
No, don't get into that car.
No, you don't need to respond while you're angry.
No, you are making a mistake.
And sometimes:
Yes, you should take the opportunity.
A peer may hesitate to challenge a friend because they don't want to lose the friendship.
A healthy adult can sometimes prioritize the young person's long-term wellbeing over their immediate approval.
That is one of the responsibilities of adulthood.
Guidance Is Not Control
There is an important distinction here.
The answer is not to create a world where adults dictate everything young people do.
That simply creates another form of dependency.
The objective should be guided independence.
A young person should gradually move from:
“Tell me what to do.”
to:
“Help me understand my choices.”
and eventually:
“I can make this decision myself.”
The adult's job is not to permanently make decisions for the young person.
The adult's job is to help develop the young person's ability to make good decisions independently.
That is mentorship.
The Danger of Learning Everything Through Consequences
Some people argue that young people simply need to make their own mistakes.
There is truth in that.
People need firsthand experience.
But there is a major difference between learning from manageable mistakes and learning everything through catastrophic consequences.
You don't need to crash a car at 100 miles per hour to learn that driving recklessly is dangerous.
Someone who has already made the mistake can tell you.
You don't need to lose your life savings to understand the dangers of predatory debt.
You don't need to experience every toxic relationship to recognize manipulation.
You don't need to be fired from ten jobs to understand the importance of reliability.
Wisdom allows one generation to transfer lessons to the next without requiring the next generation to repeat every disaster.
That is one of civilization's greatest advantages.
The Adult World Should Be Accessible
Perhaps part of the solution is surprisingly simple:
Put young people around more healthy adults.
Let them work alongside adults.
Let them volunteer.
Let them participate in community organizations.
Let them have coaches.
Let them have mentors.
Let them participate in internships.
Let them speak with entrepreneurs.
Let them interact with scientists, engineers, artists, tradespeople, healthcare professionals, educators, and community leaders.
Let them see different lifestyles.
Let them ask questions.
Let them disagree.
Let them observe how adults actually behave.
Because one of the greatest educational experiences is watching someone navigate reality.
Work Can Become a School of Adulthood
A part-time job can teach a young person lessons that school sometimes cannot.
Show up on time.
Keep your word.
Treat customers respectfully.
Work with people you don't particularly like.
Accept criticism.
Solve problems.
Handle money.
Deal with an incompetent manager.
Deal with a difficult customer.
Recover from making a mistake.
Understand that nobody cares whether you felt like doing the job.
The job still needs to be done.
These are not merely employment skills.
They are adult-life skills.
Young People Need to See Adults Being Human
Healthy adult mentorship doesn't require adults to pretend they have everything figured out.
In fact, the opposite can be more powerful.
A young person can learn enormously from hearing an adult say:
“I made that mistake.”
“I didn't understand that when I was your age.”
“I handled that badly.”
“I wish someone had told me this earlier.”
“I don't know the answer, but let's figure it out.”
That teaches something profound:
Being an adult does not mean being perfect.
It means taking responsibility for yourself, learning continuously, and developing the ability to navigate uncertainty. And most importantly, learn the capacity to adapt to an incredibly unpredictable world.
The Danger of Adults Who Never Grow Up
There is another side to this issue.
Young people don't automatically benefit from interacting with every adult.
Age does not equal wisdom.
Some adults are irresponsible.
Some are manipulative.
Some are abusive.
Some exploit young people's trust.
Some have terrible judgment.
Some are deeply immature.
Therefore, the objective cannot simply be more adult interaction.
It must be better adult interaction.
Young people need access to adults who demonstrate:
Integrity
Emotional stability
Accountability
Respect
Curiosity
Responsibility
Patience
Competence
Empathy
Healthy boundaries
The model matters.
A young person learns not only from what an adult says.
They learn from how that adult lives.
The Missing Village
For much of human history, children grew up within large communities.
They encountered grandparents, uncles, aunts, neighbors, teachers, craftspeople, religious leaders, farmers, merchants, athletes, artists, and other members of the community.
The child could observe dozens of different forms of adulthood.
Today, many young people can spend enormous amounts of time with peers while interacting with relatively few adults outside their immediate family and school environment.
The result can be a strange inversion:
The people with the least life experience can become the primary source of advice for one another.
That doesn't mean young people are incapable of wisdom.
It means they shouldn't have to carry the entire burden of producing it themselves.
The Goal Is Not to Create Followers
The ultimate purpose of adult guidance should be to create independent thinkers, not obedient followers.
A good mentor should eventually make themselves less necessary.
If a young person constantly needs someone else to tell them what to do, mentorship has failed.
The objective is to develop judgment.
Ask questions.
Evaluate evidence.
Recognize consequences.
Understand people.
Control emotions.
Take responsibility.
Change course when wrong.
Make decisions.
Accept the consequences.
Try again.
That is adulthood.
From Information to Wisdom
Education often focuses on transferring information.
But young people already have access to enormous amounts of information.
What they increasingly need is interpretation.
What does this information mean?
How does it apply to real life?
What are the consequences?
What am I missing?
What happens five years from now?
What happens if this goes wrong?
What would someone with twenty years of experience see that I cannot yet see?
Those are wisdom questions.
And wisdom is often transferred through human interaction.
A Different Definition of Growing Up
Perhaps growing up should not mean:
Leaving adults behind.
Perhaps it should mean:
Learning from many adults until you can become the kind of adult others can learn from.
That is a much healthier progression.
First, adults protect you.
Then they teach you.
Then they advise you.
Then they challenge you.
Then they trust you.
Eventually, you become independent.
And finally, you become a source of guidance for someone younger.
That is how civilization transfers knowledge across generations.
The Responsibility Belongs to Adults Too
It is easy to say that young people need to seek mentors.
But adults have responsibilities as well.
If we want young people to become capable adults, we need adults willing to show up.
Coach.
Teach.
Listen.
Hire.
Mentor.
Challenge.
Encourage.
Correct.
And sometimes simply have a conversation.
A ten-minute conversation with a teenager can occasionally plant an idea that remains with them for decades.
We may never know which sentence mattered.
But that is the nature of mentorship.
The Final Lesson
A young person should never be expected to navigate the entire adult world using only the opinions of people who are still learning how the world works themselves.
Peers are essential.
Parents are essential.
But neither should be the entire ecosystem.
Young people need a village of healthy adults who expose them to different experiences, perspectives, professions, values, failures, successes, and ways of solving problems.
They need adults who can say:
“I've been there.”
“I made that mistake.”
“Here's what I learned.”
“I disagree with you, and here's why.”
“You are capable of more than you think.”
“Try it yourself. I'll be here if you need me.”
That final sentence may be the essence of good mentorship.
Not control.
Not dependency.
Not indoctrination.
Guided independence.
Because the purpose of raising a young person is not to keep them dependent forever.
It is to help them develop enough judgment, resilience, curiosity, discipline, empathy, and courage to eventually walk into the adult world on their own.
And when that happens, they shouldn't have to enter the world completely alone.
They should carry with them the accumulated wisdom of the people who took the time to guide them.
A generation becomes stronger when it stops forcing every young person to learn everything the hard way—and starts deliberately transferring wisdom from one generation to the next.
Leonardo Mora
CEO of Vision
GAWK Corporation
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