MAP Forum

How do you respond to people who say “you should only mix/interact with people of your own age” how does it make you feel? I just thought I should ask this

This bizarre tendency to problematize even platonic social contact between people of different ages seems to be peculiar to developed western countries over the past few years. I think it's probably just the logical culmination of the hysterical age gap discourse and moral panic about unequal power relations and grooming which has reached its apex recently.

I would point out to anyone who suggests that being friends with people of different ages is odd that strict segregation based on age group is an absurd historical anomaly, and that it's probably much more unhealthy for a child's(and an adult's) development to deprive them of ever interacting with people in different life stages than it is to allow them to socialize with a diverse range of people from all walks of life and all levels of wisdom and experience.

Point out to them that it's no different than saying "you should only mix with people of your own race" and "you should only mix with people of your own gender".

And when some inevitably say, "But this is different." Point out that that's exactly what people used to say (and still do) about the others too.

I would say having friends of different ages can be really insightful and you can learn from them. I have.

I usually ask some variety of "if a class of first-graders were all teaching each other to write by themselves, would they ever learn to write?"