UNIT 3 – LISTENING 1 – GENERATION NEXT
Robin Lustig: The sound of childhood: happy, 1.____energetic_________,
2._____carefree________. We all know what it means to be young, and those of us who are
adults, we also know what it means to be adult: 3.______commuting_______ to work,
earning a living, taking on financial responsibilities, 4._____feeding________ a family,
running a home, and looking after babies.
So when do we become an adult? I still remember the exact moment that I grew up. It was the
day I waved goodbye to my parents, got on a plane, and flew to Uganda, in east Africa, to
spend a year there as a 5._____volunteer____ teacher. It was my 18th birthday, and from that
day on, I was an adult. But not everyone can 6.___pinpoint______ the moment quite as
7.____precisely_________ as I can.
Monika: In some ways I feel like an adult and some ways I don't. I'm definitely in between.
Robin Lustig: This is Monika, 17 years old, and the daughter of my American cousin.
Monika's 8.___confused_____, just as millions of 9.____adolescents_________ are around
the world, and the American academic Cynthia Lightfoot, who studies the way children
develop, and says we adults don't exactly help.
Cynthia Lightfoot: We don't do a very good job of defining an 10.___identity_____ for
them. We do a good job for kids, you know, kids are, they don't need to be
11._responsible_______. Kids are 12.____playful____; they are in school. So we have a
fairly well-defined role for what it means to be a kid. We have a fairly well-defined role for
what it means to be an adult, which is all the things that kids are not: responsible, not playful,
you know, 13.___economically______ independent, um, 14.___morally______ independent
and so on.
Robin Lustig: I asked my 21-year-old daughter the other day when she finally felt grown up.
It was, she said, when she moved out of our house into a place that she's sharing with friends.
She's now living an adult life, even if there was no formal ceremony to mark the
15.___transition______. The academic, Cynthia Lightfoot again.
Cynthia Lightfoot: One of the things that often happens in traditional societies is that they
have cultural supports for adolescents defining who they are and those cultural supports often
come in the form of 16.__initiation________ ceremonies. So there are certain
17.___markers_____ that are provided by the culture that allow kids to say "I am an adult
now. I am 18.___separate_______ from my family." In many 19._____industrialized_____
societies, those 20.__markers______aren't as clear-cut, or they don't have the signal value that
they do in traditional societies. So we do in fact have certain kinds of
21.____milestones______ such as getting a driver's license, being able to vote. But these don't
have the same 22.____significance______. One reason being that they're all spread out
throughout 23.___adolescence_______.
John: I feel like I could do most of the things that adults do like right now. Like I have to wait
two and a half years or so to be able to drive, and I think I could drive right now.
Robin Lustig: Most teenagers I've ever met think they could do just about anything.
24.____Rites______ of passage can help adolescents make the 25.___adolescents____ to
adulthood; without them, we can sometimes get 26.____confused_____. So, there's a
27.____psychological______ element to growing up. It's when we decide who we are.
But ask the United Nations when in law you stop being a child, and they'll tell you it doesn't
happen until a single, 28._____defined_____ point in time, your 18th birthday. The United
Nations 29.____conventional______ on the Rights of the Child assumes that anyone under 18
is a child and is 30.___entitled____ to be protected as such. Victor Karunan of the UN
children's 31.____agency______ UNICEF explains why.
Victor Karunan: In most societies; you would be arriving at an age in and around 18, where
that major 32.__shift____ would take place, from the period of adolescence to adulthood.
However, we know in particular situations that children in a much earlier age would take on
adult responsibilities, and that there you have a 33.___contradiction________ between the
child 34.___exercising________ responsibilities, often adult, but legally not being given that
35._____recognition______.
Robin Lustig: And if one turns that on its head in a developed society like Britain, for
example, there are many, many hundreds of thousands of men and women in their 20s who
are not yet 36._____self-sufficient______ economically, maybe living still with their parents.
Are they still children?
Gerison Lansdown: Yes, interesting, isn't it? I think we define children very much in terms
of 37.____emotional____ needs within the west. We see them as 38.___recipients________
of our love, our protection, our care, and so on. Whereas I think in many parts of the world,
children are not just seen as recipients. They're seen as active 39.____contributors______ who
play a 40._____socio-economic______ part in the family from really quite an early age, and
that does affect the status of children within families.
Robin Lustig: No wonder we find adolescence so 41.___confusing_______.
