Since we, in the United States, created adolescence in the 1950s, we have developed societal perceptions of young people in which they aren't very competent, have very little to contribute to the home and society, and have primary functions of becoming good repositories of information (school), and great consumers.  As this has evolved, it has tended to become self fulfilling prophecy.  Young people, especially teens often have few expectations of contribution.  Instead, their lives are centered on learning to pass their states graduation test, and responding to the lastest advertisements about the things they need in order to fit in, survive, or have fun.  The truth is that those things do very little to develop global competence, life skills, and to feel a sense of significance in the culture.  Young people who could make our lives a lot easier by doing useful work around the home, in the community, and other environments are learners and consumers.  Some are lucky enough to be involved in faith based organizations where there are mission projects in which they can make contributions, but that isn't usually a normal, weekly expectation.  So people on the young end of the age spectrum become marginalized by the culture.

During about the same time frame, we have marginalize older adults.  At first, after the creation of Social Security, it was mostly a subtle perception that people were done with contribution at age 65, and would retire and move to sunny places like Florida.  Organizations even developed mandatory retirement ages reflecting that discriminatory perception. In the last 20 years, this has expanded and we now find that people over 50 experience age discrimination, incredibly long times between employment, and, when they do find jobs, employment in positions far below their job skills.  

Throughout history, and in most of the world today, these would be laughable perceptions.  Most cultures have both relied on their older populations to lead, guide, contribute, and have honored their elders.  Of course, if the work of a culture is physically challenging, people move on to other work.  Most cultures also conscript young people into being contributors as soon as they have something to contribute.  Historically, we have known that it is our job to develop competence in young people and to start early enough to develop as many skills as possible at early ages.  The idea of young people primarily being containers of information and consumers of things would have been alien to most cultures.  People who were lucky enough to live past 50 and still be able to contribute received gratitude for their contributions.

It is really strange to live in a country in which the perception seems to be that competence starts about sometime between graduation from college and thirty, and starts to degrade magically once someone turns fifty.  I really don't know how this perception evolved, but it marginalizes both those with the most energy and the most wisdom to contribute to our country at a time when we need real contributions from everyone.  

I would appreciate the thoughts of others on this topic.