March 18, 2025

The Infantilisation of Society & The Death Of Adulthood, with Author Keith Hayward

48 minutes

Why have we as a society gone from simply glorifying youthful looks to aiming for a consequence-free, childlike lifestyle? When was the last time you saw an ad that showed adults behaving like…adults? How did we devolve within just one generation from teens who could not wait to a driver’s license…to teens nowadays who barely register excitement over a driver’s test? Or their first set of car keys? Or apartment keys, for that matter?

Professor Keith Hayward has some theories, and a lot of research to back it up. A professor of Criminology at Copenhagen University, he is also the author of "Infantilised: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood.” Hayward argues in the book that western society and media are conspiring to keeps kids less mature than in previous generations, leading to a situation where more and more of them fail (or barely even try) to graduate into the basic self-reliance that characterizes adulthood.

But that’s not the worst part. It’s one thing for some folks to party forever or deliberately fail to launch. It’s quite another to imagine a society full of kid-ults who simply refuse….full stop…to ever grow up.

For more on Keith Hayward and his book INFANTILISED: https://www.amazon.com/Infantilised-How-Culture-Killed-Adulthood-ebook/dp/B0CKLC3JJX

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