UNIT 3

LISTENING 1: Generation Next

Robin Lustig: The sound of childhood: happy, (1) …………………, 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: commuting to work, earning

a living, taking on financial (2) ……………… 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 (3)

……………… goodbye to my parents, got on a plane, and flew to (4) ………………., in east Africa, to spend
a year there as a volunteer teacher. It was my 18th birthday, and from that day on, I was an adult. But not
everyone can (5) …………………. the moment quite as (6) ……………….. as I can.
Monika: In some ways I feel like an adult and some ways I don't. I'm (7) …………………. in between.
Robin Lustig: This is Monika, 17 years old, and the daughter of my American cousin. Monika's confused, just
as millions of (8) ……………………… 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 (9) ………………….. for them. We do a good
job for kids, you know, kids are, they don't need to be responsible. Kids are playful; they are in school. So we
have a (10) ……………….. 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,
(11) …………………….. independent, um, morally independent and so on.
Robin Lustig: I asked my 21-year-old daughter the other day when she finally (12) ……………………. 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 (13) ……………………. life, even if there was no formal ceremony to mark the (14) ………………..
The academic, Cynthia Lightfoot again.
Cynthia Lightfoot: One of the things that often happens in traditional societies is that they have (15)

…………… supports for adolescents defining who they are and those cultural supports often come in the
form of (16) ………………….. ceremonies. So there are certain markers that are provided by the culture that
allow kids to say "I am an adult now. I am separate from my family." In many (17) ……………………
societies, those markers aren't as clear cut, or they don't have the (18) ……………….. value that they do in
traditional societies. So we do in fact have certain kinds of (19) ………………………. such as getting a
driver's license, being able to vote. But these don't have the same (20) …………………... One reason being
that they're all spread out throughout 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. Rites of passage can help
adolescents make the transition to (21) ………………….; without them, we can sometimes get confused. So,
there's a (22) ……………………… element to growing up. It's when we decide who we are.
But ask the (23) …………………… when in law you stop being a child, and they'll tell you it doesn't happen
until a single, defined point in time your 18th birthday. The United Nations (24) ………………….on the
Rights of the Child (25) …………………. that anyone under 18 is a child and is entitled to be protected as such
Victor Karunan of the UN children's agency UNICEF explains why.
Victor Karunan: In most societies; you would be arriving at an age in and around 18, where that major shift
would take place, from the period of adolescence to adulthood. However, we know in (26)………………
situations that children in a much earlier age would take on adult (27) …………………., and that there you
have a (28) ………………….. between the child exercising responsibilities, often adult, but legally not being
given that (29) …………………..
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 self (30) ………………..
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 (31)
……………………. needs within the west. We see them as (32) ……………………. 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 (33) …………………… who play a 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 confusing.