The myth that we must each create our own meaning has passed down through American generations. Young Meriwether Lewis heads out for the territory. The adolescent body plumps and furs, bleeds and craves to be known for itself. In some parts of the world, puberty is a secret, a shameful biological event, proof that you have inevitably joined the community of your gender. In America, puberty is the signal to rebel.
American teenagers invent their own tongue, meant to be indecipherable to adult hearing.
Every generation of adolescents does it. Woop, woop, woop. And yet nothing troubles an American parent so much as the teenager who won't leave home. Several times in this century, American teenagers have been obliged to leave home to fight overseas. My generation, the baby boom generation, was the refoliation of the world.