"A lot of the problems teenagers go through, it's better for them to go through them on their own. If you always have a crutch, you don't learn anything"
About this Quote
Ben Savage’s point lands because it pushes against a parenting culture that’s increasingly defined by rescue missions. Framed as tough love, the line isn’t really about abandoning teenagers; it’s about refusing to turn adulthood into a service teens consume. The word “crutch” does the heavy lifting: it’s vivid, slightly harsh, and medical. A crutch isn’t care, it’s dependence. It implies that constant intervention doesn’t just soften a fall, it rewires the whole way a young person walks through the world.
The intent is pragmatic: let teens metabolize consequences while the stakes are still relatively small. Savage is arguing for friction as a teacher. Adolescence is already a training ground for discomfort - embarrassment, rejection, failure - and his subtext is that removing that discomfort doesn’t remove the lesson; it removes the learning mechanism. The implication is also moral: competence has to be earned, not handed down like an inheritance.
As an actor who came up playing a coming-of-age character, Savage’s credibility here comes from narrative familiarity. Teen stories work because growth requires conflict; if adults pre-solve every plot point, there’s no character arc. Culturally, this hits in the era of “snowplow” parenting and hyper-managed childhoods, where safety can become a brand and anxiety becomes a family project. Savage is offering a corrective that’s unsentimental but not cruel: support isn’t the same thing as substitution, and teenagers can’t learn resilience if someone else keeps doing the falling for them.
The intent is pragmatic: let teens metabolize consequences while the stakes are still relatively small. Savage is arguing for friction as a teacher. Adolescence is already a training ground for discomfort - embarrassment, rejection, failure - and his subtext is that removing that discomfort doesn’t remove the lesson; it removes the learning mechanism. The implication is also moral: competence has to be earned, not handed down like an inheritance.
As an actor who came up playing a coming-of-age character, Savage’s credibility here comes from narrative familiarity. Teen stories work because growth requires conflict; if adults pre-solve every plot point, there’s no character arc. Culturally, this hits in the era of “snowplow” parenting and hyper-managed childhoods, where safety can become a brand and anxiety becomes a family project. Savage is offering a corrective that’s unsentimental but not cruel: support isn’t the same thing as substitution, and teenagers can’t learn resilience if someone else keeps doing the falling for them.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning from Mistakes |
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