Book: Growing Young

Overview
Ashley Montagu’s 1981 book Growing Young advances a bold, humane thesis: the healthiest way to grow old is to keep growing young. Drawing on anthropology, biology, developmental psychology, and gerontology, Montagu argues that the traits we prize in children, curiosity, playfulness, openness to learning, tenderness, humor, and the capacity for wonder, are not stages to be outgrown but evolutionary strengths to be cultivated across the lifespan. Human beings, he contends, are uniquely neotenous, meaning we retain juvenile characteristics into adulthood; our flourishing depends on protecting and extending those traits rather than suppressing them in the name of a hard, conventional “maturity.”

Neoteny as Human Design
Montagu places neoteny at the center of human evolution. Compared with other primates, humans have a long childhood, large brains, prolonged dependence, and features that evoke care. These biological facts, he argues, created the conditions for culture: language, cooperation, teaching, and creative problem-solving. To “grow young” is to honor that design, to remain plastic, educable, affiliative, and inventive. The adult who keeps learning, laughing, and connecting with others is not regressing but expressing an advanced form of human development grounded in our species’ evolutionary strategy.

Nurturance, Touch, and Bonding
A consistent thread in Montagu’s work is the primacy of nurturance. Healthy development begins with responsive care, affectionate touch, and secure attachment, which scaffold the very capacities society later demands: self-regulation, empathy, resilience, and imagination. He criticizes childrearing that confuses toughness with strength and withholds affection in the name of independence. The need for touch, play, and loving connection does not vanish with age; it remains a lifelong requirement for well-being, cognitive vitality, and emotional balance. Societies that normalize warmth, cooperation, and mutual aid, he suggests, help citizens remain youthful in mind and spirit.

Rethinking Maturity and Aging
Montagu reframes maturity not as the abandonment of youthful qualities but as their wise integration. True adulthood blends competence with childlike openness; it knows how to be serious without becoming solemn. He champions humor, play, and lifelong learning as health practices, citing evidence that social bonds, purpose, and flexible thinking correlate with longevity and better aging. “The idea is to die young as late as possible,” he writes, proposing a standard for aging that prioritizes vitality of attitude over the mere accumulation of years.

Social Critique and Cultural Implications
Much of the book critiques cultural ideals that glorify aggression, domination, and competitiveness while belittling tenderness, cooperation, and care as “immature.” Montagu calls this inversion biologically misguided and socially costly. He urges schools to protect curiosity and play rather than drill them out; workplaces to value collaboration and creativity; families and communities to cultivate affectionate bonds across generations. Public policy, education, and healthcare that respect human neoteny will produce not perpetual adolescents but wiser, more adaptable adults.

Style and Legacy
Written as an accessible, cross-disciplinary essay, Growing Young blends scientific synthesis with a persuasive moral vision. Montagu’s message is both descriptive and prescriptive: humans are built to keep learning and loving, and we thrive when institutions make that possible. The book has influenced conversations about child development, humane education, and positive aging, offering a hopeful template for personal growth and social design grounded in the biology of our youthful species.