For most of human history, the journey from youth to adulthood was clear, expected, and honored. Today, that path has collapsed into a maze of contradictions: more schooling but less knowledge, more rules but less responsibility, more protection but weaker adults.In Growing Down, C.R. Beaumont cuts through the noise with a medic's precision and a veteran's blunt honesty, exposing how American institutions-schools, laws, politics, and digital platforms-have engineered a culture where young people are kept dependent long after they should stand on their own. Drawing on international comparisons, hard data, and forgotten history, this book shows how systematic infantilization emerged, why it persists, and how it threatens everything from personal resilience to democratic stability.But this isn't a eulogy. It's a blueprint.Beaumont reveals the communities that still get adulthood right, the reforms that actually work, and the choices that could restore a society capable of raising capable adults.Clear-eyed, deeply researched, and quietly defiant, Growing Down is a wake-up call to anyone who senses that something has gone very wrong with the way America raises its young-and believes it's time to fix it.