Hi, Will & Celia!
I agree with you! Each stage of life's got its own essence! Childhood is a gorgeous age where you explore and learn; adolescence is the time where you answer questions in which you define what you are; when you become an adult, acquiring responsibilities makes you grow up in mental and spiritual ways. Finally, when we become elderly persons, we've got one of the greatest treasures you can think of: experience. That's a privilege we must appreciate.
Yeap, it might be affected somehow by health issues, but nobody will take away what you've gained as long as you've had a worthy life.
I think the problems today are: 1) kids want to grop up too fast. 2)when they understand what 'growing up' means, they want to avoid it as much as they can.
But we can't forget how important it is to assimilate every stage of life, its opportunities and challenges, in a right way!