I hung out with the neighbor kid and his friends starting when they were 17 or so and I was 49. Very shortly after they turned out to be wiser than I suspected, able to argue fine points about religion and politics, things I had assumed they’d be clueless about, or more likely parrot their parents.

They weren’t vulnerable with me! Maybe because I taught them not to be? But they didn’t automatically believe anything out my mouth and would be quick to push back if something I said struck them wrong. Often I was the wrong one! (I understand this is a very different dynamic than in a workplace.) Even if I tried to manipulate them, I bet they would have smiled and later talked among themselves, “See that shit Shalafi was trying to pull about $X?!”

Perhaps they were unusual? I suspect so, but of them and their “peripheral” friends I saw now and again, about half their cohort seemed just like them. Anyway, two are 23 now and counted among my handful of friends.