Every parent of a certain age has suffered through the trials and tribulations of raising a teenager; and also taken it upon themselves to describe to parents of younger children — using verbiage that could just as easily be describing an oncoming freight train — the impending and inevitable doom associated with having an adolescent in the house. Is it all just a silly exaggeration? The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert takes a look at the latest thinking when it comes to teens, and finds that the answer to that question is a resounding no. “At moments of extreme exasperation, parents may think that there’s something wrong with their teenagers’ brains. Which, according to recent books on adolescence, there is.” (Either my seven and nine year-old kids are remarkably precocious or I’m in deep trouble.)