My youngest child, EM2, recently turned 21 years old. In the U.S. she is now a legal adult in every way that matters. As she herself was quick to remind me, she can now legally drink alcohol. She pointed this fact out to me as she dug through my liquor cabinet, popping open every bottle inside and sampling the contents of each one. She even took the gin and tonic I had been drinking out of my hand to try it.
“That’s awful. It tastes really bitter,” she said. Then she took another sip. “Nope, still awful.” And back in for a third gulp before returning the now half empty glass to me. “I don’t know how you can drink those,” she told me while pouring herself a shot of vodka.
But today’s blog isn’t about my daughter’s new, off-the-rails drinking habits. Rather, I wanted to discuss the phenomenon in our country of picking a random age and then “declaring” that a person is a fully functioning adult. It isn’t even a consistent standard. At 18 years old, we can go fight in a war and vote for president. But we can’t own a handgun or drink until we are 21. (I find that an odd pairing, by the way. I don’t want to get into a gun control conversation, but I do find it interesting that this country says you can start drinking alcohol and buy a gun on the same day. Seems there should be some kind of distancing between those two.)
Since both my kids are now considered adults, in addition to making me feel exceptionally old, it has made me begin to question the way I saw myself when I was that age. I considered myself pretty grown up, but was I really? When I was the same age as EM2, I voted for a president because I saw him playing the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. I figured what more do I need to know to pick the leader of the free world other than his eighth-grade musical training. I clearly wasn’t alone in that thinking.
I like to think that the younger adults in the world these days are slightly better informed than I was. But I doubt it. On November first, last year, two days before the presidential election, I asked my oldest, EM1 if she knew who she was voting for. She told me, “I’m not sure. Who’s running again?”
Yeah. This world is in good hands.
I also recall I had some very questionable decision-making skills outside of the political arena. I remember throwing a small party in my dorm room at college. The only person at the party of legal drinking age was the guy who brought all the beer. We were all risking getting thrown out of school because of that party, and we were all paying quite a bit of money to be there (or at least our parents were). A college education was expensive, even back when I went in the 1700’s.
On a side note, I made another very bad choice during that party as I recall. I hung my raincoat on a wall hook that was too close to the garbage can. Why is that a bad decision, you ask? Well, I didn’t think it was, until the next morning when I found that my roommate had vomited into the pocket of my raincoat because he couldn’t quite make it to the garbage can in time.
Live and learn, I guess.
Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that maybe age shouldn’t be the sole determiner of adulthood. As they say, you’re only young once, but you can be immature forever. I am a good example of that. We should probably have some kind of test that decides if a person is ready to become an adult. Ancient cultures required their children to go out and kill a large animal or attempt some potentially lethal act of bravery to prove themselves. Maybe we should still be doing something like that. We don’t have to make our kids go out and hunt a lion or anything, but perhaps we could withhold the title “adult” until they at least figure out how to get a job and pay some of their own expenses. That might be nice.
Are you listening, EM1? EM2?
Or if we have to pick an age to be an adult, why don’t we make it 30? Most of the people reading this blog who are over 30 probably agree with me. Those that are under 30 are most likely trying to figure out my address so they can firebomb my house. Which just proves my point.
Violence only proves how immature you are. So nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.
I don’t have all the answers. In fact, I actually have none of the answers. I can only ask the questions. Are we expecting our children to become adults before they’re ready? Are we expecting behaviors from them simply because of their chronological age rather than their psychological and mental capabilities? Should that be changed, or is it good enough?
Should there be a written test? Or a physical benchmark that determines adulthood? It doesn’t even have to be anything dramatic. It can be something simple, like just moving out of their parents’ house.
Are you listening, EM1? EM2?
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