when do you think a "kid" becomes "adult"?

[dubljay]

They're not, technically, dependent on their parents and have to assume the weight of their share of the tax burden.

Not to nitpick here but as I am in college and over 18 my parents tax returns are still required by the governement to apply for financial aid, this is a requirement until I turn 24. Why? The reason given to me is that I am still considered a dependant of my parents.

Ok, that being said time to add my two cents.

The transition from "child" to "adult" IMO is a combination of expereince and maturity level. These are subjective measurements defined individually, but rules of "comon sense" may apply. My father owned his own business while I was growing up. I spent some of my preteen years working in his business. Come high school I was working nearly as much as he was, and during breaks I worked an equal number of hours. Before I graduated high school I had a great deal of experience in the "real world" and what I would consider an above average maturity level (gained from my responsibilities within my father's business). People I have graduated with lack either the maturity level, or experience (or in some cases both) of the "average" person of our age.

There are some things that are determined biologically that are hard to dispute. Those facts have been metnioned by others already, so no need for redundency.


Just my opinion and I could be wrong.

-Josh

Edit:

Abit of humor to be had here. I read a quote once "If you don't grow up by the time you turn 35, you don't have to."

 

[MA-Caver]

When I was a young teenager, my father kept telling me that I wouldn't be a "man" til I was 21... now I"m 43 and in retrospect... he was right.

 

[arnisador]

Ya gotta pick a number, and 18 works for me.

There's no winning.

 

[Cruentus]

I just think that there should be some consistancy, and right now there is none.

At 18, your deemed responsible enough to die for your country, responsible enough to be accountable for your actions and go to jail, and your expected by the standards of the law to be an adult with the expectation that you should be able to make a living and be on your own.

Yet, your not deemed responsable enough to consume alcahol until your 21, the insurance laws all work against you through age discrimination and screwing you for the behaviors of your peers, you can't get any assets without a co-signer, and you can't even get a hotel room or rental car in most areas.

Young adult have it rougher and rougher each year.

If we expect our 18 year olds to act like adults and be responsable like adults, then they need to have the same privliges as well.

Paul

 

[michaeledward]

I just want to chime in on 18 year olds & alcohol.

Perhaps my understanding is limited but, I believe the main reason that drinking age was raised from 18 to 21 (approximately 20 years ago for you young folks), was to keep alcohol away from the 15, 16 & 17 year olds. There are many people who are 18 years of age who are Seniors (and some Juniors) in high school. The high school social circle dictates they will have friends of younger ages. Getting an 18 year old to respect the rule (and law) that says you won't provide alcohol to younger people (students) proved to be difficult.

Thus, the drinking age was raised to 21. By this age, they may still be hanging around with 20 and 19 year olds, but they are no longer in the company of high schoolers, or so the legislatures hope.

I believe the puritan influences in our culture do us a disservice in this regard. It would be better, I think if the drinking age were eliminated, and the driving age was raised to 21, and more of us served wine and beer nightly at the dinner table, rather than milk.

But, I sure know that ain't happening anytime soon.

 

[Eldritch Knight]

Bear in mind that in Europe, the legal drinking age is 12, which is more of a misnomer than anything, since it's never enforced. Then again, you'll rarely find European teenagers drinking irresponsibly (getting drunk, drinking and driving, etc.). Granted, its part of their culture, but I'd be hesitant in using "drinking age" in order to determine maturity. Even over there, kids aren't considered adults until 18.

 

[Adept]

The drinking age in Australia is 18, and we have something of an epidemic of under-age binge drinking. Which is to say, underage people aren't just drinking, but drinking heavily at every opportunity.

By comparison, I believe the USA has, per capita, a much smaller problem with underage binge drinking, perhaps because of its higher age limit on drinking.

 

[dubljay]

Here is an inconsistency in the US which I haven't seen brought up here (If some one has just smack me and tell me to go back to my corner

) If the concern with underage drinking has pushed the drinking age up to 21 why hasn't the age to buy cigarettes gone up? Who would argue that the effects are no less detrimental to the health of the individual? Though I suppose by comparison the effects of alcohol are more immediate (as in alcohol poisoning ect.)



-Josh

 

[Sam]

you smoke ciggarettes and you dont immediate danger anyone and everyone, whereas drinking you can potentially get in a car and kill numerous people. Cigarrettes only hurt yourself... (unles you wanna argue 2nd hand smoke but the effects of that compared to drinking... drinking is obviously more of a danger to others)

 

[Andrew Green]

Bear in mind that in Europe, the legal drinking age is 12, which is more of a misnomer than anything, since it's never enforced. Then again, you'll rarely find European teenagers drinking irresponsibly (getting drunk, drinking and driving, etc.). Granted, its part of their culture, but I'd be hesitant in using "drinking age" in order to determine maturity. Even over there, kids aren't considered adults until 18.

If beer was "just another drink" I don't think we'd have as many binge drinkers. Of course to eliminate the rule would cause some bad short term effects...

 

[Adept]

If the concern with underage drinking has pushed the drinking age up to 21 why hasn't the age to buy cigarettes gone up? Who would argue that the effects are no less detrimental to the health of the individual? Though I suppose by comparison the effects of alcohol are more immediate (as in alcohol poisoning ect.)



-Josh

Ciggarettes cause cancer and heart disease. Which sucks. But Drinking causes violence (how many of us have encountered someone with 'beer muscles' at one point or another?), vandalism, loss of inhibition, hell, basically a complete shut down of the higher brain functions. People don't get pregnant at 15 because they were smoking, but they do because they are drinking. They don't get into a car and kill four innocent people on the road because they had a smoke, but if they were drinking, well, I'm sure you get the drift...

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Tulisan in bold:

Young adult have it rougher and rougher each year.

How so? Compared to what era? Using what standard of measure insofar as things being "tough?" I'm not picking on you, Paul, but I've heard this before. A good friend of mine, parroting the spirit of your statement, once said "teens have so many choices they have to make today" without ever qualifying the remark. My response to her is "what choices?" I'd further ask her if choice is such a bad thing.

In 1957 teen pregnancy was far higher than today and it wasn't unusual to find a teenager married. There was little or no support structure for an unwed mother in her teens (or any age, for that matter). As for choices, they did indeed have fewer, as my friend suggested, but that isn't necessarily a good thing. Teens didn't have access to birth control, any form of sex education regarding STD transmission, or easy access to condoms (much less support for their use). The rate of syphillis was at a record high and held that dubious record until the late 1980's.

Do they really have it all that bad today? More than ever they've been recognized as a market for business...so they wield a significant level of economic clout. Go to the mall this weekend for confirmation of this and note how many clothing and music stores cater to an older age group (you'll find few) versus those that cater strictly to teenagers. Teens typically are better educated than those youngsters of fifty years ago, stand to make more money, and benefit from our increasing (if slightly retarded at the moment--but I'm an optimist) progressive social change. Is it so rough to have to struggle with today's obesity versus, say, the starvation they might encounter in past times? As I'm oft seen to write, the reverse could be worse. Contrast poverty rates from thirty years ago to today, or teen homicide rates from the 70's with those today. Go yet further back. Teens (and preadolescents) worked long hours for little pay in unsafe jobs in the 19th century. It was that or die. In the 18th century they often were indentured servants who could be, and often were, physically and sexually abused by their masters.

True, today we see children struggling with a growing pharmacopia of illicit drugs. A hundred years ago they did as well, though legal restrictions were just then coming in vogue. Two hundred years ago the rate of consumption of alcohol was four times higher than today...leading one Englishman to quip that Americans were worse drunks than the Irish. Teens often drank as well, helping to drive home the continental notion that we were indeed an alcoholic republic.

There likely will always be a tendency for mankind to look for some sort of palliative for the human condition...and rebellious teen angst will not be denied participation in this pursuit, for all the ills it might present.


So I ask, and offer this to anyone, when was it better?



If we expect our 18 year olds to act like adults and be responsable like adults, then they need to have the same privliges as well.

Or, as I posited, when they start acting like adults we then give them the rights of adults. It is highly unlikely that giving them the legal right to drink at eighteen is going to hasten the maturation of their brains or reduce their risk taking behavior. Rights demand responsibility, they do not confer them.



Regards.


Steve

 

[Dronak]

At what point do you think a person could qualify as an "adult"?

Well, I see the basic aspects of being an adult that you support yourself and run your own life. You're not dependent on someone else for either. So I'd say the transition happens when you're capable of being financially independent, can get a decent job to support yourself, and are mature and responsible enough to make your own decisions and face any consequences that result from them.

As you noted, the law puts different age limits on different factors. While they don't always make sense, I can't exactly disagree with all of them them. I think they're doing the best they can to set those sort of maturity limits. You can drive a car at a certain age, vote for your government representatives at another age, drink alcohol at yet another age, probably because experience has indicate that these ages are an average where most people are able to handle those decisions and consequences. *shrug*

 

[TigerWoman]

Me too. And I would have young knees too! Why can't we start out smart, mature, young, so we can enjoy life to the max?? TW

Whoever dinged me 10 pts. for this comment and didn't sign his name, isn't apparently "there" yet. TW

 

[MA-Caver]

Whoever dinged me 10 pts. for this comment and didn't sign his name, isn't apparently "there" yet. TW

That's weird... makes me want to say "por que?"

 

[Corporal Hicks]

The drinking age in Australia is 18, and we have something of an epidemic of under-age binge drinking. Which is to say, underage people aren't just drinking, but drinking heavily at every opportunity.

By comparison, I believe the USA has, per capita, a much smaller problem with underage binge drinking, perhaps because of its higher age limit on drinking.

Sorry Adept, I'm not sure I entirely agree, no offence.

Sure you have binge drinking problems and I think that maybe Britain is almost the worse at this. I'm 17 and I've seen it for the last four years (not a part of it thank God) first hand. I think about it now,

I dont believe its the higher age limit on drinking that results in less problems. I think that alcohol should be introduced steadily at a younger age.

If you look a cultures that do this, then you notice (i.e. France) dont have a problem, or have very little problem with binge drinking, far far lower than say, over here.
Over here its likes as soon as youngesters my age got to about 14/15 and started learning about the effects of alcohol they started bingeing, because its a craz. The've been denied it before hand, its new, it does funny things and its going against society, exactly what somebody my age wanted at the time, they wanted to be an indiviual......just like everybody else.

Which leads me to my point back to the thread, I personally think, dont mean to offend anybody, that a person becomes an adult when the realise in themselves what reality is and that there is no fantasy world of which their mind creates, when the leave alot of their childhood fantasies behind. To put this into context, being a Bruce Lee fan, two years ago, I wanted to be Bruce Lee, I wanted to 'beat' everybody else and be better than everybody else as thats what my ego seemed to crave.

Now I would say, that I dont want to be Bruce Lee and neither shall I try or think I am. I would like to be the best that I can be, I want to help people in their lives.
Fantasy of: I wish
Turned into
Reality of: I am striving to be, and I accept who I am.

Another point stated I believe by tiger woman on the first page. Since I'm talking about myself too much, you could say if I was a kid this would be selfish. Coming out and seeing the world, and accepting it, I personally think makes you an adult.

I talk too much!
Kind Regards

Nick

 

[lulflo]

I think that if you put it into context, you are a kid until you parents die, because until then, you are always their "kid".

I understand what the thread is asking though, I just know that in my circle of friends/acquaintances, that adulthood is just a new group of experiences. ie. marriage, career, children.

As far as age goes, I think that is irrelavent subjectively. The laws are put in place as a guideline for justice and such. As has already been menitioned, there are adults in their teens and childish folks in their golden years. It seems to depend on their own values and/or experiences.

Farang - Larry

 

[Kane]

In many countries in the world the legal age is either 18, 16, and in some countries like Iran it is 15. Japan I think has the highest legal age, which is 20 years old.

Give me a few references for your facts.

I would have PMed, but I wasn't 100% sure Dan was (Flatlander?) so I'll post it here. For each page scroll down to government and look at "suffrage".

Japan's legal age is 20;

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ja.html

Iran's legal age is 15;

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html


Every other nation seems to recognize 18 as the legal age, from the US to India. I guess it is common in every culture for 18 being the legal age.

 

[raedyn]

(yes, Dan is Flatlander.)

 

[Phoenix44]

You become an adult when they no longer sit you at the kiddie table at the Passover Seder. That means you're about 50.