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You’re not a developed adult at 18. Here’s what happened

posted 3 years ago by R_Kane (15828)
10 replies | jump to latest

The right to vote in the USA has always been tied to age (and to race, and to gender, and sometimes to land ownership and perhaps some other bullshit). The age for voting had been 21, but the age for being drafted into the military to die in Vietnam was 18, so a lot of citizens protested the dubious war in Vietnam (of which deposed former President Richard Nixon declared that we had “achieved peace with honor,” formally crowning himself as The King of Bullshit). So congress lowered the voting age to 18, to try to quell the protesters.

That’s ALL there is to it.

You are not an adult at 18 in any behavioral or cognitive sense.

Women generally are functioning adults by 25. Men, by 40, if ever.

My favorite Mark Twain quote: “When I was 20, I couldn’t believe how stupid my father was. By the time I turned 30, I was very impressed by how much the old man had learned.”

So let’s end the harangue we’ve been having over here about someone who is 18 being an adult. You’re not. You’re just not; but you won’t know it until you are.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/04/new-york-minimum-smoking-age-why-are-young-people-considered-adults-at-18.html

[–] sslssg (35206) 3 years ago

At 18 I had a full time job, my own apartment, and it was legal for me to drink where I live.

Plus, I ended up moving to a different continent, and living on my own there. I don't know if I was an adult or not, but I certainly could take care of myself.

[–] actionkamen (23176) 3 years ago

There is no exact definition of what "adult" is.

But taking care of yourself in a modern, developed country isn't particularly hard. We've got our educations, we've got every services from all the goverment and the economy provided.

As long as we don't mess up real bad (e.g., doing drugs, addicted to gambling, etc.) we'll survive all right.

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 3 years ago

I think that there should be a Voter's Test before you can vote just like a driver's license test. Yeah, they'll coach bus-loads of them but if the test varies like the driver's test, we'll see how long those buses round up the homeless etc.

[–] OnanTheBarbarian (13205) 3 years ago

They tried the Voters Test in the South already. Mysteriously all the blacks failed so the feds figured something was fishy.

Nah, no voter's test. You're an adult and you may be dumb as a rock. But if you can pay taxes and must obey the laws, you can vote.

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 3 years ago

Yeah. You're right. It was an idyll thought. No escaping the consequences of being human in the end.

[–] OnanTheBarbarian (13205) 3 years ago

👌

[–] 123Guy (7846) 3 years ago

who invented the arbitrary number of 18 meaning anything?
didn't people start families at 14 in the past? marriage, kids, working in the fields etc
ever notice that some people are very mentally mature for their age, while other people simply never seem to grow up over their entire life span?
doesn't that sort of shred the ol' "brain hasn't matured yet at a specific number" thinking?

society is making up this arbitrary number based around a failing educational system that trains people to be factory workers in an age that doesn't need that. and THIS is how we decide who is adult enough?

so those people who were 14 to 16 working and raising a family in the past, were not "adults"? ...interesting...

[–] chilidoggg (14615) 3 years ago

at 18 you're out of free public school graduation day

[–] Furienna (3377) 3 years ago

Well, I guess that they just had to choose a number.
Somebody figured that most people will be mature enough at a certain age and went with that.

I don't believe that too many boys have started a family before they were 18 years old.
But it has been more common for girls to start that early.

[–] Quasimodo (16388) 3 years ago

Personally I think the extension of childhood is artificial and is a direct result of the extension of the years spent at school. When most children left school and went to work at fourteen they entered the adult world and were influenced and instructed accordingly.