When are We Adults?

I think that these days, there is too much emphasis on age. Can someone tell me when one reaches adulthood? I highly reccommend this short essay by a 14-year-old girl, called Ashley Webb: When Should One Be Considered An Adult?

If age is anything to go by, this girl’s essay shouldn’t make anyone care a hoot about. However, judging from that essay, and the essays I have seen of my peers, you can be sure that what you’re looking at is an essay worthy of someone older.

If anyone told Michael Dell that he was too young to be a CEO, or Bill Gates that he was too young to be the richest man on Earth, it’d be laughable. Then why do “adults” say that I’m too young for anything? There has to be a difference between maturity and age.

In Elizabethan (Shakespeare’s) times, they were getting married and having children at the age of 14! Take for example Juliet! Now, it would be illegal to do so, and be considered, culturally, disgusting.

I think that “adults” make such distinctions due to insecurity, and profit. If you go to a buffet, as long as you are over the age of 12, you are considered an adult. Try going to watch a R21 movie using that claim, and you’d be kicked out with a laugh. Security simply because they’d have less people to compete with. Secure adults don’t care about your age, as long as you’re willing and able to do the job, you can do it.

When someone says you’re too young for anything, tell them you pay adult fare for buffets (and airfares, and kiddie rides, and etc, etc.), and go ahead and do it! No one’s too young.

On the other hand, if someone says that you’re too old, tell them there is no such thing! Less than a century ago, the average age of death was less than 40! So if someone calls you too old, that person’s probably already dead anyway (as he doesn’t belong in this time).

There is no such thing as too old or too young, it’s all in the head. Today people live ridiculously longer and healthier; and “children” can mature younger, and better if given the chance.

Age-related thinking should be stone-age by now… unfortunately, it’s not.