Adulthood: When Is the Turning Point?

Adulthood: When is the Turning Point?

A fourteen year old male was brought into a court hearing for killing a young man in a drive by shooting. The hearing is not to decide the criminals’ punishment; it is to decide whether he should be tried as an adult or as a juvenile. How does the judge rule if he is an adult? Actually, how does anyone classify an adult?

Adulthood is yet another concept that can be defined in many different ways. The idea of adulthood can be viewed as universal, but its form and content are specific to each particular culture or country. It is a broad and complex abstraction and no one is expected to fully comprehend it, but can the ideas of one country be better than the ideas of another? According to Kok and Myburgh, South African writers, the following aspects of adulthood exist: a sense of responsibility, financial or material values, social obligations, family obligations, labor orientation, environmental responsibility, and acceptance of accountability, self-concept, time orientation, civil responsibilities, and a sense of religion (Kok).

The passage from a teenager to adulthood is one of the most complicated and confusing processes an adolescent can experience. It can be especially confusing since the teenager is not totally aware what it means to be an adult. Many associate adulthood with the period of time in your life after your physical growth has stopped and you are fully developed or the state of a person who has attained maturity or puberty. Others may disagree and say that a person’s age or size does not matter. That age only matters to a certain point. Once a child is out of the age of innocence, and knows the difference between right and wrong, he or she gets a chance to be responsible, and make a decision that is either right or wrong. Some may even say it is when you turn eighteen or others will say it is when you get your driver’s license. Then again, you can say being an adult means achieving a separate identity, being able to support yourself and your family financially, and being able to provide a house or a place to call home.

One of the concepts of adulthood mentioned before was labor orientation. The Workplace Code Provision states: “No person will be employed at an age younger than 15 (or 14 where the law of the country of manufacture allows)” (Child Labor). This statement suggests that a fourteen or fifteen year old is capable of being labor oriented. So does it also suggest that they can be treated as an adult?

Another idea that is viewed is when someone turns the “legal age” they are considered an adult. The age at which a person is responsible for his or her own actions, including the capacity to enter into a contract which is enforceable by the other party, and for punishment as an adult for a crime. In almost all the states in American the legal age is 18. At the age of 18 you are considered to have more freedom than you would have at a younger age. You are now allowed to vote, get married with or without parental consent, be prosecuted for crimes, have an abortion without parental consent, and have liability for damages varying from state to state. You may also buy lottery tickets, buy cigarettes, or you could even go into the “adult section” of a video store if you really wanted to. So then the question is, is everyone an adult when they turn 18? Some may say yes, but others will disagree. There was another idea of adulthood mentioned and that was, being able to achieve a separate identity and live on your own, supporting you and or your family. So to some being the legal age, 18, means that you have become an adult, but the ones that will argue will look at whether this “adult” is still living at home with his or her parents mooching off of their income.

Another controversy of saying that you are an adult at the age of 18 comes with the special needed people, the mentally challenged. Here you have an 18 year old but they are not capable of taking care of themselves fully on there own. Some are able to work and be labor oriented and earn their own income, but they still need that extra help. They are 18, but are they capable to hold all their own responsibilities and be entered into “adulthood”?

Another age that some people consider to be an adult is 17. At this age you can do something that is very important in our country, especially now-a-days, and that is to enlist in the army. The United States Army Reserve considers a 17 year old adult enough to be placed in combat, but at the same time not adult enough to drink. The legal drinking age for the United States is 21. Over the years the United States has come across having what is called an “almost adult” status. This status was given to those between the ages of 18 and 21. Some people may argue here that you are not an adult until you have reached 21, simply because you are not