Some uncomfortable thoughts about the history of the number 18, and its significance as the age of adulthood.
and I’m not only talking about sexual consent, though that is one of the big issues. I’m talking about things like voting, and living on your own, and having the right to decide your own medical treatment (including trans-affirming treatments!) and being held responsible for crimes you’re accused of, and so on
to make this very clear: This is one of my “Only Problems, No Solutions” posts. I do not know if there is any actually good solution to the problems I bring up here. I don’t even know what my own opinion is on all of this
I’m exploring the issue and the various ways it’s not as simple as the volatile opinions that many people have on it. For whatever that does or doesn’t contribute to the discussion.
You gloss past the high school bit, I think.
At 18, you are able to be drafted, but you are also able to work full time and pay rent. You’re at least theoretically an independent economic unit. I was at that age.
Everyone agrees children shouldn’t have the same rights as adults do, but the line is very fuzzy. I don’t really see a better line to draw than economic independence.
Like, what, I’m old enough to be a wage slave and sell my body and mind for survival, but not old enough to make personal choices about my own body, re: drugs, alcohol, or sex?
Yeah, that’s about the shape of it.
I wasn’t sure if the “legally allowed to work full time and pay rent at 18” decision came before or after the “can be drafted” decision… or if either or both of those were determined by the school system and how it gets most of your required education done by that time… or if there was something else that affected all of those things.
And in any case it is still weird that the drinking age is two years later than all that. Like, why is that personal choice so much bigger than selling yourself to the corporate and/or military world to survive?
Yeah, it’s complicated. Dunno if all of it is the best way to have things set up, but I’m very much not sure of any better way.