What Makes An Adult? (Part ii)

So let’s step back for a moment and consider what constitutes adulthood. We’ve already named some. Responsibility. Good decision making. Accountability for oneself. These are some of the big ones I can think of now. And really, they all seem to point back to the idea of responsibility (if you’re responsible, your decisions will be dictated by your sense of responsibility; likewise, a responsible person is also accountable). Hence, let us establish responsibility as a more accurate indicator of adulthood than a legal age.

Yet, some will argue that coming of age legally is society’s recognition of an individual as an adult, and that recognition is vital for the individual to live a fully adult life. But, being an adult legally does not necessarily translate into being an adult practically. Moreover, becoming an adult isn’t about waking up on your 18th or 21st or 25th birthday and having an epiphany that “I am now an adult. From the earlier post on adulthood, the inconsistencies in age limits seem to capture the real complexity that becoming an adult is a process.

Back to the idea of responsibility, its manifestation is not uniform across all aspects of an individual’s life. This means that just because someone is responsible in dealing with school, it does not necessarily follow that the same person would be responsible with taking care of himself/herself. Relating this back to the drinking issue, just because individuals behave responsibly when it comes to college (one would hope) or driving, or voting, or enlisting with the army, or signing contracts, it does not necessarily mean that they are equally adult in their behaviour when it comes to drinking. In fact, one could argue that the growing number of binge drinking incidences amongst college students suggests that students are not “adult” in that respect.

But, how does one measure responsibility? It is not a practical standard by which one enacts a law. Even then, a law is necessary to arbitrate something such as alcohol, given that alcohol is highly susceptible to abuse, and alcohol abuse is highly likely to bring about various social problems. Hence, while many see the idea of adulthood as being central to the debate on drinking, I venture to suggest that it is really not that relevant. This is because becoming an adult is a process with fuzzy limits. Yet the law and arbitration require specificities which cannot capture the nuances of growing up. Thus, having a high drinking age is not so much related to society not recognising individuals as adults as it is about the concerns surrounding the enactment of that particular law.

Besides, a truly adult response to the limitations of the law in fully capturing the processing of growing up would be to respect the law and obey it. It’s not that one will never become a legal adult. It’s simply a question of when, and not drinking alcohol for a couple more years never killed anyone, but drinking too much of it irresponsibly certainly has.