When i rule the world, addendum
This post was inspired by watching and listening to my two doofus* nephews (18 and 19 years old) at Thanksgiving.
Legal ages for things are all cocked up in this country (heh, heh, she said cock).
21 for drinking,
18 for dying, (I am referring to military service here)
18 for voting,
18 (sometimes) for being charged as an adult,
16 (some places)for sex,
16 for driving.
Let me be the first to say that i don’t know the answers. But:
21 might be old enough to drink,
18 is too young to die,
18 is okay to vote,
18 is okay (sometimes) to be charged as an adult,
16 is too young for sex (if you get tired of the same old thing, switch hands,)
16 is too young to be driving.
Then again:
How old is old enough to drink? For some people, never.
How old is old enough to die? No snappy comment on this one.
How old is old enough for sex. I say AT LEAST 18, for me it was older.
How old is old enough for driving. I say 18 again.
Again, these are completely arbitrary, because not everyone is the same. (It’s true!) And will go into effect as soon as i appoint myself supreme ruler.
*and i mean that in the nicest way.
15 comments:
One needs to gain maturity to handle all this. The problem is finding a mature teen (a misnomer if ever there was one) in today's society. Oh, they're worldly, in the fleshy, materialistic sense, but not enlightened or sophisticated.
I have gone back to school this past fall and the people in my class are very, very young. Some are very worldly and mature, others it seems to me, could do with a swift kick in the ass. Or a lesson in manners. Or maybe, a lesson in : How to, once and for all, kind of get it into my head that the world does not revolve around my little person... i love being around them though. They are so luminous!
How old do you have to be to drive in the snow, Meno? hee hee! Hope you don't have to go anywhere : )
Hm. Sometimes I think none of us are old enough to be doing much of anything until we're of a ... um.. ripened age. Maybe if you become ruler of the universe, you can come up with a test. If someone passes, they get the rights. If not, back to class. LOL
Peace,
~Chani
Teenagers all lack practical experience. How much is needed is debateable but in almost all those you mentioned more is better. Except dieing. And unless it has changed, a 17 year old can join the military with parental permission, so they could die at 17.
Set aside the fact that teen brains haven't matured enough to make certain kinds of decisions.
After that how each individual handles the different issues in your post will be just so different a product of culture, environment, upbringing and other various factors.
The day they can come up with a maturity test - is the day I lose my driver's license and right to vote!
There should be another way than age to determine someone's ability to do something. A few hundred years ago "boys" of 14 were managing plantations. People make fun of Jerry Lee Lewis for marrying his 13 year-old cousin, but 30-40 years ago it really wasn't that uncommon for girls of 14 (or not much older) in the lower economic strata to marry. Young daughters of royal families were married off to cement relations between kingdoms. Are we maturing later than our ancestors? Or is there a more complex society today that takes more time to be assimilated into?
I certainly don't know, but I find myself agreeing with many of your conclusions.
you said cock. ha.
i totally agree. it's a somewhat mixed up system....
i am running off to print my Meno for Supreme Ruler posters now. i'll campaign for you.
Alas, by the time I am mature enough to do any of those things you listed, I will probably be too old to remember why I wanted to do any of them in the first place
For the record, I don't consider dying a rite of passage so much as just passing.
I think I'll pass on that vote...
21 at least for drinking? Yeesh, I would have been illegal by 8 years rather than just 5 then.
18 for sex? Sexually mature at 12 or 13, then wait 5 years? Ain't gonna happen.
amen to everything you said. I drank before I should have, then didn't much when I could have. I was very lucky in many areas of my life, and I want to think that my children won't make the same mistakes. time will tell, I reckon.
you're definitely my favorite candidate. I'll pass out flyers with jen.
16 is too young for sex (if you get tired of the same old thing, switch hands,)
OK, I laughed out loud when I read this one.
I wonder how they, (whoever they are) came up with these ages? I guess they had to start with a ballpark figure and go from there, but as people are all individuals and mature at different rates, it'll never be universally applicable. It's a tough one! I wonder how my great grandma, who ran away and eloped at 16, differed from me at the same age? Did doing that make her any more mature than I was? (Heck, I had just had my first date at 16!)
When I grow up I'd like to be as wise as you are ... ;0)
de, i can really only use myself as an example, and you are so right.
caro, i went back to school in my 30s. I wasn't the only older person, but the kids were, as you say, widely varying in their maturity. Sometimes they were luminous, and sometimes just a pain (like older folks too).
qt, nope, we stayed home today. YAY!
chani, that's the truth. I'm still not old enough to drink, and until recently, vote. I'll think about those tests, there will definitely be one for reproducing.
dick, you are right, someone could sign up for the military at 17, and in many countries, much younger.
sanjay, that's why there really is no way to set ages for most of these things and have it be right for everyone.
bob, i wouldn't necessrily lose those two rights, but i might not have been allowed to have a baby! Cultural differences are so hard to account for. But it seems to be after observing some kids, that older might be better.
jen, i couldn't really get elected as dogcatcher. I inhaled, and i'm an atheist. So no way! But thanks for the support for my campaign.
patches, good point, on both points actually.
lazy, aw, it wouldn't kill kids to masturbate instead of have sex and get diseases and make babies. I think the drinking age is 18 where you are, no? You were an advanced child.
holly, i know my daughter will make mistakes like i did. And she'll learn from them, i just hope none of them are too serious for her to recover from.
lisa, :)
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