Growing up as a child most kids cannot wait to become an adult. This is often because children consider adults to have all the power and important responsibilities. But when are they truly an adult? Some would say the age of eighteen is when a person should be considered an adult but this is a common misconception that people have just assumed and gone along with for the past one hundred years. Who decided that a unreasoned number such as eighteen or twenty-one would be the age at which society says everyone should be on the same level for the rest of their lives? “And what are these regulations that define someone as an adult, is it the ability to drive a car unsupervised, the ability to hold intimate relations, the ability to cast a vote, serve in the military, buy alcohol”? (Melissa). No one has easy answers to these questions. This argument is to make people aware and understand that you do not have to be ready to become an adult the day you turn eighteen or twenty-one. Through scientific and psychological research it has been proven that teenagers should not be pressured into adulthood as soon as they are in today’s society. No superficial age should represent whether or not a person is an adult, instead a person should be able to decide on his or her own when they feel like an adult through their own self maturity level and life experiences. 

If you asked one hundred random people what age should define a human as an adult, I guarantee you that at least seventy five percent of those people would say either eighteen or twenty one; but why are these ages the ones that we have been accustomed to for so long? Most would argue those superficial ages because that is when a person is given more responsibilities than what they are use to having. Thousands of years ago “at just age 16 years old, Alexander the Great was busy conquering Maedi, when they dared revolt against Macedonia; also at 16, a peasant girl by the name of Jeanne d’Arc was taking her first steps into historical prominence by having the gall to approach a garrison commander to tell him how to do his job”; however in today’s society a sixteen year old is thought of as immature and still a child in many situations (Melissa). In the United States is has become a common custom that when a teen reaches the age of eighteen they go buy tobacco products or buy a lottery ticket because their new age entitles them to do so. The history of the unjustified age of adulthood beginning at age eighteen started in the early 1900s when people children were in their twelfth year of school and many students would turn eighteen before they graduated or as they went off to college or a university. Many parents at the time believed a child needed to feel responsible before going away to school so eighteen just became that assumed age. It was not until the passing of the 26th amendment that actually gave the age of eighteen any justification. In 1971 “Congress lowered the voting age to 18 as a response to debate amongst the Vietnam War”, Americans were angered at the fact that their sons could be drafted into the military but did not have the right to vote on the matters causing war (Lai). Keeping the age of majority higher at twenty-one didn’t make sense if “lawmakers were going to allow young people to vote at eighteen, so states began using eighteen as the new measure for legal adulthood”, which is still very arbitrary (Lai). And the debate remained arbitrary until the twentieth century, as scientists were able to perform research and prove that the age of eighteen is in no means a reasonable age of adulthood. 

Instead of allowing society to outline a human as an adult based on rules set sometime in history, a human being should be allowed to choose at what point in their own life they feel as if they have entered adulthood through their own psychological readiness. Nevertheless, I do understand there needs to be some number that generally fits everyone to serve for communal law purposes, but the numbers representing someone as an adult should be demolished entirely. On the scientific aspect of it, “neuroscience tells us that the brain is not fully matured until a person is 25, and for many, this means that a person cannot be labeled as a mature functioning adult until this age”, now this doesn’t mean a twenty five year old cannot be considered an adult (Vananzo). It just provides more proof that everyone matures at different points in life and to suggest that one age should define everyone at the same maturity level is preposterous.  Further research has shown this maturing takes longer “especially in the prefrontal regions that are important for planning ahead, anticipating the future consequences of one’s decisions, controlling impulses, and comparing risk and reward” which sounds like pretty important aspects to making adult-like decisions (Slotnik). Too often I have heard that teenagers specifically are not able to make important life decisions because they aren’t mature enough. Yet these teenagers are “mature” enough to operate a vehicle at ninety miles per hour unsupervised, and are “mature” enough to decide what they should have tattooed on their bodies; however they aren’t yet mature enough to be entrusted with alcohol. Because for some reason in the United States the time between ages eighteen and twenty one is significant enough to allow the person to begin consuming alcohol, compared to countries in Europe where the legal drinking age is as low as sixteen. There is nothing wrong with allowing at age to make you feel as if you are granted more responsibilities and litigation but for it to be the same exact number for over a billion people living in the United States makes it seem more unreasonable. People, mostly teenagers, should be able to contemplate about their life so far and draw a conclusion as to if they feel ready and prepared enough to be considered an adult. Instead of allowing society’s guidelines to pressure them and obligate them to adulthood and simple moment of consideration and deliberating inside one’s mind should be all the justification someone needs. 

In conclusion, although there is no way to really alter or create any existing or future law regarding at what age a human should be considered an adult or fully matured, there are still things that can be done differently. Such as allowing children psychologist to raise the age of people they can treat to twenty-five. Since science has proven most people and their brains don’t finish maturing until at least their early twenties some children psychologists have brought up the idea of allowing their patients to still be covered by insurance and continue treatment after they have turned eighteen. With many children who attend sessions with psychologists are there for a reason and have become comfortable with this doctor, whom they have been seeing since a young age. And for insurance companies to tell patients they will no longer be covered to see their long-term doctor just because they have turned eighteen can cause serious psychological damage to those people. Nonetheless instead of creating an arbitrary age at which people must feel mature enough to take care of themselves and their own problems, why not allow humans to create their own justification for each individual case. The age at which someone becomes an adult is always going to be different for every person, so rather than pressuring the youth of America to grow up too quickly, allow them to grow into an adult they will enjoy being for the rest of their lives with patience and experience. 
