Lower the age of majority to 16?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

     Considering the recent social and cultural trends towards delaying the onset of adulthood, a proposal to reduce the age of majority is quite bizarre.

Treating people like children will not help the process. Give them occupations, good Christian upbringings, and basic rights, such as voting.

     Certainly, but giving legal rights to people who lack the maturity to make use of them responsibly seems backwards. This project needs to begin in society, with parents giving their children better upbringings with more autonomy.

We've already given an absurd amount of legal standing to people not mature enough for it. Why quibble about a few million?

[TJ in Oregon]

It should be whatever age children are allowed to remain on their parents' health insurance up to.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Considering the recent social and cultural trends towards delaying the onset of adulthood, a proposal to reduce the age of majority is quite bizarre.

Treating people like children will not help the process. Give them occupations, good Christian upbringings, and basic rights, such as voting.

     Certainly, but giving legal rights to people who lack the maturity to make use of them responsibly seems backwards. This project needs to begin in society, with parents giving their children better upbringings with more autonomy.

We've already given an absurd amount of legal standing to people not mature enough for it. Why quibble about a few million?

     My point is that thinking about this in terms of the legal cutoff age is a mistake; there existing an age of majority is a practical necessity, and the exact number is an uninteresting question. 18-year olds in the United States today should be more mature than they are, but fiddling with the laws isn't going to make this happen.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

     Considering the recent social and cultural trends towards delaying the onset of adulthood, a proposal to reduce the age of majority is quite bizarre.

Treating people like children will not help the process. Give them occupations, good Christian upbringings, and basic rights, such as voting.

     Certainly, but giving legal rights to people who lack the maturity to make use of them responsibly seems backwards. This project needs to begin in society, with parents giving their children better upbringings with more autonomy.

We've already given an absurd amount of legal standing to people not mature enough for it. Why quibble about a few million?

     My point is that thinking about this in terms of the legal cutoff age is a mistake; there existing an age of majority is a practical necessity, and the exact number is an uninteresting question. 18-year olds in the United States today should be more mature than they are, but fiddling with the laws isn't going to make this happen.

.

If the independent variable is their life experiences and how they are treated, construct a social apparatus--including, but not limited to, the law--that sees them treated and functioning as adults sooner.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Considering the recent social and cultural trends towards delaying the onset of adulthood, a proposal to reduce the age of majority is quite bizarre.

Treating people like children will not help the process. Give them occupations, good Christian upbringings, and basic rights, such as voting.

     Certainly, but giving legal rights to people who lack the maturity to make use of them responsibly seems backwards. This project needs to begin in society, with parents giving their children better upbringings with more autonomy.

We've already given an absurd amount of legal standing to people not mature enough for it. Why quibble about a few million?

     My point is that thinking about this in terms of the legal cutoff age is a mistake; there existing an age of majority is a practical necessity, and the exact number is an uninteresting question. 18-year olds in the United States today should be more mature than they are, but fiddling with the laws isn't going to make this happen.

.

If the independent variable is their life experiences and how they are treated, construct a social apparatus--including, but not limited to, the law--that sees them treated and functioning as adults sooner.

     Sure, we should construct a social apparatus to create more mature and autonomous young adults. Part of that apparatus, however, would have to hinge on changing how they are treated by adults. When children go to college having been conditioned to be totally dependent on their parents and with little to nothing in terms of real world skills, this is a problem that goes well beyond the law. If we change the age of majority to 16, do we expect parents to suddenly change how they raise their children when they hit 16 and treat them as if they were adults? I am dubious of that.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I would say at the very least that the states should be allowed to lower the voting age if they so desire.  The states have a nice long history of deciding what people they want voting and not voting, and that is still the case today.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

     Considering the recent social and cultural trends towards delaying the onset of adulthood, a proposal to reduce the age of majority is quite bizarre.

Treating people like children will not help the process. Give them occupations, good Christian upbringings, and basic rights, such as voting.

     Certainly, but giving legal rights to people who lack the maturity to make use of them responsibly seems backwards. This project needs to begin in society, with parents giving their children better upbringings with more autonomy.

We've already given an absurd amount of legal standing to people not mature enough for it. Why quibble about a few million?

     My point is that thinking about this in terms of the legal cutoff age is a mistake; there existing an age of majority is a practical necessity, and the exact number is an uninteresting question. 18-year olds in the United States today should be more mature than they are, but fiddling with the laws isn't going to make this happen.

.

If the independent variable is their life experiences and how they are treated, construct a social apparatus--including, but not limited to, the law--that sees them treated and functioning as adults sooner.

     Sure, we should construct a social apparatus to create more mature and autonomous young adults. Part of that apparatus, however, would have to hinge on changing how they are treated by adults. When children go to college having been conditioned to be totally dependent on their parents and with little to nothing in terms of real world skills, this is a problem that goes well beyond the law. If we change the age of majority to 16, do we expect parents to suddenly change how they raise their children when they hit 16 and treat them as if they were adults? I am dubious of that.

Make no mistake, my view on this involves systemic adjustments, but we've got to start somewhere. 

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Considering the recent social and cultural trends towards delaying the onset of adulthood, a proposal to reduce the age of majority is quite bizarre.

Treating people like children will not help the process. Give them occupations, good Christian upbringings, and basic rights, such as voting.

     Certainly, but giving legal rights to people who lack the maturity to make use of them responsibly seems backwards. This project needs to begin in society, with parents giving their children better upbringings with more autonomy.

We've already given an absurd amount of legal standing to people not mature enough for it. Why quibble about a few million?

     My point is that thinking about this in terms of the legal cutoff age is a mistake; there existing an age of majority is a practical necessity, and the exact number is an uninteresting question. 18-year olds in the United States today should be more mature than they are, but fiddling with the laws isn't going to make this happen.

.

If the independent variable is their life experiences and how they are treated, construct a social apparatus--including, but not limited to, the law--that sees them treated and functioning as adults sooner.

     Sure, we should construct a social apparatus to create more mature and autonomous young adults. Part of that apparatus, however, would have to hinge on changing how they are treated by adults. When children go to college having been conditioned to be totally dependent on their parents and with little to nothing in terms of real world skills, this is a problem that goes well beyond the law. If we change the age of majority to 16, do we expect parents to suddenly change how they raise their children when they hit 16 and treat them as if they were adults? I am dubious of that.

Make no mistake, my view on this involves systemic adjustments, but we've got to start somewhere. 

     I agree, and this is definitely the easiest lever to pull. At the same time, it may be the least effective lever to pull, both in terms of reaching the goal and avoiding resulting problems.

[GGover]

Absolutely not, it should be raised to 21.

[Devout Centrist]

At no point in history have people under 18/21 been as restricted as they are now. It could be argued that black female lesbian 17-year-olds had more freedom in the 1950s than white male straight 17-year-olds do today. There's going to be a point at which people under 18/21 are going to say, "enough!"

How out of touch and mentally inept do you have to be to believe this?

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

I certainly hate that we have (as a society) been delaying marriage and having kids to later and later in life.  No one should reach their late 20s and still not be settled down with kids.  I think our mainstream pop culture and TV shows glorifying the 30 year-old single lifestyle has to be at least partially to blame.  At the rate our society has moved to delaying adulthood, the concept of a grandparent will be a thing of the past soon enough.  I'm fortunate enough to have known all four of my grandparents into adulthood (and three of them are still with us), but I wonder how many more generations will be able to say that.

It's also interesting to me how teenagers today seem to be very docile and timid. No longer do they argue with their parents, no longer do they dress in ways that piss off their parents, no longer do they stay out late, no longer do they throw house parties, no longer do they have sex, etc.

The GI generation had a lot of these traits. The 1940 census showed the largest per capita share of multi-generational hosueholds ever recorded:



Source.

I wonder if the lingering effects of the Depression, and the fact that it was still not considered acceptable for unmarried women to live alone had to do with it.

Ex. A young woman isn't married because the available men are often out of work (or, soon, off to war). But she can't move out and live by herself, even if she can afford it, because that would be scandalous. So she continues living with her parents.

[Sirius_]

They aren't mentally ready. I vote NAY on the motion to proceed.

And yet people who are 18 but not mentally ready are adults?
The problem is that we set adulthood for everyone at a single age, but different people mature at different rates. It's time for us to move past these arbitrary lines and find a better system.

[Lord Wreath]

They aren't mentally ready. I vote NAY on the motion to proceed.

And yet people who are 18 but not mentally ready are adults?
The problem is that we set adulthood for everyone at a single age, but different people mature at different rates. It's time for us to move past these arbitrary lines and find a better system.

Like what? It's easy to argue against a 'one-size fits all' solution in theory, its much harder to implement in reality. What would you replace it with? Tests? Administered by whom? Is it vulnerable to corruption or exclusion based things like political preference? If so, isn't that a road to disaster and division? Just too difficult and impractical IMO.

I think the voting age is fine the way it is. Of course, we should be encouraging young adults to be more responsible, but I think that so much of that is cultural and to do with the fact that our generation (Millennials - Zs) has had it pretty easy in terms of life's comforts.

My main gripe is the inconsistency. So someone's old enough to go to war, yet not old enough to drink? Laughable.

[Dr. MB]

Yes. I think the voting age should be lowered to 16. Also, do away with youth curfew laws.

[JonHawk]

I think it should be lowered to 15.. at least in Europe. Not sure if American youth are as mature as the Europeans.

[Lechasseur]

     Considering the recent social and cultural trends towards delaying the onset of adulthood, a proposal to reduce the age of majority is quite bizarre.

This. If anything I think it should go back to 21.

[darklordoftech]

     Considering the recent social and cultural trends towards delaying the onset of adulthood, a proposal to reduce the age of majority is quite bizarre.

This. If anything I think it should go back to 21.

Wouldn't that shrink the military?