One aspect of a culture is how they consider children to grow and turn into adults. What milestones must a young person pass to take their place among the grown-ups? Which things are reserved to adults and forbidden to children (and conversely, which things would be considered strictly for children and silly or shameful for an adult to do)? What are the intermediate steps?
It used to be that certain articles of clothing were a rite of passage. Small boys wore dresses just like small girls (presumably to facilitate diapers and toilet training) and when a boy got to put on breeches, he was one step toward adulthood. In repressive societies, it is older girls and women who must cover their hair and quite a lot else, tinies are not considered a problem. Good thing, because they would never leave things in place anyway.
Western societies today put adulthood at 18 or 21 or some similar age, well past the upheavals of puberty. Below that age, a person cannot enter into a contract, get married, or serve in the military without parental consent. A driver’s license can happen earlier. Alcohol is treated much less consistently. French kids could have a little wine, or German ones a little beer, without the adults freaking out. On the other hand, we have a certain political party that wants to lower the age of consent and marriage in this country.
A Jewish youngster is “adult” in a liturgical sense around puberty, and celebrates a Bar or Bat Mitzvah by reading the Torah in the synagogue. In former centuries, the girls might have been considered ready for marriage at that age too, but mostly the boys were supposed to have jobs to be able to support a wife before they could marry.
Is financial responsibility a requirement of adulthood? Not in America. But living in your mom’s basement makes you the butt of many bad jokes. Can young people participate in government? Business? Depends on the state and how butt-hurt Republicans are about young voters protesting them.
Does the dominant religion/philosophy impose requirements or oversee rites of passage? Some Native American cultures had young people go on vision quests, for instance.
Write a scene involving underage characters navigating their culture’s strictures on their age group.
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