Thursday, November 4, 2010
Teens in America
So our society is considered a discontinuous culture. Our entire life we are told not to do certain things and then at certain ages we can suddenly do it. Can't drive till 16, vote till 18, drink till 21 etc. This makes it very difficult to grow up as a teen. There are so many mixed signals we hear as we grow up. Now the whole system cannot be changed but some of it definitely needs to be. We are too large a country to have the same systems as Samoa. We do need a driving age but we can lower the permit age so teens have more time between not driving and driving. And taking the pressure of having to drive also needs to happen. If a kid isn't ready, a kid isn't ready. Simple as that. I do not and will not ever understand why the drinking age is at what it is currently at. Twenty-one years old is a random number that is to high and does little good. Sure it helps keep alcohol out of high school, barely, which is a good thing. But kids that actually wait till their 21 are at an extreme risk of danger. It becomes a shock to their system and they act irresponsibly and can be seriously harmed. The drinking age needs to be lowered and applied similarly to Germany's law. Where if you act the age and can be responsible, you can drink. I can't believe our government would trust me to drive a 6 million dollar tank in the army, but not to drink a beer, not that i would ever do that before I am 21. It is the law.
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I agree that we get a lot of mixed signals throughout our teenage years. Society is trying to pick perfect ages for us to gain more responsibilty but those arent always right and dont always coincide with waht we're ready adn able to do. We could easily vote at 16 or drink at 18.
ReplyDelete:-) Obviously, it's the law...I think it is correct to assume that much of this won't change but maybe we can change a few things gradually. For example, the author Stephanie Coontz who we read for class talks about how alcohol and sex are two things that adults are allowed to do, but teens are not. So if teens feel like they want to prove that they are adult, they can try to do those activities. Well, if the alcohol laws were more stratified it might make alcohol seem like less of an adult thing and so less teens would use alcohol to prove something. Some researchers suggest that alcohol be allowed for consumption when teens are with their parents, or in established restaurants where food is served more than alcohol or perhaps like a driving permit, there could be a drinking permit which allows teens of a certain age to drink alcohol if they are with another adult of say 21 or older. And the focus should be less on underage drinking and more on abusive drinking. Consuming more than 4 or 5 drinks at one sitting and binge drinking are really harmful to the individual and to society, but having a beer or 2 while you watch the Bears game seems to be less so.
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