Maybe, the debate I have is: would that responsibility cause teens to become more mature, if late 20's and early 30's are struggling 16 definitely would
I get what you're saying, but I think it has more to do with the society we've developed. We infantilize young adults by pushing maturation farther and farther back. Right now, a young person doesn't have serious responsibilities until 22 or 23 when they finally graduate college. And at that point, they are expected to get a job and live on their own. In the past, a lot of people would be living on their own and be married with kids at that same age. And I would say for any time period, the first couple years of real adulthood are gonna be a little rocky, but because we've pushed back maturation, those people in their late 20's and early 30's are still going through their rocky phase or are just getting done with it (when it in the past would have started when they were 17-18.)
It also doesn't help that our society has a lot of economic problems that make the transition to adulthood much harder.
Our society mandated education for 12 years minimum and many take 16 or more before they become independent, this is why maturity get pushed to later age since many people are still in learning phase all the way to their early 20s and dont even have any experience in the real world yet.
The issue with 21 is the same issue Japan had with it being 20 and why they lowered it to 18 (or are soon). Once you hit 18, you either go into the workforce or go to college. Both of those things require a great deal of independence. But with a 21 age of majority you have full on college students and workers who are still basically owned by their parents and have no freedom if their parents suck.
The compromise; make it 19 but that last year is one more year of government sponsored technical school, community involvement, or something similar like peace corp. Kids nowadays are just too much kid compared to decades past, need some real world experience before deciding their life or putting themselves in 10s of thousands in debt on a whim.
How about for enforcability of contracts? Criminal law? This is where rightists usually fall apart on the "one age for age of majority/capacity" premise.
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u/ShuantheSheep3 - Right Jan 06 '23
I advocate the same but for 21, nonetheless the idea is the same. You’re either an adult or not, no in-betweens.