SOS2008 said:
I voted unsure in that I'm unsure what age should be considered "adulthood." Whatever the age is, I feel consistency would be nice—meaning as applied to both responsibility (e.g., draft) and privileges (e.g., drinking) as much as possible.
It seems to me that children matured faster in earlier days—in terms of responsibility for chores, often contributing to the household income, helping to rear younger siblings, etc. Furthermore, now children are living at home longer and/or returning home more frequently:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1264/is_n2_v20/ai_7643409
That's a really interesting perspective of "downward mobility" in your quoted source. While I lean toward the view that it's an indicator of immaturity, I also lean toward the view of just plain being spoiled by a lifestyle no young person could sustain on their own. Sure, a young professional can do better than their parents if their parents were not professionals, but if you grew up in a household with two working lawyers, and grew accustomed to the lifestyle of having such excesses in money always around and fairly few limits on spending, of course you're not going to be able to support yourself in that style of living when you first graduate yourself, even if you really do have more than enough to support yourself. So, that's part of what I'm trying to figure out, and part of the undecided view of mine...are these people living at home longer because they aren't pulling their weight and capable of supporting themselves, or is it because they just have expectations for a grander lifestyle than someone just starting out really can have, so continue to be spoiled by their parents until they save up more to live that lifestyle?
On the other hand, others have presented the perspective that getting people to vote at a younger age might improve their participation in voting by making their classes on politics and government more immediately relevant to them. I think this is an interesting perspective that has some appeal as well, though alternatively, if they have not yet developed independent, critical thinking skills at that age, do we risk that instead of their parents influencing them, their teachers will? In the US, teachers' unions are very politically influential, so would they be properly taught without being unduly influenced by their teachers' political views? I think this is why I lean toward an age when people are more independent, living on their own, so that they are practiced in making decisions for themselves rather than relying on others to tell them what to do.
No, I don't know
what age. Would just 19 be better than 18, or wait until 21? 21 seems as arbitrary as 18 to me. But, I also agree that all privileges and responsibilities of "adulthood" ought to be conferred at the same age, with the exception that out of necessity, the driving age remain reflective of the availability of alternative transportation (and in very rural areas, you'll have kids who have even earlier licenses to drive farm vehicles...but growing up on a farm, they'll have seen often enough the dangers of being careless).
I'm not really worried about the apathetic voters who don't bother going to the polls...I'd prefer that as long as they take no interest in being informed of the issues that they abstain from voting. I'm more concerned with those who simply parrot their parents' strong views, or whose parents drive them to the polls with them, and instead of making their own informed choices, just take their parents' word for it. Does it make much difference if it all evens out in the end? Maybe not. Maybe there's no point in changing things for that very reason, it won't really make a difference. But, how is the age of "maturity" determined in the first place? What was the reason for choosing 18? What's special about that age?
