Background Room for Debate is a weekly feature of the New

York Times newspaper. Each week, the Times poses a question

to a group of knowledgeable outside contributors about a news
event or other timely issue. The contributors each bring different
perspectives to the question and often offer conflicting opinions.
Readers are invited to comment on the topic as well.

When Do Kids
Become Adults?
Arguments from Room for Debate in the New York Times

What the Brain Says about Maturity by Laurence Steinberg

Leave the Voting Age Alone by Jenny Diamond Cheng
Better Training for New Drivers by Jamie Lincoln Kitman
A Parents Role in the Path to Adulthood by Barbara Hofer
Mandatory Service to Become an Adult by Michael Thompson
SETTING A PURPOSE As you read, pay attention to the
points each writer makes about when and how children mature

Hadi Djunaedi/Shutterstock

into adults. Why do you think it is so hard to define when this

happens?

s it time to rethink the age of adulthood? Do the age

requirements for certain rights need to be lowered or raised?
Shouldnt they at least be consistent?

When Do Kids Become Adults?

235

What the Brain Says about Maturity

By Laurence Steinberg

20

30

neuroscientists: people who study the brain and nervous system.

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10

Neuroscientists1 now know that brain maturation continues

far later into development than had been believed previously.
Significant changes in brain anatomy and activity are still
taking place during young adulthood, especially in prefrontal
regions that are important for planning ahead, anticipating
the future consequences of ones decisions, controlling
impulses, and comparing risk and reward. Indeed, some brain
regions and systems do not reach full maturity until the early
or mid-20s. Should this new knowledge prompt us to rethink
where we draw legal boundaries between minors and adults?
Maybe, but its not as straightforward as it seems, for at
least two reasons. First, different brain regions and systems
mature along different timetables. There is no single age at
which the adolescent brain becomes an adult brain. Systems
responsible for logical reasoning mature by the time people
are 16, but those involved in self-regulation are still developing
in young adulthood. This is why 16-year-olds are just as
competent as adults when it comes to granting informed
medical consent, but still immature in ways that diminish
their criminal responsibility, as the Supreme Court has noted
in several recent cases. Using different ages for different legal
boundaries seems odd, but it would make neuroscientific
sense if we did it rationally.
Second, science has never had much of an influence on
these sorts of decisions. If it did, we wouldnt have ended up
with a society that permits teenagers to drive before they can
see R-rated movies on their own, or go to war before they
can buy beer. Surely the maturity required to operate a car
or face combat exceeds that required to handle sexy movies
or drinking. Age boundaries are drawn for mainly political
reasons, not scientific ones. Its unlikely that brain science will
have much of an impact on these thresholds, no matter what
the science says.

Leave the Voting Age Alone

By Jenny Diamond Cheng

40

50

60

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70

The 26th Amendment, ratified in 1971, establishes 18 as the

minimum voting age for both state and federal elections.
Like all lines that divide legal childhood from adulthood, the
voting age is essentially arbitrary. Indeed, in modern America
18-year-old voting has become unmoored from one of its
more important original justifications, which was matching
the minimum age for draft eligibility (itself also an arbitrary
line). Despite this, raising or lowering the voting age, as some
groups have suggested, seems a waste of time at best.
The American colonies mostly set their voting ages at21,
reflecting British common law.2 This requirement went largely
unchallenged until World War II, when several members
of Congress proposed amending the Constitution to lower
the age to 18. Between 1942 and 1970 federal legislators
introduced hundreds of such proposals, but the issue lacked
momentum until the late 1960s, when a confluence of
factorsincluding the escalating war in Vietnam3pushed
18-year-old voting closer to the surface of the national political
agenda. The 26th Amendment itself was the culmination
of some creative political maneuvering by Congressional
advocates, with a crucial assist from the Supreme Court in
Oregon v. Mitchell.4
As a historical matter, the significance of the soldier-voter
link has been somewhat overstated. The amendments passage
was propelled by a small group of federal legislators whose
motivations and rationales were considerably more complex
than commonly thought. Still, the Vietnam-era slogan, Old
enough to fight, old enough to vote, was unquestionably a
powerful claim, encompassing deeply embedded ideas about
civic virtue, adulthood and fairness.
Tying voting to soldiering was always problematic, though,
and it is even more so today. The contemporary U.S.military
is an all-volunteer force and only a small fractionof
Americans ever serve. Selective Service registration applies
only to males and the possibility of an actual draft is remote.
2
3

arbitrary
(rb-trr) adj.
If something is
arbitrary, it is
determined by
chance or whim.
unmoor
(n-mr) v. If you
unmoor something,
you release it from a
place.

confluence
(knfl-ns) n.
A confluence is a
gathering or joining
together in one place.

British common law: the laws of England.

Vietnam: a country in Southeast Asia where the United States fought a war in
the 1960s and 1970s.
Supreme Court in Oregon v. Mitchell: In this case, the Supreme Court decided
that the U.S. Congress could set qualification rules for national elections.
When Do Kids Become Adults?

237

egregious
(-grjs) adj.
If something is
egregious, it is very
bad or offensive.

Victor Correia/Shutterstock

80

Yet there is no life moment to which the voting age might

be more obviously tethered, and any bright-line rule will
inevitably seem unfair to some.
Interest in improving young adults political participation
would be better focused on attacking barriers like residency
requirements that exclude college students and voter ID
laws that disfavor young and mobile voters, sometimes
egregiously. Tennessees new law, for example, specifically
disallows students, but not university employees, from using
state university ID cards at the polls. More broadly, young
Americans suffer from the same challenges to meaningful
representation and governance that plague our democracy
atall levels. The voting age is the least of their problems.

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Better Training for New Drivers

By Jamie Lincoln Kitman

90

100

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110

120

Bright and early on the day I turned 17 you would have found
me at the front of the line at the local New Jersey D.M.V.
office, applying for a permit to drive. In due course, I got
my full license and it wasnt long before I got my first ticket
for speeding. And soon after that I got another for failing to
observe a stop sign. After which failure, Id turned without
signaling and then traveled 40 mph in a 25 mph zone, a points
cluster-bomb that resulted in the suspension of my license
until I enrolled in a driver-training course. Which, I might
add, like the driving instruction Id received in school, was
virtually useless.
Americans (with an assist from the automobile and oil
industries) tend to treat driving like a right, rather than the
privilege it most assuredly is. And now that Im grown and
Ilike to think a more responsible driver, two factors leave me
convinced that the driving age shouldnt be lowered, indeed
the right to drive should be doled out gradually to teens as it
has been in New York since 2010.
The first problem is the utter inadequacy of our driver
training. American states would do well to follow the example
of European countries where licensing procedures require
considerably more training and proven skill before new
drivers are let loose on public roads. The second decider
forme is the discovery by scientists that poor decisionmaking, the hallmark of many teenagers existence, has its
roots in biology.
So graduated licenses like we have in New Yorkwhere
young drivers cannot drive past nightfall or with more than
one unrelated person under the age of 21 in their carmake
good sense.
Is it the case that many teenagers can and will drive
responsibly, regardless the hour, number of young passengers
or brain chemistry? Yes. Is there any inconsistency in the fact
that a teen may work but not drive at night? Sure.
But, as every parent worth his or her salt 5 has reminded
their child at least a hundred times, Sometimes, life isnt fair.

inadequate
(n-d -kwt) adj.
If something is
inadequate, it is
insufficient or not
enough.

worth his or her salt: good at his or her job.

When Do Kids Become Adults?

239

A Parents Role in the Path to

Adulthood
By Barbara Hofer

140

150

Jeffrey Arnett: a doctor who studies emerging adulthood.

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diffuse
(d-fys) adj. If
something is diffuse,
it is very spread out
or scattered.

autonomous
(-tn-ms) adj.
If someone is
autonomous,
the person is
independent and not
controlled by outside
forces.
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130

The transition to adulthood can be either clear or diffuse,

depending on whether a culture chooses to offer all the
privileges and responsibilities at one distinct age or spread
them across time. In some countries, the ability to vote, drink,
enter into legal contracts and serve in the military all occur
at once. In the United States, these rights are not only spread
out, but often without clear rationale. Serving in the military
before one is considered responsible enough to purchase
alcohol is one of the glaring inconsistencies. Some cultures
also mark the transition formally, as in Japan, where Coming
of Age Day (Seijin Shiki) is a national holiday to celebrate all
who reached adulthood in the current year.
Becoming an adult is also a subjective experience, of
course, and there is little doubt from recent research that
individuals are taking longer to recognize themselves as
adults. The age of first marriage and birth of a first child,
often perceived by individuals as adult markers, are now
occurring later than at any time in history in the U.S. (and
greater numbers of individuals are also choosing to forge
lives without either of these traditional markers). With
increased numbers of individuals attending college and
with the tremendous rise in the cost of education and the
loans necessary for many, young people are also remaining
dependent on parents financially far longer, often leaving
them less likely to perceive themselves as adults.
Another psychological aspect of being an adult is feeling
autonomous, and individuals whose autonomy is supported
at any ageare more personally motivated. As a college
professor who studies adolescents and emerging adults, I am
particularly concerned that college students are not getting the
opportunities they need to grow into autonomous, healthily
connected adults when parents are still hyper-involved in
their lives. Emerging adultswhom Jeffrey Arnett6 defines
as individuals between 18 and 25need opportunities to
make their own choices, whether thats about their major,
what courses to take, their social lives or summer plans, and

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170

they need practice in making mistakes and recovering, and

in owning the outcomes of their choices. They dont arrive in
college fully formed as adults, but we hope they will use these
years to make significant progress toward adult behavior, with
all the support and safety nets that college can offer.
Yet my research with Abigail Sullivan Moore, reported in
our book, shows that many college students are in frequent
contact with their parentsnearly twice daily, on average
and that frequency of contact is related to lower autonomy.
Parents who are using technology (calls, Skype, texting,
e-mail, Facebook, etc.) to micromanage lives from afar may be
thwarting the timely passage to adulthood. Not surprisingly,
these college students are also not likely to see themselves as
adults, nor fully prepared to take the responsibilities of their
actions, nor even getting the benefits of college that they
and their parents are paying for. One in five students in our
study report parents are editing and proofing their papers,
for example. College parents can help with the transition by
serving as a sounding board rather than being directive, by
steering their college-age kids to campus resources for help,
byconsidering long-range goals rather than short-term ones
and by giving their kids space to grow up.

thwart
(thwrt) v. If you
thwart something,
you stop it from
happening.

Median age in the United States of men and women

when they were first married.
Age 30

Age 20

Age 10

Age 0

1950
MEN

1980

2010

WOMEN

When Do Kids Become Adults?

241

Mandatory Service to Become an

Adult
By Michael Thompson

190

200

COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSION With a small group, discuss two of

the questions posed at the beginning of the selection: Should the
age requirements for certain rights be lowered or raised? Should
these age requirements be consistent? Cite specific evidence from
the texts to support your ideas.

242 Collection 4

cohort
(k hrt) n. A cohort
is a group or band of
people.

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180

Children are so variable in their growth and the ways in

which cultures understand child development are so different,
it is futile to attempt to pin down the right age of majority.
The Dutch, for example, allow children to drink at the age
of 16 but not to drive until they are 19. Even if I thought
it was a good idea to lower the drinking age and raise the
driving ageand IdoI recognize that the U.S. would never
embraceit.
I am more concerned with the issue of maturity than I am
with the technical age of majority. Researchers and observers
have noted that while our children are getting brighter (I.Q.
scores have been going up for the last two decades), they are
relatively immature for their ages in comparison to earlier
generations. Over-protected by their parents and spending
vast amounts of time in front of TV, computers and cellphones
(over 50 hours a week by middle adolescence, according to the
Kaiser Family Foundation), they are less skilled in the world,
less able to build friendships and function in groups, and more
reliant on their parents.
Instead of fiddling with the age of majority, we should
encourage our children to grow up, and mandatory service
would do just that. We should require all 18-year-olds in
America to leave home and give a year to society, either in the
military or in community-based projects like tutoring younger
children or working in retirement homes or the inner city. The
result would be a cohort of more mature 19-year-olds who
would make better workers and better citizens.