Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello I feel really angry about being treated like a child when I am now almost 20 years of age in April like not being listened to or understood like an adult, a lot of things like some jobs, renting or buying certain cars or other vehicles, cervical screening for women, young drivers no longer being allowed to drive at night time and also children's services being up to 25 when this is getting so stupid as I have read in the past about an article when a lot of people have said before that 25 would never be the new 18 in which I have always found true as we are all adults before we are 25 years of age. I feel like I need to talk to someone or a lot more people a lot about this as I want their opinion about this and what they think and I am hoping a lot of them would agree with me on it and also say that adolescence does not really end at age 25 like they keep saying online or anywhere else.
At 16 I thought I was an adult and knew it all, at 18 I realised I wasn't at 16, but thought I was, then at 20 I realised I wasn't at 18, but thought I was. Then at 25 I realised I wasn't at 20, but was most of the way there, but still didn;t know everything. Now in my early thirties I realise that a lot of it depends on how we define maturity.
Most people under 25 don't have a wealth of experience and real world knowledge to be able to view things totally objectively. That's not to say that all lack the required knowledge, but the majority won't.
Thinks like not being able to rent a car until 25 are from a business perspective common sense. Under 25s are considerably more likely to crash or otherwise damage vehicles. People are considerably more likely to damage cars they don't own, combine the two together and the risk profile shows that it's not worth renting most cars to under 25s.
I can't think of any jobs that have a specific requirement of being over 25, but there are many that have required qualifications that take years to complete and so that would generally exclude younger people. It takes 5 years to get a medical degree, so at the earliest that means they are 23 before being let loose on patients, to me that makes sens, I don't want a doctor who's 18 and only got the job because he or she thinks they can do it.
Children's services being extended to 25 for children who have been care was actually done because of the needs of those people, what happened before was that at 18 they were effectively left to their own devices, cut off from their support network. That doesn't happen to most people, their family don't suddenly abandon them at 18 and so it was decided that it was better to extend certain provisions until age 25. That improved outcomes across the board for those children and young adults and was fundamentally a good thing.
I'm an adult, I own my own house (or half of it, the bank own the other half), I run my my own business and part run two others, there are times when I still feel like a child, out of my depth, yet I'll stand in front of the board of a FTSE 250 company, or present to the entire marketing department of a billion dollar multi-national and seem like the most confident person in the room. I've also learnt from past mistakes and experience, from seeing others make mistakes, it's given me greater knowledge to call upon than I ever could have at 16, 18, 20 or 25.
You can look at it as partially due to the Dunning-Kruger effect, with youth the person doesn't have the experience and skills to realise that they don't have the required experience and skills, not only that but the failure to realise they are lacking gives them extreme confidence. The So called "Arrogance of youth".
Well said Matt, I couldn’t agree more.
I did feel a bit of a sting though when you said most parents don’t abandon their kids when they get to 18 To be sure though, I didn’t ‘abandon’ him, he could still contact me and he was surrounded by friends and family, but I suppose it could be seen that way. Lol! Good job we didn’t see it that way