On 2006-03-08 06:12:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Question: Is he a child who is expected to make mistakes or is he an adult who should be able to make his own choices? You can't have it both ways. The aunts are right in that respect that certain things have never been answered here. Lets see if this question is swiped under the rug and not acknowledged."
Society has it both those ways all the time.
At somewhere between ten and sixteen, most people become biologically adult in the sense of being able to make babies. People ordinarily can't have their parental rights to their biological offspring signed away by their own parents no matter how young they are when they make a baby.
At 14, judges start ordinarily taking a person's request for which divorced parent he wants to live with.
At 16, someone can get a job without parents' permission, can usually get a drivers' license (although some states have changed some rules), can usually quit school without parents' permission, can frequently get an abortion without parental notification or consent.
At 17, someone can join the military *with* parental consent.
At 18, someone can join the military without parental consent, get a wider range of jobs with fewer restrictions, can legally make contracts, can move out and live wherever they want without parental consent, can marry without parental consent.
The age of sexual consent varies between sixteen and eighteen depending on the state.
In my home state, a girl as young as 14 can become an emancipated minor if she gets pregnant and gets parental consent to marry and marries. From that moment, she's emancipated under the law.
In California, especially, there are emancipation of minors issues that revolve around kids in show business that have the clear ability to support themselves and have Mommy or Daddy trying to live big on junior's money. Teenage actors or singers can and do get emancipated to get Mommy or Daddy's sticky fingers out of the kid's bank account.
At 21, someone can drink legally.
Adulthood has just about always been a gradual process of increasing rights and responsibilities, and increasing numbers of areas where the person becomes legally able to go against one or both parents' wishes.
And, of course, in the matter of crimes, whether an accused is tried and punished (if convicted) in the adult or juvenile justice system depends a whole lot on the details of the alleged offense.
For the justice system, a person isn't either absolutely a kid or absolutely an adult---it depends on what act or decision you're talking about and the particulars surrounding it.
Our society "has it both ways" all the time on how much of an adult a person is between the ages of 14 and 21.
Julie
