Testing for Official Adulthood

Noddy 24- Besides the impracticality of it, a test of adulthood such as you propose might not be passed by folks until they are in their thirties!

Noddy --

These are, perhaps, not the sort of practical questions you asked for. But I don't think anyone ever found better words for summing up maturity than Rudyard Kipling. My father gave me a framed version of this poem when I was 12 years old. His father had given it to him. I will pass it on to my son one day. Male or female, the words fit beautifully.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

On the more practical side, I would ask this question:

How many times in a row can you pick up a dropped spoon and place it back in an 18-month-old's hand without screaming?

(Must answer 12 or more to pass.)

If you earned .50c a day, how much would you have at the end of the year?

This question should be follow by other question, not answers. c.i.

I would include the following multiple choice questions:
1. Why people should pay taxes?
2. What for do the law enforcement services exist?
3. Why is it necessary to abide laws?
4. Which undesired consequences may unprotected sex lead to?
5. Why is it prohibited to drive while being intoxicated?
6. Do you agree with the following: "Freedom of my fist ends where the freedom of the third party's face starts"?
7. Which of the following income sources are legal? (possible answers for choice: salary, theft allowance, extortion, business incomes, drug dealing, gambling).
8. What is the most important feature of the candidate in the presidential elections?
(choices: political program, personal reputation, personal charm, pleasant appearance, personal wealth, smooth talk, color of skin).
9. Are there any justifications for terrorism?
10. Is the USA: republic, constitutional monarchy, absolute monarchy, theocracy, dictatorial regime?

Love the Kipling poem, too. Hadn't seen that before.

Gorget the kids! Let's start testing the individuals who're calling themselves "adults" and are over age 21!

My question to them:

How can you safely drive an SUV, with 4 kids plus one large dog, when you're smoking a cig, drinking a Starbucks coffee, talking on a cell phone and powdering your nose ( if female )?

I'm not so sure that being able to answer the questions is a good enough measurement for reaching adulthood. I think I'd prefer to have the ones being tested develop the questions to be answered.

The questions are where the evidence will be found, not the answers.

Interesting answers, all.

Assuming that the Adult Certification Test is compiled and adapted....what about the "kids" who never pass and remain their parents' burdens and responsibilities?

I have a strong feeling that my first husband dabbled in marriage as a cure for his domestic distaste and ineptitude. I made sure that my sons--and my step sons--could cope with laundry, cook meals (not heat convenience food) clean house and manage all other domestic chores.

I encouraged them all to practice child care skills on other people's children.

They aren't perfect men, but most of them aren't helpless, either.

Maturity cannot be measured by any written, oral or practical tests. That's because maturity is not a matter of intelligence. There are plenty of PhDs who don't know how to change a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom and, apparently, have no idea that clothes are to be hung in a closet, not draped over the furniture.

But, more to the point, what rights and privileges would a certificate of maturity confer? You van't get a driver's license till you're certified mature? You can't but alcoholic beverages til such certification? You can't get married? Something inherently unfair in all of that. You don't even need to be literete to be a good, safe and responsible motor vehicle operator. Ability to drink intoxicants responsibly depends, in part, at least, on one's metabolism, a physical attribute.

I do agree, though, that the 16, 18 and 21 year old qualification ages are arbitrary in the extreme and essentially meaningless.

The examination could be done through observation alone, and the coveted title of "grownup" conferred when the candidate realizes:

1. drinking and drugs do not constitute a lifestyle.

2. "adult" films are actually for teenagers and people suffering from arrested development.

3. sensible diets and regular hours are not something to rebel against.

4. their parents are not total idiots.

5. fashions and slang which are "in" are more or less arbitrary and not important in the larger scheme of things.

6. they will not "drop dead" if seen in uncool places with uncool people.

7. some things are worth waiting for, working for, or fighting for.

8. not only can they not have it all, they shouldn't even want it.

9. civility is not oppressive, or shallow, or the product of a weak mind.

10. where they are going is more important than where they came from.

Of course, I wouldn't pass it myself, but being a grownup is overrated anyway....

Bravo, Greyfan! I agree with everything you say. Unfortunately, like yourself, I, too, would probably flunk the test on several counts.

We have child soldiers in Africa. You must be 18 to sign contracts in the US. Most children graduate from high school at 18. One can volunteer into the military at 18. One can vote at 18. There is no such thing as "Official Adulthood." There is legal age. Some young teenagers show more adult maturity than some in their early twenties. In order to define Official Adulthood, one must delineate what it comprises. Anybody at 18 years of age may be of legal age and marry, smoke, vote, voluteer into military service, drink, and sign contracts, but may be immature and irresponsible. c.i.

I'd be happy if kids caught on that Rights are earned rather than automatically grown into.

Also, Rights entail duties.

There's no such thing as a free lunch--unless you have over protective parents.

My favorite fatherly advice to a child adventuring into adulthood:

Hamlet Scene III

Lord Polonius sending off his son Laertes:

Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

Unfortunately, Jugbo, Polonious is the personification of "Do as I Say, Not As I Do" and an odious archtype.

well ... yea, if maybe it wasn't coming from Polonious and say Ward Clever to The Beav.

Ward Cleaver might be able to meet the sincerity requirement.