I always found it interesting that you could vote and serve in the military at 18, but that you could not drink until you were 21.  That never made sense to me.  Why should you be “responsible” enough to fight in wars, but not responsible enough to drink.  So, I decided to do some research and find out more about some age related laws.  What I found surprised me.  

There are lots of age related laws.  Consider this: 

16 is the age of “consent” in many states 

17 old enough to be drafted or volunteer for the US armed forces with parental consent 

18 is the age you can vote in the US and many other countries 

21 is the age that you can drink in the US (many other countries have earliear drinking ages) 

25 is the age that you can become a U.S. Representative 

30 is the age you can become a U.S. Senator 

35 is the age that you can become President of the U.S. 

Of course there are more age related laws regarding driving cars, piloting airplanes, getting social security retirement benefits, and upper limits on enlisting in the arme services. 

At age 16, you are considered old enough in many states to have sex and therefore have a child, but you are not responsible enough to drink.  It seems to me that if anything, these ages should be reversed.  It seems that having a child should require you to be considerably older.  Also, if we are trying to protect people until they are 21 from alcohol, shouldn’t we do the same for sex? 

The question that this list of ages presents is, “At what age do you really become an adult?”  It seems to me that your rights should converge on that age.  I think that the drinking, military service (with or without parental consent), voting age, and age of consent should all be at least 18.  What do you think?  (Leave a comment below) 

 

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