In the same article, the authors offer more specifics: “Many of the most important and common rites of passage are connected with the biological crises, or milestones, of life—birth, maturity, reproduction, and death—that bring changes in social status and, therefore, in the social relations of the people concerned. Other rites of passage celebrate changes that are wholly cultural, such as initiation into societies composed of people with special interests—for example, fraternities.”
In Western culture, a good many of these rites have traditionally involved a religious ceremony. For centuries, for example, a baby was baptized, adolescents received first communion and confirmation, a man and a woman married in a church, priests and religious brothers and sisters went through training and a ceremony confirming their new status, and the dying left this life with the last rites. In the Jewish faith, boys at about 13 years old underwent their bar mitzvah, a period of training in their faith followed by a ceremony that recognized their maturity and their ability to take part in religious services.
But what about today? Is there a ceremony or some sort of test which, in our more secular world, marks the transition from adolescence to adulthood?
Some Modern-Day Initiations
A rite of passage typically involves a journey from the familiar to the new, an expedition marked by education or some sort of ordeal or major event, and a transformation of the individual involved.Our society has a plentitude of such rites, although they rarely go by that name. A 16-year-old studies the rules of the road, passes a test, and earns her driver’s license, thereby acquiring the legal right to drive two tons of metal, plastic, and rubber at 70 miles per hour on the highway. A Scout wins his organization’s highest achievement, the rank of Eagle, with his feat usually celebrated by fanfare and a special ceremony. Society still regards high school graduation as a step into adulthood, with the graduate heading off to college or into the military or the workforce. Some Christian churches still bestow the sacraments on the young, again with a ceremony followed by festivities.
Yet something is missing from these and other steps into maturity. They’re awards of achievement, which is all well and good, but rarely do they carry an accompanying burden of responsibility taken seriously, which is surely one of the keys to adulthood.
Then and Now
Getting married, buying a first house, and having a baby: These events have traditionally signaled to others a major step into the world of the grownup.In the apt words of the Apostle Paul, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I understood like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.”
A wedding ring, a mortgage, and a tote bag holding disposable diapers are outward signs that childish ways—pizza for breakfast, dusk to dawn electronic games, road trips to the Keys for spring break—are now memories tucked away in an attic trunk.
The formula just doesn’t work. I have two good friends, for instance, ages 38 and 63, who have never owned a house, lived at some point as adults with their parents, never married, and never produced children, yet both qualify as grownups by any parameter. I’ve also known a 40-something man who was a husband, father, and homeowner but who struck many who knew him as juvenile.
The Trouble with That Idea
Here, we encounter at least two more problems, one having to do with the culture at large and the other with the individual young person we intend to cast overnight as a responsible adult.In the first instance, our culture has come to disdain rites and rituals of all kinds. Think of funerals, for example. For most of our country’s history, the burial of a relative or acquaintance was a formal affair. You engaged a mortician, bought a casket, possibly hosted a wake, had services conducted in a house of worship and at the graveside, and so interred the deceased with a ceremony.
Many still practice these rituals today, this final rite of passage but not everyone. Several people of my acquaintance have put their loved ones, usually cremated, into the earth with no ceremony whatsoever. “Here yesterday, gone today,” runs this casual leave-taking. Another woman has stored her husband’s ashes in a closet for years, with never an explanation as to why.
The Only Thing That Really Counts
And so a note to readers, young as spring or old as the hills: You’re only an adult when you think of yourself as one. It doesn’t matter where you live, what sort of work you do, whether you’ve tied the knot with another, or whether you have four children or none at all. You’re an adult when you think of yourself that way.As for you in your 20s, if you’re working and pulling your weight, if you’re paying for a car and remember to have the oil changed every six months, if you put aside Minecraft to shovel your elderly neighbor’s driveway, if you shoulder responsibility when you make mistakes, odds are that you’re an adult.
The Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius once wrote: “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”
Paraphrasing that adage, we might say: “Waste no more time arguing what an adult should be. Be one.”