THE RITE OF PASSAGE | NYT AND HOLDEN

Michael Thompson’s “Mandatory Service To Become An Adult” is mostly correct when it suggests enforcement of community service to serve as a ‘rite of passage’ for adolescents to transition into adulthood, but it ignores the existent pressure for teens to perform similar activities and beyond to thrive in today’s competitive environment. Thompson is certainly correct when he says, “it is futile to attempt to pin down the ‘right’ age of majority”, because just like growth levels, ‘maturity levels’ are different for all individuals. His reasoning to mandate community service for eighteen-year-olds is valid because activities such as, “military” or “community-based projects like tutoring younger children or working in retirement homes or the inner city” do allow adolescents living in a technologically encroached world to sympathize for and give back to others. While his recommended solution to nurse teenagers mature is understandable, Thompson ignores the existing societal pressure on teens to excel in school, ‘polish their resumé’, attend prestigious and often very selective colleges, and then ultimately live affluent. Thompson stereotypes all teens as “relatively immature for their ages in comparison to earlier generations” and “less able to build friendships and function in groups, and more reliant on their parent”. He reasons the over-protectiveness of parents and the influence of growing technology to be the cause for the lack of ‘maturity’ and ‘social skills’. Here, Thompson neglects the context of the situation: the need for digital literacy in today’s world, and the influence of technology on today's teens, the first digital natives. Thompson expects teens to behave like “earlier generations” or generations that not only did not grow up with technology at their disposal, but also did not have to live and compete in a competitive global or even cosmopolitan environment. Hence, while Thompson’s suggestion to mandate community service to all teens is excellent as it will serve as an amazing ‘rite of passage’ for teens, it should also be acknowledged as times change, the definition of ‘maturity’ also changes.

Read the original New York Times piece here: Mandatory Service To Become An Adult