I’ve been eighteen since last August and I refuse to believe that I am an adult. Once you turn eighteen, nothing much changes other than the fact that you can vote and handle your own medical records, which for me were not really perks because voting this year looked different with COVID-19 with so many individuals choosing to mail in ballots early and I don’t even like calling my doctor to set up appointments. 

There are still so many things you cannot legally do at age eighteen, so why is the legal age of adulthood eighteen? At eighteen, you still cannot rent a car, drink, smoke and even buy spray paint of all things. At age eighteen, yes I am capable of making my own decisions, but it seems that I am not allowed to because oftentimes I am still treated like a child. Because I can’t rent a car, I can’t go on trips with my friends without having my parents come along. Because I can’t drink or smoke, I feel like others are making choices for me when turning eighteen is supposed to be the year I should be able to make these choices? And because I can’t buy spray paint of all things…really…this is such a minor purchase, oftentimes not used for vandalism like many assume; so why do my parents need to be present for this purchase? 

Where is the line drawn? Am I still a child or an adult? Adults in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, I feel, treat eighteen year olds as children, because they are still very young, that is until those same adults can benefit from an eighteen year old being an adult, that they see eighteen year olds as adults and even then some still sometimes don’t treat eighteen year olds as adults. 

I know that many eighteen year olds still “act young”, I get it. But, there are some of us who are ready to take on all the world has to offer. Let us grow up. Let us make our own mistakes. Let us learn from these mistakes. And, stop calling us children.