Age Of Responsibility Alan Greenblatt

Age of Responsibility

The age of responsibility is a time when adolescents become an adult and are put on with the responsibilities that they will have for the rest of your life. In the article “Age of Responsibility” by Alan Greenblatt they question what age is considered the age of responsibility? There is no set age that is considered the age of responsibility because everyone develops differently and at different times so there is no set age.

The age of responsibility should not be an age such as 18, 16 or 21 because everybody is different and matures at different ages. One’s true responsibility should be when they are at an age where they are fully developed in the brain and mature enough to make their own decisions without an adult. It needs to be a time where they can handle the rights that they are given in adulthood and use them wisely and maturely. Young people have been relying on their parents for their whole lives and some when they leave the house cannot make the right

choices because their parents are not going to be with them. “....Every person is different and develops at his own pace…” (Greenblatt 28). An age for the whole country to be considered responsible is way too hard to be set on just one age. As Greenblatt says people are all at different paces for maturing and so one person may be fully developed and mature at 18 and others 21 and so their really cannot be one set birthday.
When lawmakers try to think what the age of responsibility should be set as, they are not really thinking of how mature a person is but rather how developed their brain is.

The age of responsibility could not make sense at 18 because of all the rights and responsibilities that are given at age 18 such as financial decisions and college and moving out of the house, but their are still so many things that 18 year olds cannot do such as they still can't rent cars or drink alcohol. “...lowering the legal limit to 18 would only be pushing the drinking problem down to 16-17 year old.” (Wagenaar 17). According to Alexander Wagenaar in Greenblatt’s article lowering the age down to 18 would make drinking a big problem for younger teenagers that are 16 and 17. This could make an even bigger problem in high school because people may say that they are close to the age and they may feel more responsible even though they are not. Therefore, it would not make sense to have 18 be the legal

age.
Though the one true age of responsibility is when somebody has matured, neuroscientist have figured out some new research. “What they have found is that in most people the brain is not truly formed until the age of 25” (Greenblatt 6). This means that the way people make very important decisions is not fully matured until around the age of 25 for most people. Others may argue that there is a set age and it is 21 because that is the age in which you can drink. That does not make sense because I have known people that were 23 and they could drink alcohol, but they were very irresponsible and did not make the right choices because their brain was not fully developed. This proves that 21 could also not be the set age for responsibility because not everything is fully developed and mature as a 21 year old.
All in all there can still not be one age or one birthday that can determine for the whole country to be set on because everybody is different and no two people mature at the same exact time as scientist used to think. Therefore, the age is still undecided and should be up to the specific person and their own personnel decisions and responsibilities.