Teen Times: It's funny when you wake up and suddenly you're full of entitlements. It makes you think that something magical must have happened overnight to transform your entire constitution from illegal beer drinker to fully-fledged citizen with the power to elect people to run the country on your behalf, writes Kate Ferguson.
Considering it was such a colossal change in question, it's a pity I slept through it. Turning 18 was as anti-climactic as any birthday in the sense that I woke up feeling exactly as old and mature as I did the night before, which in both cases was not very.
What is "being 18" for the average 17-year-old? Is it any more than having legal ID, and being allowed to do the things you've been doing for years but that suddenly don't seem as fun now the thrill of being illegal has passed? Certainly one loses the vague feeling of there being a different world ahead of you. When you turn 18, you realise that overnight you have become a citizen responsible for self. For the first time, you are the sole person accountable for your actions; gone is the juvenile court system, the "hold the parent/guardian responsible" excuse.
I have heard many people my own age saying that half the fun of a night out will disappear as soon as they're 18 and actually allowed into the club. For whatever reason, we love to get away with things before we've reached this age of responsibility. And it's true that in terms of breaking the law, it's easiest and has the least consequences when you're under 18. It's easy to commit a "crime" when all you have to do is wait a few months to "reoffend", and find you're not committing a crime at all.
It's not all about doing stuff you're not meant to though. I've yet to meet somebody that has dressed up in their best attire and faked documents to try and vote illegally. Granted, it may be the tough-looking community workers who you can't dodge by or fool into thinking you're on the electoral register that puts youngsters off. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it's just because we don't have that same drive for voting that we have for getting drunk and dancing all night.
The biggest change for me on becoming an "adult" (I am scared by the word even as I type it, for the first time, as a description of my own status) was the acquisition of huge material wealth. People are so damn generous.
Only a week ago, I faced daily battles with a cast-down Windows 98 computer that crashed as often as it lost my work. I now type on my very own Windows XP laptop, which I have hooked up to my new iPod mini, which I listen to while driving to school in my new Ferrari. (Okay, the last part was a lie; I actually listen to it on the 14A.) Forgive me for getting carried away though. I feel like I've stepped from the set of pre-Pimp My Ride girl to Rich Girls in full swing.
Let me point out that I do not come from your typical "south Co Dublin" household. In fact, we don't even have a dishwasher. My dad's car has an "89 D" registration, and his previous one was from the "pre-reg" days when plates were full of Zs and Xs (at least it seemed so to me). We shop almost exclusively in Lidl and the closest I get to Brown Thomas is wearing the black ribbon you get free with the gift-wrap in my hair.
No, the 18th birthday has simply become a day of extremely generous gifts regardless, it seems, of socio-economic background. And hey, I'm not complaining, but I do have an uneasy feeling that it may be an offering of compensation for the adult life ahead and the loss of that "someone else who will fix it" I've enjoyed for the past 18 years.
So what's the most important thing at 18? For most of us at school, it's sorting out our future. What do we want to do with ourselves? And once we know that, it's all about achieving it. Eighteen - it's all about the now and the later. The "then" has been left behind with the tampered Usit card.
Kate Ferguson is in sixth year at Wesley College, Dublin
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