Parable Of The Sower

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Adulthood: When is the Turning Point?

A fourteen year old male was brought into a court hearing for killing a young man in a drive by shooting. The hearing is not to decide the criminals' punishment; it is to decide whether he should be tried as an adult or as a juvenile. How does the judge rule if he is an adult? Actually, how does anyone classify an adult?

Adulthood is yet another concept that can be defined in many different ways. The idea of adulthood can be viewed as universal, but its form and content are specific to each particular culture or country. It is a broad and complex abstraction and no one is expected to fully comprehend it, but can the ideas of one country be better than the ideas of another? According to Kok and Myburgh, South African writers, the following aspects of adulthood exist: a sense of responsibility, financial or material values, social obligations, family obligations, labor orientation, environmental responsibility, and acceptance of accountability, self-concept, time orientation, civil responsibilities, and a sense of religion (Kok).

The passage from a teenager to adulthood is one of the most complicated and confusing processes an adolescent can experience. It can be especially confusing since the teenager is not totally aware what it means to be an adult. Many associate adulthood with the period of time in your life after your physical growth has stopped and you are fully developed or the state of a person who has attained maturity or puberty. Others may disagree and say that a person's age or size does not matter. That age only matters to a certain point. Once a child is out of the age of innocence, and knows the difference between right and wrong, he or she gets a chance to be responsible, and make a decision that is either right or wrong. Some may even say it is when you turn eighteen or others will say it is when you get your driver's license. Then again, you can say being an adult means achieving a separate identity, being able to support yourself and your family financially, and being able to provide a house or a place to call home.

One of the concepts of adulthood mentioned before was labor orientation. The Workplace Code Provision states: "No person will be employed at an age younger than 15 (or 14 where the law of the country of manufacture allows)" (Child Labor).

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