The Suddenness of Youth

A person is legally a youth from the day he or she turns 18 up until the eve of their 36^th birthday. Youth is considered a golden era in one’s life. It is a time when the anatomy is fully functional (for the most part), perception of the environment is high, metabolism and energy levels are optimum, and the future looks bright. The only problem I have with youth is that it occurs too suddenly. It also wheezes by too fast and by the time one finds his way, more than half of the 17 years of youth are gone.

Transition from Childhood

A child is a person below the age of 18 years. This then means that only one second separates childhood from youth. It can be overwhelming for a newly minted youth to digest all that he or she has the freedom and power to do. Things that he would do and at worst get a spanking, can now land him in jail. Perhaps it is this suddenness of the onset of youth that causes this troubled age group to be riddled with seemingly insurmountable problems.

Sex

From a legal perspective, children are highly protected as far as sex is concerned. Such terms as defilement and statutory rape usually refer to sexual offences against children. Children cannot give consent to sex and that is why offenders are accused of statutory rape. Although illegal, increasingly more people are engaging in sex even before they attain the age of 18; when they are considered adults. A lot of children who have not yet engaged in sex look forward to the time when they will be 18 so that they can partake of that which everybody is so crazy about. They don’t realise how unprepared they are for the repercussions of sex outside marriage.

Alcohol

I have followed several stories of recovering alcoholics (both men and women) and they have one thing in common. They were all introduced to alcohol when they were children, some even below the age of 10. There is something about habits learned in childhood that makes them extremely hard to break later in life.

I became a teetotaller in an interesting way. When I was in my early 20s, my father said something memorable. He told me that I was free to indulge in alcohol if I wanted because I had come of age. He however added that if he were me, he would wait until he was 30 to start taking alcohol. I took his words to heart and decided to wait until I was 30. What I did not realise then was that by the time I hit this age, alcohol would have absolutely no appeal for me. To date, I have no taste for alcohol apart from the occasional glass or two of wine with my wife.

Warnings  have been put up in places where alcohol is sold and even on the bottles themselves. “Sale of Alcohol is prohibited to Persons under the Age of 18 years”. Many children, particularly those who have already started to experiment with alcohol, cannot wait to reach 18 so that they can buy alcohol freely. They forget that the law which gives them the right to buy and consume alcohol will not protect them from the painful aftermaths of their experience.

Marriage

If a girl aged 17 and a half years elopes with a man, her parents or guardians can mobilise the chief, sub-chief, and all the officers from an entire police station to rescue her. In six months time however, she can call her parents names from her boyfriend’s door step and there is nothing they can do to her. Such is the dramatic change a child’s status can undergo in just a few short months. Young people want to get married which in itself is not a bad thing. However, they want to do so for the wrong reasons. They merely want to exercise their newfound freedom. It is these young people who end up in terrible marriages but they can’t go back because of the bridges they burnt.

Voting

The first important decision that a young person is allowed to make is choosing leaders during elections. The youth form such a significant voting bloc that every aspiring political candidate tries all means to get a piece of it. These recently graduated children are like moulding clay in the hands of shrewd politicians. Their inability to relate bad policies with poor life standards in the country makes them unwitting tools of destruction of the same future that they are convinced belongs to them.

P.S. I have been wondering in my Layman’s mind if it is possible to have a transition period between childhood and youth. We can look at it as a probation of sorts during which all those who do not show maturity can be forced to go back to being children for a little while longer. And can those of us who felt conned out of our youth be allowed to go back briefly like on an exchange programme?