Azzara: Growing up right

When does the abstract shift from childhood to adulthood really begin? If I had to put a number… When does the abstract shift from childhood to adulthood really begin? If I had to put a number on it, I’d say it occurs at age 20, when a person is officially no longer a teenager and has no other choice but to be defined as a true adult.

Recently, I made my foray into adulthood: I turned 20. But the world was not yet ready for me to be an adult.

Don’t get me wrong. Despite a concerted effort to act more mature, no distinct change occurred in me. However, I began to see that my expectation of being immediately accepted into the adult world was somewhat misguided, especially when I realized for the first time how not being an adult affects the way a person treats you. I also began to notice the injustice of the fact that young people sometimes don’t get the respect they deserve from older people, simply because they are young.

Take, for example, going to a restaurant. Maybe you’ve never noticed the difference in the way you’re treated when you’re with adults and when you’re with a group of young friends. When I’m with my parents, the waiters are usually friendly and attentive. But when I’m with my friends, we’re victims of slipshod service and are often neglected.

Another situation arose the very same week that I turned 20, which further added to my suspicions.

A few days after my birthday, I received a call regarding a suspicious $400 that had been spent on my debit account without my knowledge. Little did I know that upon arriving at the bank to file a dispute, my newly adult self would be made to feel like more of a child than ever.

Instead of being treated with respect regarding my financial misfortune, I was made to feel I did something wrong. I was asked where I had used my debit card online — nowhere — to whom I had given my PIN — no one — and if I could recall spending $400 in another state the day before — no. I continued to defend against accusations that I had somehow brought this upon myself, until I was finally told that after an investigation that could last up to six months, I may or may not get my money back.

Later, no longer feeling like such an adult, I gave my mom a tearful phone call. I found out, of course, that when she was in the same position a few years earlier, she got her money back right away sans interrogation. The only difference between our situations: She is an “adult,” and I am a meek young person.

Perhaps I never would have realized the injustice of this situation if I hadn’t expected, however unreasonably, that society would accept me as an adult when I turned 20. But since I began paying attention to what’s going on between young people and adults, I now notice it everywhere.

Ah, but there must be a reason for this. Call it the fallacy of hasty generalization, I think it involves the mistaken assumption that the actions of a handful of young people represent us all. This might explain an incident that occurred at a recent football game, where I witnessed a young man being verbally abused by an older man for apparently standing on a stairway, looking for his seat.

Giving the older man the benefit of the doubt, I imagine he assumed the innocent student was just another unruly drunk kid wandering around the stadium. I believe this is comparably the same type of thing that prompted the G-20 Summit riots in Oakland and the subsequent spate of arrests.

Of course, can we really blame people for treating us like kids when so many of our peers do not display adult behavior? Let’s face it, we do tend to leave scanty tips at restaurants, be irresponsible with money, get out of hand at football games and become curious about Oakland riots, do we not? Perhaps the youth is as much at fault as are the adults.

So maybe turning 20 didn’t automatically turn me into a bonafide adult, but it did give me a new perspective on the relationship between young people and adults. You won’t be taken seriously as an adult unless you act like an adult. Conversely, it’s hard to act like an adult when people automatically make assumptions about your childishness. So, at the same time that I urge adults to start showing more respect for young people, I urge my fellow young people to stop giving adults reason to disrespect them, if for no other reason than when you’re actually ready to become an adult, you’ll be treated as such.

E-mail Katie at kna6@pitt.edu.