Law versus Reality

[Boojatta]

In every person's life, are there two consecutive days such that on the earlier day the person:

1 a) lacks the capacity to earn a living; and
1 b) lacks the capacity to make wise or responsible decisions or at least the capacity to take personal responsibility for making unwise or irresponsible decisions; and
1 c) should not be given legal status as an adult

... and such that, on the next day, the person:

2 a) has the capacity to earn a living; and
2 b) has the capacity to take responsibility for making decisions; and
2 c) should be given legal status as an adult?

If there are in fact two such days in each person's life, then who has the ability to recognize, in advance, when those days will be?

Consider an analogy: 2:00 PM is not a one-hour period of time during which a student may attend a class; 2:00 PM is a moment in time. Perhaps the law should be modified to recognize a period of development that begins when a person is definitely not an adult and ends when a person has developed all capacities necessary for recognition under the law as a fully adult member of the community.

In other words, there would be no magic number age of adulthood. Instead, there would be a period of adult development. Adulthood would not be an escape achieved by a prisoner who has finished serving a sentence. Adulthood would be an achievement of a legally adequate set of milestones of development, each milestone indicated by something substantial. There would be no milestones for meaningless and arbitrary events, such as birthdays.

[Adsos Letter]

1. ...why are you making my head hurt...

...before I have finished my coffee? :D

[zonmoy]

2. good idea

now how do we implement such a plan.

[Boojatta]

3. Just you and me?

If we're the only two people who support it in principle, then we don't implement it.

[Boojatta]

4. Kick

[Demstud]

5. Wouldn't that be like voter intelligence testing?

You'd have a group of people deciding when other people get to be adults based on some kind of subjective testing/observation. Sounds like a very easy road to legalized discrimination to me.

[donco6]

6. That's how we approach it.

We have a school for those who have . . . "disappeared" from school before graduating. Our first job is to help them figure out a plan. Some of them are terribly immature and have no idea that they even need a plan. Others are finally awakening to the idea and are ready to start striking out in a direction that will get them somewhere. The problem is it's very labor-intensive and doesn't fit our current federal requirement to treat all kids like factory widgets. So we have to cut budgets for building upkeep and everything else so that we can provide services for these kids out of our regular funding. It's very frustrating.

[Boojatta]

7. Kick