It is obvious that my blog is about the drinking age, but I am going to begin these series of blogs about this subject by telling all of you fellow bloggers why this subject is so important to me. To begin, I am in college and I am eighteen years old; this is an important reason in itself. With my experiences in college so far, I have noticed that drinking is an activity that many college students take part in. It is a definite fact that not every college student drinks, but a lot of them do. Another reason why this topic is important to me is because my parents could drink when they were eighteen, and it is interesting to hear how their young adult life experiences were different because of that. Lastly, I find this topic to be important because of the question it brings up concerning age; specifically, what makes an adult? From this question stems many others such as if one can fight and die for their country why can one not have a beer in a bar? Also if eighteen is considered the age to be an adult why are eighteen year olds considered not responsible enough to drink?
These questions must give away my position on this subject, and my position is that I feel the drinking age should be lowered back to eighteen years old rather than twenty-one. Throughout the rest of my blog posts I will further explore the many routes of this subject, and provide in depth discussions to support my arguments.
These questions must give away my position on this subject, and my position is that I feel the drinking age should be lowered back to eighteen years old rather than twenty-one. Throughout the rest of my blog posts I will further explore the many routes of this subject, and provide in depth discussions to support my arguments.
Yea...what does make an adult? The answer varies in different cultures. Here in the United States, turning 18 is a big point in your life. However, my parents say that 18 is just a number, and it does not describe your personality. Some people may be extremely immature while others intellectual. It depends. Being an adult means being able to take care of yourself without help from others...being an independent individual. This does not mean that drinking must take place at the "adult" age. I feel that if restrictions are put on something, people will tend to want it do it more. Many under-aged teenagers have been drinking, and I don't expect this to stop soon...
ReplyDeleteATD,
ReplyDeleteYou make an excellent point when you mention the fact that eighteen is just a number and it does not determine if an individual person is mature or not. However, I feel that eighteen is considered a legal adult in the United States and unfortunately one must take the correct actions to grow up accordingly because the law on going to jail is not going to change any time soon. I also agree with your point that restrictions make tend to make people want to do the action more. I do not know if this trend goes in to physiological issues or if it just makes a person feel rebellious to break a law and get away with it. Lastly, I agree that teens are drinking a lot now and it most likely is only going to continue to get worse. That is why I think the government should do something about it like reduce the drinking age back to eighteen, but provide some mandatory education program to go along with it.
The drinking age is such a difficult subject to take a side on..
ReplyDeleteKeeping the drinking age at 21 is great because it gives young people more time to mature in life and be able to make good decisions on their own. It is just another step up to becoming an adult (even though 18 years is legally an adult.)
Most 18 year-olds don't act mature enough to be considered "adults." They're also likely to be in high school. Bringing the drinking age down to 18 creates more opportunity for those freshman-juniors to get their hands on alcohol and creates more under aged students to be pressured into drinking alcohol. Young high school students are more succetable to be peer pressured into drinking than young college students. And when people begin to drink earlier it creates bad habits and could potentially cause alcoholism and/or addiction. Not to mention the fact that alcohol is a gateway to many illegal substances.
Oh The Media!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you when you mention that the drinking age is a difficult dilemma to have to choose I side on because there are a lot of grey areas, but unfortunately we do have to make on single decision on it. I feel that it is not really fair to be called an adult at eighteen, and not be able to receive all of the full adult responsibilities. It is like saying oh you are old enough to go to jail, fight and die for our country, buy cigarettes, go to clubs, etc, but you are not old enough to have a drink. To me the whole idea is just extremely contradictory and confusing.
As far as the whole high school situation goes a lot of people do not turn eighteen until their senior year, and still many do not until after. The point that you made about lowering the drinking age would cause more freshman-junior drinking may be valid, but the fact is that age group is already drinking, and they have been for awhile.
I agree that the drinking age should be lowered. History has proven that when something is "forbidden" people do it more to prove that they can.
ReplyDeleteSo lower the drinking age and let the youth of America prove that we can handle yet again, another responsibility, and let us mature into the adults that are parents are, because after all they could drink at eighteen.
If you can die serving our country, if you can buy cigarettes, if you can purchase pornography, if you can be punished as an adult in the legal system, why can't you buy and consume alcohol legally? There is no reason.
Thank you for that contribution Patricia! I definitely agree that because as an “adult” eighteen year old we are allowed to do all of those things you mentioned that there should be no reason that we cannot legally drink at the age of eighteen as well. Personally I believe that this just causes so much more trouble than necessary because it is so contradictory. I have always grown up with the theory that people need to live in order to learn, so I agree with you when you mention that we should be permitted this extra responsibility and mature even more from the experience. As long as this one adult activity is prohibited from 18-20 year old adults, this debate is always going to continue because it creates such a double standard.
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