Age of Enlightenment

By   |  November 7, 2009

Harold and Maude. I don’t know if you’ve seen this “classic film” but if not, let me save you the time and sum it up for you. Teenage boy obsessed with going to funerals and faking his own suicide meets 80 year-old woman also obsessed with death. They steal a tree and next thing you know they are sleeping together. Then she dies for real and he decides to stop faking his own death. A real knee slapper, that one. This is cougar-ville taken to a whole new level.

A scene from the classic film, "Harold and Maude."

A scene from the classic film, "Harold and Maude."

In keeping with the age discrepancy theme, a new movie is out called “An Education” about a teenage girl who falls for an older man. It’s actually a very good movie, so I won’t ruin it for you by telling you what happens. Not like my friend Tim from high school who used to love watching The Usual Suspects with people and telling them half way through the movie who Kaiser Soze was. Shade-y.

But as for “Harold and Maude” and “An Education”, people come away from either movie wondering whether it is really possible for a teenager to love an adult. In fact, is it even possible for a teenager to love in the same way that adults do?

Let’s take a step back and look at the ridiculous age based rules we have in our society. You have to be 16 to drive a car. You can’t vote or serve in the military until you turn 18. But even then, you can’t legally drink a beer. At age 21 you can finally buy a beer legally but you can’t rent a car for another 4 years. And for those constitutional scholars out there, you can’t serve in the House of Representatives until you are 25, Senate until you turn 30, and can’t be President until you’re at least 35.

But what will really bake your noodle is that, in many states, you can be tried as an adult and put in prison for the rest of your life without parole when you’re as young as 12.

So, let’s recap. At age 12, when you are in 6th grade, you can’t drink, drive, vote, serve in the military, rent a car, run for the House or the Senate, or be President of the United States. But what you can do is be held accountable for a crime the same as any adult.

Say what?

But what about love? This is, after all, Love Dub. Essentially we’re saying that a teenager isn’t responsible enough to drink, drive, fight, or vote. But at the same time they are mature enough to have to take full responsibility for their actions. All the bad parts about being an adult without any of the fun stuff.

So, do we trust them to love? Well, if we put love in the category with the other fun stuff, the answer would be no. We deny kids the fun stuff. So no love for you.

But love isn’t always fun, right? I mean, look at Harold. He falls in love with Maude and then she goes and dies. So maybe kids should be able to love.

Did I just equate love to life in prison without parole? Yikes. I would never do something like that. Marriage, maybe, but certainly not love.

The truth is, there are some very mature teenagers out there, and some extremely immature adults. There is no one size fits all rule that will ever encompass everyone. But it is fairly clear to anyone who has ever taught, raised, or viewed from a distance, a group of teenagers that they still have a lot of brain development to come. It doesn’t take an fMRI to tell you that.

So no, Harold’s love for Maude isn’t real love, and neither is Jenny’s love for David in “An Education”. We can’t blame the children for thinking they are in love. But we most certainly can expect the adults not to take advantage of a young and still developing heart.

Young children and, yes, teenagers too, are learning about love and life, and they will make mistakes along the way. We would never force a 12 year old girl who is seduced by, and falls for, an older man to spend the rest of her life with him. And neither should we force a 12 year old who commits a crime to spend the rest of his life in prison for it.

At the very least, until we change those laws, those same kids who are susceptible to being charged as adults should be treated as adults in other ways too. So get ready for a horde of 12 year-olds drinking a beer with one hand, filling out a ballot with the other, all while driving down the street in a rental car on their way to register for front line duty in the marines.

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