No longer ‘too young’

Lately I’ve been wondering when I will be at the age when I will no longer hear, “you’re too young” as a sugar-coated “NO!” and instead make the transition to being too old.

I would bet money that 9 out of 10 adults would be highly offended that they were regarded as too old to do something they wanted to do. Hollywood gave the aged gumption with the picture “The Bucket List,” in which the Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman characters escape from a cancer ward and set off to complete a wish-list of adventures before they die.

If this were to happen in real life, I wonder how many 80-year-old men would be told they were too old to skydive. And for that matter, how many would plan to jump out of the plane anyway?

So, if I cannot tell you that you are too old, how can you tell me that I am too young?

I have heard the “you’re too young” excuse from my parents for as long as I can remember asking them to let me do things. They didn’t keep me from everything, mind you. Perhaps some of their clutching on during my high school social life can be chalked up to being their only child in addition to a, for me, dangerous and innate protective nature on their end. But hey, those are just excuses.

Life in my house has been different as of late. Last summer, planning a getaway trip with my friends would have been met with a slew of questions ending in a “no not this year, (and of course), you’re too young” answer. My first summer home from college, however, and suddenly I’m adult-like: I’m working nearly full time, I’m responsible, I’m trusted and, perhaps most importantly, I’m allowed to take a vacation with my girlfriends.

Coming into the last leg of my teens, I’m beginning to notice myself getting offended if I am not taken seriously as an adult.

I opened a new checking account recently and the clerk spoke to me as though I were dull and incapable of understanding how a debit card works. She was actually going to deny letting me order one!

Umm.... hello lady, I’ve had a debit card since I was 15. I think I can handle it.

So, with age restrictions slowly but surely losing grip on me and my generation of young adults, how young is too young for other lifetime milestones? A 40-hour work week, marriage, a mortgage, a new car, children; all come with responsibility and all come with commitment. I think that I could name many 20 year olds with more commitment and responsibility in their little fingers than a good handful of middle-aged adults.

Abraham Lincoln said, “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

So to the grown-up readers I have one request: give us some credit. We are paying off our college educations, working full time jobs, still finding time to hang out with friends and eating mom’s Sunday dinner with the family.

(Holly Stefanoff is interning at The Review this summer. Reach her at hstefanoff@reviewonline.com)