Is a true 'rite of passage' a missing element in contemporary youth culture?

Yes

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by Jessica Burde

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A rite of passage is a traditional event or ritual which marks a passing from one stage of life to the next. The common rites of passage through out history have been manhood rites. The traditions which mark the passage from boy to man, giving a youth the rights and responcibilities of any other man in his culture.

Many things happen in the lives of youth today that have been consider rites of passage - first kiss, learning to use a locker in high school, high school graduation. And all of these events can be of great personal importance. However, none of them change how the youth is seen and treated by the community as a whole.

This debate speaks of 'comtemporary youth culture', and that very phrase suggest what their is no rite of passage for today's youth - and hasn't been for decades. A true rite of passage can not be part of one age group in a culture - it is the transition from one age grouping to the next, one life stage to the next. In order to be a true rite of passage, the ritual must be recognized by both the group the youth is leaving - the teenagers and so-called youth culture, and the group he or she is entering - the adults around him or her.

And there is no point where society at large says to youth - today you are a man (or woman): Starting from today you are expecting to set aside the things of youth and act as an adult. Starting today you are an adult in our eyes.

Wait a minute - what does being an adult mean? In today's society, that's a very vague question. The law says a person is an adult at 18, but then cannot drink - an act that has become firmly engrained in our culture as a right of adults, until 21. So - congradulations, you're an adult now, oops, sorry, not entirely; is what society tells youth at the age of 18. Well, that legal stuff, what about real life? Most 18 year olds aren't treated as adults, either at home or when they go to college. In fact - legally an adult or not, a youth can be considered dependent on their parent until the age of 25 if they go to college. How can they be an adult, and their parents dependents at the same time?

Perhaps we can define adulthood by responcibilities then. In traditional societies where rites of passage are common, and adult is expected to contribute to the community. To begin acting in the families interests, in family and clan based societies, or the interest of the community as a whole. In today's society, the responcibilities of an adult are not responcibilities to give back to the community, but the responcibility to take care of ones self. To provide ones own home, food and clothing. Ok, when does that happen? Are what age of the fledglings kicked out of the nest to make their own way?

There can be no rite of passage for today's youth, until there is a cultural agreement of when youth ends and adulthood begins.

A traditional rite of passage has 3 parts: A leaving behind of the old cultural grouping, a time when the youth is neither child nor adult, and acceptance as and return and acceptance as an adult.

Here would be one way a modern rite of passage could work:

After their highschool graduation, a youth goes on a road trip or walking tour of the country. Not with his or her friends, but alone - thus symbolically leaving youth behind and having time to learn about themselves and their goals without the peer pressure of youth culture. While they are gone, their parents arrange an apartment rental for them, move their belongings in, and pay the first three months rent - thus establishing the person with one of the most important rights of an adult in this society - their own home. When the former youth return, they are welcomed back into their own home, a big bash is thrown by family and friendship where they get to take part with the adult conversations and activities, as an adult, for the first time. Then they are left to settle into their new home, and take up the responcibilities of adulthood - finding a job, caring for their home, and keeping themself fed and clothed. If they cannot find a job that can cover their rent and expenses, then they have 3 months to find a roommate to share those expenses with.

They will have seperated from the society of their yuoth, spent time on the threshold when neither youth nor adult, and entered fully into adulthood, with all the rights and responcibilties that go with it.

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