When does adolescence end?

Ryan Seales

By now we’ve generally established what adolescence is in this class, although it can be interpreted in a variety of ways. In general, it is a time period of self discovery and learning to become independent. Adolescence represents finding one’s place in society and gaining direction/autonomy in their lives. One thing that is a bit less clear is the timeline of adolescence and when it starts and actually ends. Also, how much of one’s definition of adolescence is based on cultural influences and how different is adolescence based on your cultural background? Despite the many commonalities that exist, the concept of adolescence is flexible due to a large part of it being cultural. There is a lot of variability in the experience of adolescence.

It seems that over time, the concept of adolescence along with its timeline has changed. Was adolescence shorter for people born in earlier generations? One could argue that due to different cultural standards and practices such as children entering the workforce or getting married at a young age, adolescence could be shorter. It was once a global standard (and still is prevalent generally in less affluent countries/societies) for children to enter the workforce to help out their families and it was very common to get married and start a family at a young age. Taking on these important roles and responsibilities at such a young age may force someone to go through adolescence faster or it may even distract them from dealing with some of the challenges of going through adolescence such as developing a secure identity. I think this is prevalent in Charlotte Temple, as she is a 14 year old girl who runs away to get married to an older man and moves across seas to colonial America, leaving home and almost everyone she knows behind. These rather extreme situations really caused Charlotte to have to grow up fast, yet she really wasn’t able to focus on developing her identity that much because she was dealing with so many hardships and distractions. Today in the US, the average age that people are having kids, getting married, entering the workforce, buying houses, etc., is going up. Today, it is also a lot more common for people to pursue education for longer. I think due to these factors, adolescence is perceived differently because of the different cultural norms and other factors that influence it. In fact, the term and concept of adolescence that we know today wasn’t formally established until the late 1890s-early 1900s. In The Miseducation of Cameron Post we also saw how factors such as sexuality and religion can affect one’s experience of adolescence. Where Cameron grew up in small town Montana, the norm was to be straight and Christian. This posed a variety of difficulties for her, being a lesbian and having to hide it. Eventually when her Aunt finds out, Cameron gets sent to a Christian gay conversion camp. These circumstances caused her to have a very different experience of adolescence than most people in that same time period.

Because of the wide variability in the way adolescence can be experienced and defined, it is a flexible concept that doesn’t really have too specific of a timeline. Depending on cultural background and general life experience, one may feel they completed adolescence earlier than others, the line is not clear.