Aching to Age

Abstract

During the adolescent years, young people seek to leave behind childhood and the age of "informed consent"--i.e, the years when adults informed and expected children to consent! Teenagers strive for adult roles and passionately seek ways to prove their maturity to themselves, peers, and adults. This quest for adult roles leads teens through a variety of rites of passage both formal and informal. Some rites of passage which involve youth/adult partnerships delineate the movement from childhood to adulthood in positive ways while young people (psychological orphans) who do not have adult support for rites of passage often create their own rites which involve dangerous risk-taking and destructive behavior.

Aching to Age explores rites of passage both ancient and modern, formal and informal; examines the place of these rites in meeting the adolescent psychological quest for adulthood (adult roles); and also explores popular cultural practices by adolescents who lack or eschew established rites of passage. Further, Aching to Age looks at the purpose of these rites in the lives of adolescents and finally explores the importance of rites of passage and how adults who interact with adolescents become partners with young people in the transition to adult roles and responsibilities.