Teens too immature to vote, drive, or to consent to sex?
Max Pemberton, an English psychiatrist who studies behavioural attitudes in teenagers, says your child may look and talk like an adult, but that the prefrontal cortex is the last part of the brain to fully develop. (I could name a few TDs who communicate like adults, but whose juvenile actions confirm that their prefrontal cortex has not developed or is missing altogether.)
Dr Pemberton writes articles on culture, and on social and ethical issues, for various print media outlets. His assertion is that maturation of the brain continues into the early 20s, and I suppose, looking back, decisions that I made as a teenager would horrify me now, because of their sheer stupidity. I made those choices on the assumption that I was right, thinking that I knew it all.
In Britain, a 16-year-old can join the army with parental consent, so can be an accomplished shooter from the hip by the age of 17, with his brain still in transition.
A teenager may understand that a particular action is wrong or dangerous, but lack the brain cells to join the dots together in adult form.
This reminds me of baby-faced British soldiers in the North, who were righteous in their cause, but scared shitless, on patrol, shivering at border checkpoints, from the 1970s right through the 1990s.
It is no wonder that they shot first and concocted evidence later; they were not able to differentiate between friend and foe.
So-called boy racers, who drive their customised cars recklessly, suffer from the same discrepancies, which impair their judgments when they get behind the steering wheel.
So, on that basis, perhaps we should be looking at raising the age limit for driving/gun licences, voting, consent to sex, to use social media.
This age of consent might even be applied to the amount of calories consumed by school-going teenagers.
According to recently released data, three quarters of the world’s population will soon be obese.
