18 Is considered to be the threshold of adulthood as it is conceptualized in law.
The vast majority of countries set majority at 18. It is the chronological moment when minors cease to legally be considered children and assume control over their persons, actions, and decisions, thereby terminating the legal control and legal responsibilities of their parents over and for them. That is why legally, children already have the right to absolute freedom and independence at this age and, as adults, are entitled to decide whether they wish to continue any kind of relationships with their parents.
Biologically, the main aim of parents is to lead their children into the adult life.
From the biological point of view, a human being is an animal of the class mammalia. As soon as baby animals can physically and emotionally lead a full-fledged life, they practically don’t need their parents any more. Wasps provide their eggs with a house and paralysed prey, but baby wasps are never going to meet their parents. Although mammals have a much more advanced feeling of parent care (because apparently, mammals are situated on a different level of physical and mental development, compared with insects, fish and birds), they simply need a little bit more time to let their children go. That is why children can decide to lose connection with their parents when they are ready to enter the life of society as full-developped individuals.
As a result of care after 18 children may fail in their adult life.
Parents who tend to exercise exorbitant care over their offspring, as a rule, help their children make decisions or even make decisions for them. When children leave their parents’ nests, being unable to sort out some problems themselves, they finally find themselves loaded with quite a number of issues they are not able to deal with. According to the book by an American author Napoleon Hill “Think and Grow Rich”, hesitation in taking fast decisions that usually life demands from people is one of the ten reasons why people fail or have difficulties in life. Therefore, having become a legal adult, a child should be thrown into the constantly moving stream of life in order to at some point fit into it properly.
Parents hamper making up of their children’s personality.
One of the key factors in formation and development of a personality is communication. A Soviet psychologist, Vygotsky claimed that social links are not only plunged into the inner speech, but are also transformed there drastically, receive a new (not yet realized) meaning, a new direction for outer activities. To put it simpler, communication with different people leave traces on our subconsciousness and when this experience is needed, it can be easily applied. So, socialising enriches people with valuable experience.
During 18 years of their lives children’s subconsciousness has taken in everything from their parents that it needs for the future life. Starting from this age people need new role models to learn from. And parents, having got used to always being with their children, always sharing problems and views, at times trying to impose the latter, interfere with the development of their children’s personality by imposition of their values even after 18 considering children their property. That is why people don’t need parents after 18.
Parents can become the root cause of their children’s depression.
Every parent is haunted by the thought that at some moment of life his child will leave for a new place and when this moment finally comes, parents usually become very vulnerable. They are extremely afraid of intrusion of alien values which can result in their children forgetting about their existence. Therefore, they tend to exaggerate disobedience of their adult children – and it leads to serious conflicts and as a result, unstable psychological state of the children in more than 40% of families.
Parents interfere with the personal life of their children.
Lots of unnecessary problems crop up because of uncalled for interference in the affairs of the children by their parents, especially when parents become jealous of their children not realizing that they have stepped over the threshold of the adult life.
As a result, the average marriage age increases. While in 1970 women married on average at age 24 and men at age 27, this has increased to 27.4 years for women and 29 years for men in 2002. This has also resulted in women having children later in life, and fewer children overall due to the decline in fertility after age 30. Subsequently, while in 1983 there were on average 1.8 children born to every woman over her lifetime, this has decreased to 1.22 children per woman in 2008.
Very often parents do not approve of their parents’ choice and resort to all possible means to separate their children from their partners, including murder of their children-in-law.
One of such cases took place in 2008 when Chiman Rai, 68, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for arranging the murder of his daughter-in-law. The man, originally from India, felt that his son’s marriage to the African-American woman, who was 22 and had only been married for a month to Rai’s son, was a dishonor to his family.
Besides, where living space is shared, gatherings with friends can be limited in frequency or scope.
Living with parents can result in financial dependence of their children.
In the 1950s, becoming an adult involved a clear set of quick transitions. You finished school, got a job, moved out of the parental house, and got married.
In 1960, two-thirds of all men and more than three-quarters of all women had already attained financial and residential independence by age 30, whether by finding a job that paid a living wage or, for many of the females, by marrying a man who had landed such a job. Today less than one-half of all women and less than one-third of men aged 30 have completed those transitions. After failing to find a job they return to their parents’ home and soon they get used to the fact that their parents pay bills, buy food etc. Therefore, having reached the age of 30, being perfectly able to earn their life, people are too lazy to do that.
After raising their children parent have the right to have a rest.
Having spent a great part of their lives to achieve a respectable life for their children, having been providing financial and emotional support for their children, parent deserve a rest, they deserve to live for themselves. But when children move back with their parents, their mother and father, who should be enjoying some financial and personal freedom, find themselves bogged down with responsibilities. That is why we don’t need parents after 18, because we should provide them with free time and life without unnecessary responsibilities.
Arguments against:
The age of majority is understated from the scientific point of view.
According to the research held by the Australian University of Melbourne a person becomes an adult at the age of 24. Before this age our brain is not able to resist the influence of drugs and alcohol. Besides, before the age of 24 people are prone to performing risky actions like jumping from roofs or driving racing motorbikes without a helmet. This can explain a great number of injuries, wounds and suicides among young people. And parents’ attention can save their children from silly actions that even can cost their lives.