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Under most laws, young people are recognized as adults at age 18. But emerging science about brain development suggests that most people don't reach full maturity until the age 25. Guest host Tony Cox discusses the research and its implications with Sandra Aamodt, neuroscientist and co-author of the book Welcome to Your Child's Brain.

TONY COX, HOST:

I'm Tony Cox and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Michel Martin is away. We'd like to spend this part of the program talking about the passage from childhood to adulthood and how that may be tougher for one distinct group of young people.

Most of the privileges and responsibilities of adulthood are legally granted by the age of 18. That's when you can vote, enlist in the military, move out on your own, but is that the true age of maturity? A growing body of science says, no. That critical parts of the brain involved in decision-making are not fully developed until years later at age 25 or so.

In a moment, we'll hear about how child advocates are hoping to use this research to change the laws about their foster care. But first, to learn more about adolescent brain development and maturity, we are joined now by neuroscientist, Sandra Aamodt. She is the coauthor of the book, "Welcome to Your Child's Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College."

Sandra, welcome to the program. It's nice to have you.

DR. SANDRA AAMODT: It's nice to be here.

COX: Is this idea that the brains of 18 year olds aren't fully developed a matter of settled science?

AAMODT: Yes. The car rental companies got to it first, but neuroscientists have caught up and brain scans show clearly that the brain is not fully finished developing until about age 25.

COX: To not be too clinical in the spin that we put on this, what parts of the brain are we talking about and what changes happen between the ages of 18 and, let's say, 25?

AAMODT: So the changes that happen between 18 and 25 are a continuation of the process that starts around puberty, and 18 year olds are about halfway through that process. Their prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed. That's the part of the brain that helps you to inhibit impulses and to plan and organize your behavior to reach a goal.

And the other part of the brain that is different in adolescence is that the brain's reward system becomes highly active right around the time of puberty and then gradually goes back to an adult level, which it reaches around age 25 and that makes adolescents and young adults more interested in entering uncertain situations to seek out and try to find whether there might be a possibility of gaining something from those situations.

COX: So this is important. Are the physiological changes in the brain, in terms of the development of young people, as significant and impactful as the cultural changes and environmental changes that they go through vis-a-vis peer pressure things of that sort?

AAMODT: Well, actually, one of the side effects of these changes in the reward system is that adolescents and young adults become much more sensitive to peer pressure than they were earlier or will be as adults.

So, for instance, a 20 year old is 50 percent more likely to do something risky if two friends are watching than if he's alone.

COX: Is there a difference between males and females with regard to their brain development, particularly in this age category?

AAMODT: Females' brains develop about on average two years earlier than male brains, so you're more likely to have a late developing male brain than female.

COX: So when females say they're smarter than guys, it really is true?

AAMODT: Especially around about the age of 15 or so. Yes.

COX: What does this mean? In a minute, we're going to be hearing from some advocates who think that the foster care system needs to be changed, in that in some states, when you reach the age of 18, you are booted out of foster care and their argument is based on some of the research that you are now citing that these young people are not really ready for the adult world.

What is the impact for someone who lives in a foster care kind of setting as far as their brain development is concerned?

AAMODT: One of the things that deprived childhood causes is problems with prefrontal cortex function, so somebody who has had an unstable home life is more likely to have trouble with planning and organizing behavior and with inhabiting impulses than somebody who has had a stable life.

COX: Would you say, based on the research that you are now citing, that it would make more sense to have the legal age become 25 instead of 18 or 21 in some cases?

AAMODT: I think it makes sense to have different ages for different functions. Obviously some 18 year olds are competent to go out into the world and handle things by themselves and some of them aren't. It would be nice if we had a little more flexibility to distinguish the two in the legal system.

COX: Final thing is, if these age limits are not adjusted to take into account the effect that the research has shown, what is the price - if I can put it that way - that society will end up paying down the road? I know that's a pretty large question. But another way of saying it is how important is it for us to address this and do something about it now?

AAMODT: Many of the costs of adolescents are actually - what we think of as the costs of adolescence, the risks of crime and car accidents and all the crazy things that adolescents do are actually more issues with young adults, people in the 18 to 25 age range, largely because they have more opportunities to get into these kinds of trouble because they have less parental supervision than the younger adolescents do.

COX: Sandra Aamodt is a neuroscientist and the co-author of "Welcome to Your Child's Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College." She joined us from Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, California.

Sandra, thank you very much.

AAMODT: Thank you.

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Brain Maturity Extends Well Beyond Teen Years

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Under most laws, young people are recognized as adults at age 18. But emerging science about brain development suggests that most people don't reach full maturity until the age 25. Guest host Tony Cox discusses the research and its implications with Sandra Aamodt, neuroscientist and co-author of the book Welcome to Your Child's Brain.

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Sentence Stems ( to use if you need) In the NPR interview conducted by Tony Cox, called "Brain Maturity Extends Well beyond teen years" Sandra Aamodt, a neuroscientist, argues that a person is not an adult a 18, and reaches adulthood around the age of 25

In the article __________ by _________ the author believes that a person becomes an adult when….

According to author ,_________ in his/her work ___________they believe that a person becomes and adult when

In the article _______ the author ,_______, demonstrates that a person comes of age when …..

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"So the changes that happen between 18 and 25 are a continuation of the process that starts around puberty, and 18 year olds are about halfway through that process. Their prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed. That's the part of the brain that helps you to inhibit impulses and to plan and organize your behavior to reach a goal" (Aamodt).

"So, for instance, a 20 year old is 50 percent more likely to do something risky if two friends are watching than if he's alone" (Aamodt).

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My thoughts on this article are FILL IN YOUR THOUGHTS HERE.

This article links to BOOK THAT WE READ THIS YEAR HERE because/ with the example of/ when CHARACTER DID THIS.

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America has been inconsistent at best when it comes to deciding what 18- to 21-year-olds are too young, or just old enough, to do.

A Selective Service lottery in Washington on July 17, 1941. Eighteen-year-old Americans could be drafted into the armed forces, while the minimum voting age was 21. Credit... Associated Press

The proposed legislation was never meant to be taken seriously, said John Rodgers, a Vermont state senator and a fierce gun rights advocate.

"In light of the dangerous and life-threatening consequences of cellphone use by young people, it is clear that persons under 21 years of age are not developmentally mature enough to safely possess them," Mr. Rodgers wrote in a bill this month proposing to outlaw the use of cellphones by anyone under 21.

It was in part, he said, a rebuke of a law Vermont passed in 2018 that banned the sale of firearms to most people under 21, and an attempt to show the absurdity of allowing 18-year-olds to go to war but forbidding them from enjoying the constitutional rights and vices afforded to older Americans.

Mr. Rodgers, who said his family had been hunting the woods of the Northeast Kingdom since the 1800s, was quickly bombarded with angry tweets, emails and calls to his home that accused him of trying to create a nanny state. His critics missed the point, he said.

"There are all these pushes around some parts of the country for 16-year-olds to vote but we're saying they're not mature enough to smoke or purchase a gun. So which is it?" said Mr. Rodgers. "When are you really an adult?"

It is a question that has possessed both poets and lawmakers.

But there is not much clarity in state laws. In Alaska, teenagers as young as 14 can get married with a court order. Only a handful of states allow drinking under 21 and that is under strict circumstances, like when a parent or legal guardian is present.

Eighteen-year-old adults can run for office, go to strip clubs, be sentenced to life in prison, and volunteer to go to war or be drafted, but as of last December, they cannot vape or smoke tobacco products.

And since 1984, when states began raising the legal age of drinking to 21 from 18 in exchange for federal highway funds - in some cases barely a decade after lowering it - they have not been able to buy a beer at a bar in most of the United States, a restriction that has infuriated college students ever since.

"If 18-year-olds are burdened with the responsibility of adulthood, they should be afforded some of its privileges," said Charlotte Lawson, a 21-year-old fourth-year student at the University of Virginia who wrote an opinion piece in the campus paper in 2018 calling for the drinking age to be lowered from 21.

"It's interesting these are people who work full-time jobs, pay their own rent, pay taxes and are eligible to vote," she said. "Yet none of this constitutes adequate proof that a person is responsible enough to drink."

Charlotte Lawson, 21, a fourth-year student at the University of Virginia says there are inconsistencies in society about adulthood. Like many others, she pointed out that the drinking age is higher than the age to join the armed services. Credit... Julia Rendleman for The New York Times

Most laws that govern age restrictions are set by the states.

For much of the 20th century, the minimum age for drinking in the United States dovetailed with the voting age, said Jonathan Parent, a professor of political science at Le Moyne College in Syracuse.

After the end of Prohibition in 1933, most states set the drinking age at 21, which was also the minimum voting age at the time.

Lawmakers reasoned that if you were old enough to vote, you were old enough to drink, Mr. Parent said.

That philosophy continued in 1971, when Congress lowered the voting age to 18 in response to fury over the draft during the Vietnam War, which conscripted thousands of men between 18 and 21 into war.

States, in turn, lowered the drinking age to 18, Mr. Parent said.

President Ronald Reagan signed legislation raising the national drinking age to 21 in 1984. Credit... Associated Press

But in 1984, President Ronald Reagan began pushing hard for states to raise their drinking age, citing what he called a "great national problem" of drinking and driving by teenagers.

In July of that year, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which required states to raise the age of drinking to 21 or risk a 10 percent cut in their federal highway funds.

The law put the United States at odds with the rest of the Western world, where in some European countries people as young as 16 can drink wine and beer.

"It's pretty unique to us," Mr. Parent said. "It probably goes back to more of a Puritan idea in the United States. This is one of the only countries in the Western world that banned alcohol."

It's a question that Apryl Alexander, a psychology professor at the University of Denver, often gets from her graduate students and that has become even more fraught with the growing research around the development of the juvenile brain.

"We don't have a clear answer for them," Ms. Alexander said. The scientific consensus that most brains do not fully develop until age 25 has led to a host of reforms in the criminal justice system and reexaminations about how society should punish young adults.

But it has also fed the confusion over what young adults should be allowed to do when scientists know that they use less restraint and discipline than older people, said Warren Binford, a law professor at Willamette University and founder of the school's Child and Family Advocacy Clinic.

"We're constantly trying to balance the rights to protection and the rights to participation," said Ms. Binford. "We are a society that loves its liberty, but we're also a society that recognizes that children are unique and special and deserving of protection."

A peace group picketed the Draft Board in Great Neck, N.Y., in October 1967. Credit... Stan Wolfson/Newsday RM, via Getty Images

That tension can leave young people feeling disenfranchised and less likely to participate in civic life, said D. Scott Foster, who was 22 in 2010 when he ran successfully for City Council in Williamsburg, Va.

"They don't see themselves as fit for those roles or having an impact," said Mr. Foster, who is now 32. "If laws are skewed against young folks and public perception is skewed against young folks, it's that much harder to get involved. It takes extra effort and willpower."

Benming Zhang, who was elected to the Williamsburg City Council in 2016 during his final undergraduate year at William & Mary in Virginia, said he was surprised to encounter more skepticism about his campaign from people his own age than older residents of the city.

"The first thing my classmates thought was, 'Who is this kid who is running for office?'" said Mr. Zhang, now 25. "It's that disconnect of seeing one of their own, a like-aged person, sitting on that dais with older, largely white male counterparts.Can we envision someone like us sitting on that dais?"

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When Are You Really an Adult? (Published 2020)

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America has been inconsistent at best when it comes to deciding what 18- to 21-year-olds are too young, or just old enough, to do. The proposed legislation was never meant to be taken seriously, said John Rodgers, a Vermont state senator and a fierce gun rights advocate.

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In the article When Are You Really an Adult? by Maria Camer the author believes that a person becomes an adult when they have the mature ''adult'' like mindset.

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It would probably be fair to call Henry "aimless." After he graduated from Harvard, he moved back in with his parents, a boomerang kid straight out of a trend piece about the travails of young adults.

Despite graduating into a recession, Henry managed to land a teaching job, but two weeks in, he decided it wasn't for him and quit. It took him a while to find his calling-he worked in his father's pencil factory, as a door-to-door magazine salesman, took on other teaching and tutoring gigs, and even spent a brief stint shoveling manure before finding some success with his true passion: writing.

Henry published his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, when he was 31 years old, after 12 years of changing jobs and bouncing back and forth between his parents' home, living on his own, and crashing with a buddy, who believed in his potential. "[He] is a scholar & a poet & as full of buds of promise as a young apple tree," his friend wrote, and eventually was proven right. He may have floundered during young adulthood, but Henry David Thoreau turned out pretty okay. (The buddy he crashed with, for the record, was Ralph Waldo Emerson.)

And his path was not atypical of the 19th century, at least for a white man in the United States. Young people often went through periods of independence interspersed with periods of dependence. If that seems surprising, it's only because of the "myth that the transition to adulthood was more seamless and smoother in the past," writes Steven Mintz, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, in his history of adulthood, The Prime of Life.

In fact, if you think of the transition to "adulthood" as a collection of markers-getting a job, moving away from your parents, getting married, and having kids-for most of history, with the exception of the 1950s and '60s, people did not become adults any kind of predictable way.

And yet these are still the venerated markers of adulthood today, and when people take too long to acquire them, or eschew them all together, it becomes a reason to lament that no one is a grown-up. While bemoaning the habits and values of the youths is the eternal right of the olds, many young adults do still feel like kids trying on their parents' shoes.

"I think there is a really hard transition [between childhood and adulthood]," says Kelly Williams Brown, author of the book Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, and its preceding blog, in which she gives tips for navigating adult life. "It's not just hard for Millennials; I think it was hard for Gen Xers, I think it was hard for Baby Boomers. All of a sudden you're out in the world, and you have this insane array of options, but you don't know which you should take. There's all these things your mom and dad told you, presumably, and yet you're living like a feral wolf who doesn't have toilet paper, who's using Arby's napkins instead."

Age alone does not an adult make. But what does? In the United States, people are getting married and having kids later in life, but those are just optional trappings of adulthood, not the thing itself. Psychologists talk of a period of prolonged adolescence, or emerging adulthood, that lasts into the 20s, but when have you emerged? What makes you finally, really an adult?

I set out to try to answer this to the best of my ability, but just to warn you up front: There is either no answer, or a variety of complex and multifaceted answers. Or, as Mintz put it, "rather than a messy explanation, you're offering a postmodern explanation." Because the view from the top is so blurry, I put out a call to readers to tell me when they felt they became grown-ups (if indeed, they ever did), and I've included some of their responses to show some of the threads as well as the tapestry. Allons-y.

"Becoming an adult" is more of an elusive, sort of abstract concept than I'd thought when I was younger. I just assumed you'd get to a certain age and everything would make sense. Bless my young little heart, I had no idea! At 28, I can say that sometimes I feel like an adult and a lot of the time, I don't. Being a Millennial and trying to adult is wildly disorienting. I can't figure out if I'm supposed to start a non-profit, get another degree, develop a wildly profitable entrepreneurial venture, or somehow travel the world and make it look effortless online. Mostly it just looks like taking a job that won't ever pay off my student debt in a field that is not the one that I studied. Then, if I hold myself to the traditional ideal of what it means to be an adult, I'm also not nailing it. I am unmarried, and not settled into a long term, financially stable career. Recognizing that I'm holding myself to an unrealistic standard considering the economic climate and the fact that dating as a Millennial is exhausting, it's unfair to judge myself, but I confess I fall into the trap of comparison often enough. Sometimes because I simply desire those things for myself, and sometimes because Instagram. My ducks are not in a row, they are wandering. -Maria Eleusiniotis

Adulthood is a social construct. For that matter, so is childhood. But like all social constructs, they have real consequences. They determine who is legally responsible for their actions and who is not, what roles people are allowed to assume in society, how people view each other, and how they view themselves. But even in the realms where it should be easiest to define the difference-law, physical development-adulthood defies simplicity.

In the United States, you can't drink until you are 21, but legal adulthood, along with voting and the ability to join the military, comes at age 18. Or does it? You're allowed to watch adult movies at 17. And kids can hold a job as young as 14, depending on state restrictions, and can often deliver newspapers, babysit, or work for their parents even younger than that.

"Chronological age is not a particularly good indicator [of maturity], but it's something we need to do for practical purposes," says Laurence Steinberg, the distinguished university professor of psychology at Temple University. "We all know people who are 21 or 22 years old who are very wise and mature, but we also know people who are very immature and very reckless. We're not going to start giving people maturity tests to decide whether they can buy alcohol or not."

One way to measure adulthood might be the maturity of the body-surely there should be a point at which you stop physically developing, when you are officially an "adult" organism?

That depends, though, on what measure you choose. Humans are sexually mature after puberty, but puberty can start anywhere between ages 8 and 13 for girls and between ages 9 and 14 for boys, and still be considered "normal," according to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Is there a point at which you stop physically developing, when you are officially an "adult" organism? That depends on what measure you choose.
That's a wide age range, and even if it weren't, just because you've reached sexual maturity doesn't mean you've stopped growing. For centuries, skeletal development has been a measure of maturity. Under the United Kingdom's 1833 Factory Act, the emergence of the second molar (the adult version of which usually shows up between the ages of 11 and 13) was accepted as proof that a child was old enough to work in a factory. Today, both dental and wrist X-rays are used to determine the age of refugee children seeking asylum-but both are unreliable.

Skeletal maturity depends on what part of the skeleton you're examining. For example, wisdom teeth typically emerge between 17 and 21, and Noel Cameron, a professor of human biology at Loughborough University, in the U.K., says the bones of the hand and wrist, often used to determine age, mature at different rates. The carpals of the hand are fully developed at 13 or 14, and the other bones-radius, ulna, metacarpals, and phalanges-complete development from 15 to 18. The final bone in the body to mature-the collarbone-does so between 25 and 35. And environmental and socioeconomic factors can affect the rate of bone development, Cameron says, so refugees seeking asylum from developing countries may also tend to be late bloomers.

"Chronological age is not a biological marker," Cameron says. "There's a continuum to all normal biological processes."

I don't think I've become an adult just yet. I'm a 21 year-old American student who lives almost entirely off of my parent's welfare. For the last several years, I've felt a pressure-it might be a biological or a social pressure-to get out from under the yoke of my parents' financial assistance. I feel that only when I'm able to support myself financially will I be a true "adult." Some of the traditional markers of adulthood (turning 18, turning 21) have come and gone without me feeling any more adult-y, and I don't think that marriage would make me feel grown up unless it was accompanied by financial independence. Money really matters because past a certain age it is the main determiner of what you can and cannot do. And I guess to me the freedom to choose all "the things" in your life is what makes someone an adult. -Stephen Grapes

So bodily transitions are of little help in defining adulthood's boundaries. What about cultural transitions? People go into coming-of-age ceremonies like a quinceañera, a bar mitzvah, or a Catholic confirmation and emerge as adults. In theory. In practice, in today's society, a 13-year-old girl is still her parents' dependent after her bat mitzvah. She may have more responsibility in her synagogue, but it's only one step on the long path to adulthood, not a fast track. The idea of a coming-of-age ceremony suggests there's a switch that can be flipped with the right momentous occasion to trigger it.

High-school and college graduations are ceremonies designed to flip the switch, or flip the tassel, for sometimes hundreds of people at once. But not only do people rarely graduate right into a fully formed adult life, graduations are far from universal experiences. And secondary and higher education have actually played a large role in expanding the transitory period between childhood and adulthood.

During the 19th century, a wave of education reform in the U.S. left behind a messy patchwork of schools and in-home education for public elementary schools and high schools with classrooms divided by age. And by 1918, every state had compulsory attendance laws. According to Mintz, these reforms were intended "to construct an institutional ladder for all youth that would allow them to attain adulthood through instructed steps." Today's efforts to expand access to college have a similar aim in mind.

The establishment of a sort of institutionalized transition time, when people are in school until they're 21 or 22, corresponds pretty well with what scientists know about how the brain matures.

At about age 22 or 23, the brain is pretty much done developing, according to Steinberg, who studies adolescence and brain development. That's not to say you can't keep learning-you can! Neuroscientists are discovering that the brain is still "plastic"-malleable, changeable-throughout life. But adult plasticity is different from developmental plasticity, when the brain is still developing new circuits, and pruning away unnecessary ones. Adult plasticity still allows for modifications to the brain, but at that point, the neural structures aren't going to change.

"It's like the difference between remodeling your house and redecorating it," Steinberg says.

Plenty of brain functions are mature before this point, though. The brain's executive functions-logical reasoning, planning, and other high-order thinking-are at "adult levels of maturity by age 16 or so," Steinberg says. So a 16-year-old, on average, should do just as well on a logic test as someone older.

What takes a little longer to develop are the connections between areas like the prefrontal cortex, that regulate thinking, and the limbic system, where emotions largely stem from, as well as biological drives you could call "the four Fs-fight, flight, feeding, and ffff ... fooling around," says James Griffin, the deputy chief of the NICHD's Child Development and Behavior Branch.

Until those connections are fully established, people tend to be less able to control their impulses. This is part of the reason why the Supreme Court decided to put limits on life sentences for juveniles. "Developments in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds," the Court wrote in its 2010 decision. "For example, parts of the brain involved in behavior control continue to mature through late adolescence ... Juveniles are more capable of change than are adults, and their actions are less likely to be evidence of 'irretrievably depraved character' than are the actions of adults."

Still, Steinberg says, the question of maturity is dependent on the task at hand. For example, with their fully developed logical reasoning, Steinberg sees no reason 16-year-olds shouldn't be able to vote, even if other aspects of their brain are still maturing. "You don't need to be six feet tall to reach a shelf that's five feet off the ground," he says. "I think you'd be hard-pressed to say there are any particular abilities that develop after age 16 that are necessary to make an informed vote. Adolescents won't make any dumber [voting] decisions than adults will by the time they're that age."

I'm an OB/GYN and watch women struggle through many life changes. I see my late teen and early 20s patients acting more grown up, and thinking they "know it all." I see my patients learning to be new moms, and wishing they had a guidebook, feeling lost. I see women go through divorce and try to find themselves afterwards. I see them trying to hold onto youth during menopause and after. As a result I have been reflecting [on] this very topic, "becoming an adult," for a while.

I am a mom, have 3 elementary school aged kids, married (unhappily unfortunately), and I still feel like I'm growing up. My spouse cheated on me-that was a wake up call. I started asking myself, "What do YOU want?", "What makes YOU happy?" I think like many people I had gone along [in] life not questioning many things along the way. As a 40-year-old woman, I feel like this is the time I'm becoming an adult-it's now, but it hasn't completely happened yet. During my marital conflicts I started therapy (wish I had done this in my 20s). It's now that I'm learning, really learning, who I am. I don't know if I will stay married, I don't know how that will look for my kids or for me down the line. I suspect that if I leave, then I will feel like an adult, because then I did something for ME. I think the answer to "when do you become an adult" has to do with when you finally have acceptance of yourself. My patients who are trying to stop time through menopause don't seem like adults even though they are in their mid-40s, mid-50s. My patients who seem secure through any of life struggles, those are the women who seem like adults. They still have a young soul but roll with all the changes, accepting the undesirable changes in their bodies, accepting the lack of sleep with their children, accepting the things they cannot change. -Anonymous

In college, I had a writing professor who I think fancied himself a bit of a provocateur-at any rate he was always trying to drop truth bombs on us. Most of them bounced right off, but there was one that cratered me. I don't remember what precipitated this, but during one class, he just paused and pronounced, "Between the ages of 22 and 25, you will be miserable. Sorry. If you're like most people, you will flail."

And it is this word, flailing, that has stuck with me in the years since, that I've rubbed like a mental worry stone whenever the life I want is escaping my reach. Flailing is an apt description of what happens for many people at these ages.

The difficulty many 18-to-25-year-olds had in answering "Are you an adult?" led Jeffrey Jensen Arnett in the late '90s to lump those ages into a new life stage he called "emerging adulthood." Emerging adulthood is a vague, transitory time between adolescence and true adulthood. It's so vague that Jensen Arnett, a research professor of psychology at Clark University, says he sometimes uses 25 as the upper boundary, and sometimes 29. While he thinks adolescence clearly ends at 18, when people typically leave high school and their parents' homes, and are legally recognized as adults, one leaves emerging adulthood ... whenever one is ready.

This vagueness has led to some disagreement over whether emerging adulthood is really a distinct life stage. Steinberg, for one, doesn't think so. "I'm not a proponent of emerging adulthood as a separate stage of life," he says. "I find it more helpful to think about adolescence as having been lengthened." In his book Age of Opportunity, he defines adolescence as starting at puberty and ending at the taking on of adult roles. He writes that in the 19th century, for girls, the time between their first period and their wedding was around five years. In 2010 it was 15 years, thanks to the age of menarche (first period) going down, and the age of marriage going up.

Other critics of the emerging-adulthood concept write that just because the years between 18 and 25 (or is it 29?) are a transitional time, that doesn't mean they represent a separate developmental stage. "There might be changes in living conditions, but human development is not synonymous with simple changes," reads one study.

"Little has been added to the literature that could not have been researched using the older terms, late adolescence or early adulthood," writes the sociologist James Côté in another critique.

"I mainly think this discussion about what we should call people that age is a distraction," Steinberg says. "What's really important is that the transition into adult roles is taking longer and longer." There are now, for many people, several years when they are free of their parents, out of school, but not tied to spouses or children.

Part of the reason for this may be because being a spouse or a parent seem to be less valued as necessary gateways to adulthood.

Over the course of his research on this, Jensen Arnett has zeroed in on what he calls "the Big Three" criteria for becoming an adult, the things people rank as what they most need to be a grown-up: taking responsibility for yourself, making independent decisions, and becoming financially independent. These three criteria have been ranked highly not just in the U.S. but in many other countries as well, including China, Greece, Israel, India, and Argentina. But some cultures add their own values to the list. In China, for example, people highly valued being able to financially support their parents, and in India people valued the ability to keep their family physically safe.

Of the Big Three, two are internal, subjective markers. You can measure financial independence, but are you otherwise independent and responsible? That's something you have to decide for yourself. When the developmental psychologist Erik Erikson outlined his influential stages of psychosocial development, each had its own central question to be (hopefully) answered during that time period. In adolescence, the question is one of identity-discovering the true self and where it fits into the world. In young adulthood, Erikson says, attention turns to intimacy and the development of friendships and romantic relationships.
"Taylor Swift was right. 'We're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time.' It's a brilliant insight."
Anthony Burrow, an assistant professor of human development at Cornell University, studies the question of whether young adults feel like they have purpose in life. He and his colleagues found in a study that purpose was associated with well-being among college students. In Burrow's study, commitment to a purpose was associated with higher life satisfaction and positive feelings. They also measured identity and purpose exploration, having people rate statements like "I am seeking a purpose or mission for my life." Both kinds of exploration significantly predicted feeling worse and less satisfied. But other research has identified exploration as a step on the path to forming an identity, and people who've committed to an identity are more likely to see themselves as adults.

In other words, the flailing isn't fun, but it matters.

The late teen years and early 20s are probably the best time to explore, because life tends to fill up with commitments as you age. "In midlife, because of family demands, because of work demands, not only are people likely exploring who they are less, [but] if they do it may come at a bigger cost," Burrow says. "If you are still looking to resolve an identity in midlife, because you haven't been able to do it yet, not only are you probably rare, it probably is coming at a bigger cost, a bigger toll-either physiologically, psychologically, or socially-than it would, that same amount of exploration, when you're younger."

Jensen Arnett sums it up in the words of Taylor Swift, the bard of emerging adults, specifically her song "22." "[She] was right," he says. "'We're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time.' It's a brilliant insight."

Let me preface by saying I'm revolted by people in their late 30s and 40s saying they feel like children, haven't "found themselves," or don't know what they want to do when they "grow up." I went to medical school in my early 20s. By the age of 26 I was an intern in San Francisco during the lingering shadow of HIV/AIDS. Early in the year I was called to the bedside of a man younger than I am now late at night. His partner was at the bedside, clearly a long relationship, the man clearly had HIV as well. I told him his partner was dead. That year my fellow residents and I told every sort of relative that someone had died: spouse, child, parent, sibling, or friend. We told people they had cancer, HIV. We stayed in the hospital for 36 hour shifts. By the start I was an adult and treated as such. We weren't coddled or protected. And we could do it. We were young, and sometimes it showed, but none of us were children. I suppose it helped that we were all living in a big city on our modest salaries, no longer medical students. So that's when I felt like an adult. The question of when a tree becomes a tree and no longer a sapling is obviously impossible to determine. Same with any slow and gradual process. All I can say is that the adult potential was there, ready to grow up and be responsible and accountable. I think personal industry, devotion to something bigger than oneself, part of a historical process, and peers who grow with you all play roles. Without focus, work, hardship, or a pathway with other humans, I can imagine someone still believing they are a child at 35-45: I meet them sometimes! And it is horrific. -Anonymous

For each of life's stages, according to the 20th-century education researcher Robert Havighurst, there is a list of "developmental tasks" to be accomplished. Unlike the individualistic criteria people report today, his developmental tasks for adulthood were very concrete: Finding a mate, learning to live with a partner, starting a family, raising children, beginning an occupation, running a home. These are the traditional adult roles, the components of what I've been calling " Leave it to Beaver adulthood," the things Millennials are all-too-often criticized for not doing and not valuing.

"It's hilarious to me that you use Leave it to Beaver markers," Jensen Arnett said to me. "I remember Leave it to Beaver, but I'm willing to bet it was off TV for about 30 years before you were born." (I've seen reruns.)

Havighurst developed his theory during the '40s and '50s, and in his selection of these tasks, he was truly a product of his time. The economic boom that came after World War II made Leave It to Beaver adulthood more attainable than it had ever been, even for very young adults. There were enough jobs available for young men, Mintz writes, that they sometimes didn't need a high-school diploma to get a job that could support a family. And social mores of the time strongly favored marriage over unmarried cohabitation hence: job, spouse, house, kids.

But this was a historical anomaly. "Except for the brief period following World War II, it was unusual for the young to achieve the markers of full adult status before their mid- or late twenties," Mintz writes. As we saw with young Henry Thoreau, successful adults were often floundering minnows first. The past wasn't populated by uber-responsible adults who roamed the moors wearing three-piece suits, looking over their spectacles and saying "Hm, yes, quite," at some tax returns until today's youths killed them off through laziness and slang. Young men would seek their fortunes, fail, and come back home; young women migrated to cities looking for work at even higher rates than men did in the 19th century. And in order to get married, some men used to have to wait for their fathers to die first, so they could get their inheritance. At least today's delayed marriages are for less morbid reasons.

The golden age of easy adulthood didn't last long. Starting in the 1960s, the marriage age began to rise again and secondary education became more and more necessary for a middle-class income. Even if people still value Leave it to Beaver markers, they take time to achieve.

"I've come to kind of think that a lot of the animosity comes from just the fact that things have changed so fast," Jensen Arnett says. "When people who are in their 50s, 60s, 70s now look at today's emerging adults, they compare them to the yardstick that applied when they were in their 20s, and find them wanting. But to me that's, ironically, kind of narcissistic, frankly, because that's one of the criticisms that's been made of emerging adults, that they're narcissistic, but to me it's just the egocentricity of their elders."

Many young people, Jensen Arnett says, still want these things-to establish careers, to get married, to have kids. (Or some combination thereof.) They just don't see them as the defining traits of adulthood. Unfortunately, not all of society has caught up, and older generations may not recognize the young as adults without these markers. A big part of being an adult is people treating you like one, and taking on these roles can help you convince others-and yourself-that you're responsible.

With adulthood as with life, people may often end up defining themselves by what they lack. In her 20s, Williams Brown, the author of Adulting, was focused mainly on her career, purposefully so. But she still found herself looking wistfully to her friends who were getting married and having kids. "It was still really hard to look at something that I did want, and do want, that other people had and I didn't," she says. "Even though I knew full well the reason I didn't have that was due to my own decisions."

Williams Brown is now 31, and just a little more than a week before we spoke, she got married. Did she feel different, more adult, having achieved this big milestone? I asked.

"I really thought it would feel mostly the same, because my husband and I have been together for almost four years now, and we've lived together for a good portion of that," she says. "Emotionally ... it just feels a little more permanent. He said the other day that it makes him feel both young and old. Young in that it's a new chapter, and old in that for a lot of people, the question of who you want to spend your life with is a pretty central question for your 20s and 30s, and having settled that does feel really big and momentous."

"But," she adds, "there's still a bunch of dirty dishes in my sink."

I think I only truly felt like an adult driving home from George Washington University hospital, sitting in the back seat of our Honda Accord with our tiny, premature daughter. While my husband drove more carefully than he ever had before, I couldn't take my eyes off of her ... I worried that she seemed much too small for her car seat, that she might suddenly stop breathing, or her little head could tip over. I think we both couldn't believe that we were now in charge, by ourselves, of this teeny, tiny human. Armed with our What to Expect the First Year bible, we were totally responsible for this baby's existence, and it felt enormously overwhelming, and so grownup. Suddenly there was someone else to think of and consider in every decision you made.
-Deb Bissen I am 53, and one moment stands out in my mind. It was around 2009, when my mother had to move from one assisted living facility to another. She was suffering from Alzheimer's at the time, so in a nutshell, I had to lie to her to get her in the car. The new facility had a lock-down unit, which was then the only practical option for her. It was not the first time I had told her a "white lie" in order to get her to do something, the way you might tell a child. But it was the only time I can recall when she realized I had lied to her, and had tricked her into leaving her apartment. She gave me a look of realization that I will never forget. I was once married, but never had children. I suppose if I had ever had children, I would have "become an adult" at some point during the parenting experience. Maybe there are certain "micro-betrayals" that go along with being responsible for someone. I don't know. I prefer to remain ignorant about that. My mother died in 2013. -Anonymous

Of all adulthood's many responsibilities, the one I hear most often cited as transformative is parenthood. Of the responses readers sent in about their adult transitions, the most common answer was "When I had children."

It's not that you can't be an adult unless you have kids. But for people who do, it often seems to be that flip-the-switch moment. In Jensen Arnett's original 1998 interviews, if people had children, "having a child was mentioned more often than any other criterion as a marker of their own transition," he writes.

Several readers mentioned their newfound responsibility for someone else as the defining factor, the next step up from the Big Three's "taking responsibility for yourself."

"I really felt like an adult when I held my child in my arms for the first time," Matthew, a reader, said. "Before this event, I felt like an adult on and off throughout my 20s and early 30s, but never really had a grasp of the thing."

If adulthood is, as Burrow says "the negotiation of feeling accountable and responsible with the other lens of people endorsing and validating that view," having children is one thing that seems to both make you feel like an adult, and get other people to believe you are one. The twin forces of identity and purpose, he says, are "really important currency in our current society," and while kids may certainly give you both, there are plenty of other ways to find them.

"There's a lot of things that cause people to further their growing up," Williams Brown says, "And I think kids can be a shorthand for that." Taking care of sick parents is something else that readers mentioned often-a jarring role reversal that may be its own kind of shorthand.

But things that can be written in shorthand can be written in longhand as well. There doesn't need to be a single moment, a tipping point. Most change is gradual.

"Being an adult is not about grand gestures, and it's not about stuff that you can post on Facebook," Williams Brown says. "It's a quiet thing."

For a long time, I've been waiting for that "I am an adult" feeling. I am 27 years old, married, living on my own, and employed as a manager at a successful hotel company. I expected all of these things, age, marriage, career, to trigger the feeling. Looking back, I think I was asking the wrong question. I don't think I spent a lot of time as a child or teenager. I have worked since I was 13 and I worked with other kids my age. Our parents were immigrants who made little more than us. We were our families' translators since childhood. Utilities and banks have heard my prepubescent voice as my mother/father/etc. I think for some of us, we reached adulthood before we realized it. -Anonymous

With all this ambiguity and subjectivity around when a person is really an adult, Griffin of the NICHD suggests another way of thinking about it: "I'd almost want you to consider reversing your question," he told me. "When are you really a child?"

These adult roles that everyone's so worried about being taken on too late, what about people who have kids at 15? Who have to care for sick parents as children, or who lose them at a young age? Circumstances sometimes thrust people into adult roles before they're ready.

"I have interviewed many people who'll say, 'Oh, I was an adult a long time ago,'" Jensen Arnett says. "It almost always is connected to taking on responsibilities much earlier than most people do." Do those people experience emerging adulthood?

"Ever present and important to me is there is a privilege in this," Burrow says. The privilege at play here is not only who can afford to go to college, and have institutionalized exploratory time, but also in who has the luxury to decide when they'll take on different adult roles, and the time to think about it. This can play out in either direction-someone may have the ability to move across the country to live alone and pursue their dream job, or someone may have the ability to say they're just going to take money from their parents for a bit while they figure things out. Both are privileges.

Adulthood's responsibilities can definitely be thrust upon you, and if the world is treating someone as an adult before they feel like one, that can be challenging. But a study done by Rachel Sumner, a student of Burrow's, found no difference in overall levels of purpose between adults who went to college and adults who didn't, which suggests that particular privilege isn't necessary for someone to find purpose.

In his chapter on social class, Jensen Arnett writes, "We can state that there are likely to be many emerging adulthoods-many forms the experience of this life stage can take." From a critic's perspective, you could say that if emerging adulthood can be many things, then it is nothing in particular. But it's not for me to answer that. What is clear is that there's no one path to adulthood.

I do not like the word "adult." I find this to be synonymous with "death." You are saying goodbye to your life force and the self. It seems most see being an adult as behaving in a more reserved way and as St. Paul says, putting "away childish things;" losing our passion. -Anonymous A close friend's father said to me, "You never really grew up, did you?" I was shocked; I am 56, married, well-traveled with a masters degree and a stable career. What field did THAT comment come from? I wondered. I had to consider for quite a while before I understood his train of thought; I have never had children (by choice), therefore I must still be one myself.

I disagree with his vision; I see myself as an adult. After all, my students are a fraction of my age, my marriage is rocky, my hair has begun to grey, and I pay all my own bills: ergo I am an adult. My knees hurt, I worry about retirement, my parents are elderly and frail, and I now drive when we go places together; therefore I must be an adult.

Adulthood is like a fish glittering in the water; you know it's swimming around there and you can reach out and maybe touch it, but to catch it would destroy everything. And the moments when you do catch it-when you have to attend a brother-in-law's funeral or euthanize a paralyzed pet-you grasp it and you do it fully and well but you long to toss it back in the pond, blast David Bowie, and sit on the grass contentedly, watching adulthood glint in the sunlight. Then lean back and sigh, relieved that-for today, at least-it doesn't concern you. -Anonymous

Being an adult isn't always a desirable thing. Independence can become loneliness. Responsibility can become stress.

Mintz writes that adulthood has been devalued in culture in some ways. "Adults, we are repeatedly told, lead anxious lives of quiet desperation," he writes. "The classic post -World War II novels of adulthood by Saul Bellow, Mary McCarthy, Philip Roth, and John Updike, among others, are tales of shattered dreams, unfulfilled ambitions, broken marriages, workplace alienation, and family estrangement." He compares those to 19th-century bildungsromans, coming-of-age novels, in which people wanted to become adults. Maybe an ambivalence over whether someone feels like an adult is partially an ambivalence over whether they even want to be an adult.

Williams Brown breaks down the lessons she's learned about adulthood into three categories: "taking care of people, taking care of things, and taking care of yourself." There's an exhausting element to that: "If I do not buy toilet paper, then I will not have toilet paper," she says. "If I am unhappy with my life, my job, my relationship, nobody is going to come fix that for me."

"We live in a youth culture that believes life goes downhill after 26 or so," Mintz says. But he sees inspiration, and possibility, in old Hollywood visions of adulthood, in Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. "When I argue that we need to reclaim adulthood, I don't mean a 1950s version of early marriage and early entry into a career," he says. "What I do mean is it's better to be knowing than unknowing. It's better to be experienced than inexperienced. It's better to be sophisticated than callow."

That's what adulthood means for Mintz. For Williams Brown, it's that "I am really and truly only in charge of myself. I am not in charge of trying to make life other than what it is."

What adulthood means in a society is an ocean fed by too many rivers to count. It can be legislated, but not completely. Science can advance understanding of maturity, but it can't get us all the way there. Social norms change, people opt out of traditional roles, or are forced to take them on way too soon. You can track the trends, but trends have little bearing on what one person wants and values. Society can only define a life stage so far; individuals still have to do a lot of the defining themselves. Adulthood altogether is an Impressionist painting-if you stand far enough away, you can see a blurry picture, but if you press your nose to it, it's millions of tiny strokes. Imperfect, irregular, but indubitably part of a greater whole.

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In an age when the line between childhood and adulthood is blurrier than ever, what is it that makes people grown up?

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In the article When Do You Become an Adult by Julie Beck the author believes that a person becomes an adult when the transition to “adulthood” as a collection of markers—getting a job, moving away from your parents, getting married, and having kids.

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''Age alone does not an adult make. But what does? In the United States, people are getting married and having kids later in life, but those are just optional trappings of adulthood, not the thing itself. ''

''Age alone does not an adult make.''

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''If 18-year-olds are burdened with the responsibility of adulthood, they should be afforded some of its privileges.”

"We are a society that loves its liberty, but we’re also a society that recognizes that children are unique and special and deserving of protection.”

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My thoughts on this article are that a person's transition into an adult is just the normal, you move out and get your own house, but this article teaches you that it doesn't mean always decide they're quite ready.

This article links to Dear Martin because it relates to the chapter where the character Justyce had displayed maturity.

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Download the "Now You Are 18" app!
Welcome to the adult world! NOW YOU ARE 18 has been prepared especially for you. Our purpose is to explain to you what some of your new rights are. Some areas of the law that you want to know about and indeed should know about are presented. We tried to project what your questions might be: what should you do if you have a car accident? ... or, what are your rights if you are arrested? ... or, what should you look for in buying a used car? ... or, what are your legal obligations if you marry? NOW YOU ARE 18 gives you some answers.

The rights explained in this booklet are important. They are your LEGAL rights. It is also important for you to know and remember that ALL the laws that pertain to your rights cannot be listed in such a short guide. It is our purpose to give you these guidelines to make you aware. Please remember there are exceptions and special circumstances that also affect your rights and responsibilities. NOW YOU ARE 18 is your basic guide. We hope it will be helpful in your understanding of your rights and responsibilities as an adult.

When does a person become an "adult "? In Texas, as in most states, you become an adult at age 18. Each state may determine its own "age of majority."

What does it mean to become an "adult"? When you become an "adult" you then have certain new rights, i.e., to vote, make contracts in your own name, and to become completely independent. You also have certain new responsibilities and are held personally accountable for your actions.

When I reach age 18, am I automatically given all the rights of an "adult"? In Texas, the answer is "yes" with the exception of the laws relating to alcoholic beverages. Each state may set differing age limits for many situations, including the following:

To vote in state and local elections

To serve on a jury in court

To marry without parental consent

To make a will

To work for pay

To obtain a driver's license

To be able to examine your credit record

Some of the rights you have after age 18 that you did not have before are as follows:

To sue in court in your own name

To make a contract (rent an apartment, buy a car, and/or take out a loan) in your own name

To obtain medical treatment without parental consent

To be completely independent from parental control

What are some of the responsibilities I have after age 18 that I did not have before?

In Texas after age 17, criminal charges filed against you will be tried in adult criminal court rather than juvenile court.

Your parents are no longer required to support you, and they are not liable for accidents you cause.

Others may sue you on contracts you make.

You are eligible for jury duty.

All males are required to register for military service

What are the requirements for voting? Every citizen of the United States, 18 years of age or older who is a resident of the State and has been registered to vote for 30 days prior to the election is qualified to vote, and may vote in the precinct in which he or she resides. Some exceptions exist.

How do I register to vote? Each person who will be 18 years of age by the next election, who is a citizen of the United States, and who, if he continues to reside in the precinct in which he or she will vote until that election, shall be entitled to register. Once registered, you are not required to register again unless you change your permanent address to a different voting precinct.

Where do I register to vote? You apply to the County Registrar (County Tax Assessor-Collector in most counties) or to Deputy Registrars at most State agencies or to high school principals or other designated school officials. The application may be completed at no cost, either in person or by mail. The earliest you may register is up to two months in advance of your eighteenth birthday. You must be registered by a stated deadline to be able to vote in an election.

Where do I vote? Your local County Clerk establishes voting locations (polling places), usually at a school, city hall or similar place, within the precinct in which you live. Your precinct number is on your voter registration form. In many locations, newspapers list the voting and early voting places by precinct. At the polling place, you will be required to present a photo ID to vote. This may be a Texas driver's license, passport or other approved ID.

May college students vote in the city where they go to school? Yes, for voting purposes, a student has a right to choose his or her place of residence. The student may register at college or at the permanent residence to which he or she intends to return. Students registered in their hometown who will be at school at election time may vote by mail, by applying to their local county election administrator (County Clerk in most counties) for an absentee ballot.

For more information, call 1-800-252-VOTE or visit www.sos.state.tx.us.

Why is jury service important? The United States Constitution and the Texas Constitution guarantee all people, regardless of race, religion, sex, national origin, or economic status, the right to trial by an impartial jury.

If called to serve on a jury, do I have to go? Yes, unless you are excused for some special reason. This is one of the responsibilities of being an adult. You can be penalized for failure to go.

How are people called to serve on a jury? A list of names of potential jurors, from all precincts of the county, is prepared annually from three official sources: current voter registrations, licensed drivers, and Department of Public Safety photo identifications. Before a jury is needed, names are chosen at random from the list and those people are notified to appear at court. This is the jury panel from which jurors are chosen.

Do all people who are in a jury panel actually serve on a jury? No. More people are chosen than will be needed because the judge or attorneys automatically excuse some people.
What are the qualifications for serving on a jury?

Be at least 18 years of age

Be a citizen of this state and of the county in which you are to serve as a Juror

Be qualified under the Constitution and laws to vote in the county in which you are to serve as a juror

Be of sound mind and good moral character

Be able to read and write

Not have served as a juror for six days during the preceding three months in the county court or during the preceding six months in the district court

Not have been convicted of theft or any felony

Not be under indictment or other legal accusation for theft or any felony.

Who will a judge excuse from jury service? A person qualified to serve as a juror may establish an exemption from jury service if he or she:

Is over 70 years of age

Has legal custody of a child younger than 10 years old and service on the jury requires leaving the child without adequate supervision

Is a student at a public or private high school

Is a person enrolled and in actual attendance at an institution of higher education

Is an officer or an employee of the Senate, the House of Representatives, or any department, commission, board, office, or other agency in the legislative branch of state government

Is the primary caretaker of a person who is invalid or unable to care for himself

Is an active duty member of the military who is deployed away from his home station and out of his city of residence

Has to appear or serve on a religious holy day that he observes

A person is disqualified to serve as a juror in a particular case if he or she:

Is a witness in the case

Is interested, directly or indirectly, in the subject matter of the case

Is related by blood or by marriage to a party in the case

Has a prejudice in favor of or against a party in the case

Has served as a juror in a former trial of the same case or in another case involving the same questions or facts

Do people on a jury lose their salary? That depends on the employer. Employers are required to give employees time off for jury service but are not required to continue wage payments. Jurors are paid a nominal fee by the county for their service. An employer may require this fee to be rendered to them for payment of wages for jury days. This can vary from county to county. Financial hardship is not a reason to avoid serving.

How long can people be required to serve on a jury? Jurors are required to serve until the case for which they have been selected is finished.

Is driving a right or a privilege? It is a privilege that the State of Texas regulates. You must pass a written test and a driving test before you are issued a driver's license. This privilege can be revoked and your license to drive can be suspended by the State for many reasons, including bad driving such as multiple collisions, excessive tickets, or driving under the influence of alcohol.

Do the parents continue to be liable for a child's accidents after the child turns 18? No. The liability of a parent ends when a child becomes 18.

Are all drivers required to have car insurance? Yes. All drivers are required to maintain a liability insurance policy and to carry proof of insurance in the vehicle. A driver is required to show proof of insurance to a law enforcement officer who requests it. Proof of liability insurance is required for driver license renewal, annual vehicle license renewal, annual vehicle inspection, and motor vehicle title transfer. Failure to carry insurance is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine determined by the legislature.

How do driving laws apply to motorcycles? All laws of the road that apply to cars also apply to motorcycles. A regular driver's license does not permit a person to legally operate a motorcycle on public roads, however. A person must apply for a permit to operate a motorcycle and must either satisfactorily complete a safety course or pass an operator's test in order to be granted a permit to operate a motorcycle. All operators and passengers under 21 years old must wear a DPS-approved helmet while riding.

What is an occupational license and how does one get one? An occupational license grants limited privileges to drive a motor vehicle for those people whose licenses have been suspended. The person must demonstrate an essential need to drive in order to attend school or work. The application made to the Court must state very specifically why one needs to drive and must limit the driving to the specific times and locations.

What happens if someone is stopped for driving while intoxicated? You will be arrested and taken to jail if you fail a breath/blood test. Your license will be suspended for a specific period of time determined by the legislature. In addition, if you refuse to give a breath/blood specimen, the time of suspension will be increased. You have the right to request a hearing to contest the driver's license suspensions. Your license can be suspended following your arrest for DWI and following your conviction for DWI. Persons under the age of 21 can also be charged with a DUI, driving under the influence. A DUI can be filed simply because an officer detects an odor of alcohol about you. You do not need to be intoxicated to receive a DUI. Intoxicated also includes being under the influence of drugs. A DUI can result in a fine and a license suspension.
What are the penalties for driving while intoxicated?

No prior conviction: Fines and times in jail are determined by the legislature. In addition you will be required to attend some alcohol counseling or educational programs. Remember that your license may have already been suspended.

One or more convictions: Maximum amounts of fines, confinement, and driver's license suspension may more than double for a subsequent offense.

Open Containers: It is a criminal offense for a driver or passenger to possess an open container of alcoholic beverage in a motor vehicle on any public street or highway, whether the vehicle is moving or is stopped or parked.

In all cases you may be eligible for probation for a period of time. Penalties are substantially increased where serious bodily injury results from the offense. If it is shown at the trial of a person that at the time of the offense the person operating the motor vehicle had an open container of an alcoholic beverage in his immediate possession, then the minimum term of confinement substantially increases.

Do the "Driving While Intoxicated" laws apply only to cars and trucks? No. According to Texas law, they apply to operating "motor vehicles," such as motorbikes, motorcycles, aircraft, and watercraft while intoxicated.

Distracted Driving. As of September 1, 2017, drivers cannot use a wireless device to read, write or send electronic messages while operating a motor vehicle unless the vehicle is stopped. Violations could result in substantial fines.

May the state change the drinking age? Yes. Buying beer, wine, or liquor is considered a privilege rather than a right, so a state may change the drinking age.

Is the drinking age different for beer and liquor? No. In Texas it is the same. No person under the age of 21 may legally purchase beer, wine, or liquor. Furthermore, it is an offense to consume it except in visible presence of an adult parent, guardian, or spouse or to be in possession of it under most circumstances. The only time a person under the age of 21 can even possess an alcoholic beverage is in the course and scope of employment at a licensed premise; they are not allowed to consume it.

What is the punishment for purchasing, consuming, or possessing an alcoholic beverage as a minor? This is a misdemeanor offense punishable by fines, which increase with each prior conviction. The court can also suspend your driver's license, and you will be required to do some community service work. In addition, the court may require the minor to attend an alcoholic awareness course.

May a person under the state drinking age buy beer, wine or liquor with parental consent? A person under the legal drinking age may not buy beer, wine, or liquor even if accompanied by a parent, legal guardian, or spouse who is over the drinking age. All places that sell beer, wine, or liquor have the duty to ask for identification for proof of age of all persons who appear to be and might be under the drinking age. All places have the right to refuse to sell beer, wine, or liquor to all persons who cannot show true proof of age, even if that person is 21 years or older.

What is the penalty for using a fake ID? If a minor knowingly makes a false entry or alteration on a state driver's license or ID certificate or makes, presents, possesses, sells, or offers to sell a state driver's license or ID certificate with knowledge that it was obtained unlawfully and falsely, he/she commits an offense punishable by fines, confinement, and community service as set by the legislature.

If someone is arrested for a criminal offense, what does he or she have a right to expect from the arresting officer(s}? If arrested, you can expect to be thoroughly searched for weapons, handcuffed, and taken to a police station unless the offense is a minor one like a traffic violation. If the police wish to question you about the offense, you will be advised of your rights under the United States Constitution (your "Miranda" rights); that is, you will be told that you need not answer any questions, that you have the right to a lawyer present during questioning, and that a lawyer will be appointed to assist you if you cannot afford one. If the police do not wish to question you, they are not required to give these warnings.

What basic things should a person remember if arrested? You have an absolute right to refuse to discuss the case with anyone, and you should not answer questions without consulting a lawyer. If you request a lawyer but cannot afford to pay the lawyer's fee, one will be appointed to represent you. If you do answer questions or volunteer information, your statements can almost certainly be used as evidence against you at your trial. This is often true of oral statements as well as those that are written. Police officers cannot force you to answer questions by threats, and cannot bargain leniency in exchange for your statement. If you voluntarily agree to permit police to search you or your property, anything they find can be used as evidence against you. If you choose to answer questions, take tests, or permit a search, you may change your mind at any time and refuse further cooperation but anything already obtained by the police can be used as evidence.

How soon after an arrest must that person appear before a judge? You must be taken in front of a magistrate without "unnecessary delay" after being arrested. In most cases, this will be done within twenty-four hours of your arrest, but the delay may be somewhat longer on weekends and holidays. The magistrate will tell you what you are charged with, inform you of certain rights, and set the amount of your bail, unless you are charged in one of the circumstances in which bail may be denied. If you cannot afford an attorney and you wish to have one appointed, you should tell the magistrate during this hearing.

It is illegal for adults 18 and over to electronically transmit sexually explicit messages and photographs to minors. Such acts are felonies punishable by prison time.

What does it mean to be released on bail? Bail is a security, usually money, given by a person arrested to assure his appearance in court. In Texas, bail is permitted in almost all cases; a magistrate will determine the amount at which the bail is set. You may be released on your promise to appear in court, or you may be required to post an amount of cash or a "surety bond" in which someone guarantees your appearance in court. In any case, if you do not appear as promised, the amount of your bail will be forfeited and a warrant can be issued for your arrest.

What is a contract? A contract is any agreement between two or more people from which each receives some benefit.

Can I make a contract before turning 18? Yes, but as a minor you could have terminated most contracts. Once you reach the age of 18 you can reaffirm a contract made as a minor either expressly or by failure to disaffirm it. Adults cannot usually enforce contracts against minors. That is why your parents, or some adult, probably had to co-sign any contracts you made as a minor. You may be liable for the fair market value of necessary items purchased as a minor. In Texas, if married and under the age of 18 you are considered an adult.
What are some likely contracts I may soon be part of?

Employment contract

Loan for education or to buy a car or to make another large purchase

Installment purchase of some product

Apartment rental

Insurance

Marriage

Medical care

Do all contracts have to be in writing? No. Many contracts (employment, some apartment leases, a promise to pay for medical care) are rarely in writing. However, some contracts must be in writing:

Any purchase of an item costing more than $500

Any contract to buy or sell land

An agreement that cannot be fully performed within one year

What are some of the advantages of written contracts?

Protection against dishonesty - against lies by the other person as to what you had agreed

Protection against poor memories - after a time people will usually have different recollections of their agreement even if there is no dishonesty

What are some of the disadvantages of written contracts? Consumers are often forced to sign printed form contracts that are written to favor the seller; for example, attempting to limit warranties and saying that the consumer must pay the business's legal fees if there is a lawsuit to enforce the contract. Some words contained in written contracts have technical legal meanings, which are unknown to most people.
What are some general rules to follow when I am asked to sign a contract?

Do not sign anything until you are sure you understand the agreement.

Read the entire contract before signing it.

Ask questions about anything in the contract you do not understand.

Cross out parts of the contract that conflict with your agreement. If you do this, initial the cancellations and have the other party do so as well.

Write in parts of your agreement that are not in the contract and have the other party initial the additions.

Do not sign a contract if it contains any blank spaces; either fill them in or cross them out if they do not apply.

Do not be intimidated by sales people.

Do not be taken in by friendly sales people.

Do not think that a printed form contract is OK

Never sign anything unless you understand why you are being asked to sign and what you are agreeing to do.

Be sure that you get a complete, accurate, signed copy of the contract.

What can happen if I do not honor a contract - miss payments or other obligations? You can be sued. You, as a "defendant," can be required to appear against the other person's (plaintiff) claim against you. The judge or jury decides what the facts are and the judge decides who wins. If you do not defend, you will lose by default. If you lose, a "judgment" will exist against you. Interest is added to the amount of the judgment until it is paid.

What can I do if owe more money than I can pay? Some options include working out agreements to pay your debts back over a period of time, taking out a new loan to pay back existing debts, and bankruptcy, which is a formal court proceeding and quite complicated. Bankruptcy can have a bad effect on your credit rating, making it harder for you to obtain a loan in the future.

How do I get a good credit rating? A credit rating, or "credit worthiness," measures your ability to repay a debt. This can be established by a past record of completing payments or by showing a regular salary or other source of money. You can also get a good credit rating by maintaining a savings account, showing uninterrupted employment, and using, and timely paying on, credit cards.

How do I know what my credit rating is? The Fair Credit Reporting Act guarantees you access to a free credit report from each consumer reporting agency that compiles and maintains files on consumers on a nationwide every twelve months.

How long does it take to dear up a bad credit report? There are multiple time periods for how long negative events stay on one's credit report. Generally, bankruptcy, judgements, collections (including unpaid student loans). And unpaid tax liens/judgments can last for 10 years, 7 years. 7 years, and 15 years respectively.

What is collateral? Collateral is anything that has value that can be given as security for a loan. The lender wants to identify property that has a value at least equal to the amount of the loan so that the property can be used to pay back the debt if you are unable to repay the loan.

What if I buy a TV or stereo on installments and have a problem getting it fixed? If the store refuses to fix the set, can I refuse to make payments? In most cases, it is not wise to discontinue payments, since the seller will claim that you are in default on your obligations. In general, you may stop making payments if the selling merchant financed your purchase himself and if you validly revoke your acceptance by notifying the seller of the reason for revocation and returning or offering to return the goods. To use this remedy, however, the non-conformity of the goods (i.e. broken TV set), at the time of purchase, must be such that its value to you is substantially impaired and the non-conformity complained of was not caused by you. On the other hand if the seller sold your promissory note to another party, your payments would most likely have to continue, although the holder of your consumer note may also be subject to a revocation, repair or replacement action. Note that in some instances a seller has a right to repair the set if defective under consumer warranties. In such cases, you may not revoke your acceptance and discontinue making payments.

If I buy something with a high interest rate loan and later have money to pay off the loan, must I pay the entire amount of interest, which would have been due over the term of the original contract? No. Generally a consumer has a right to prepay a loan at any time without penalty. It is important to follow the general rules given in the contracts section of this book prior to signing. You should read and understand all provisions of a contract and check to see if it has a prepayment penalty provision.

Can a purchase contract say that if I do not pay, the store can automatically get its money from my wages? No. The Texas Constitution, except for the enforcement of court-ordered child support payments, prohibits garnishment of wages due for personal services. However, once a payroll check is deposited into a debtor's bank account, the proceeds may be subject to garnishment.

Can the purchase contract say that if I default, I agree to assign my wages to the store? No. In Texas, no retail installment contract or retail charge agreement can include an assignment of wages. This is generally true of all consumer credit loans as well.

Can a lender have different rules for making loans to women than to men? No. It is unlawful for any creditor to discriminate against any applicant because of race, religion, gender, marital status or age. Lenders may only make distinctions based on the applicant's credit worthiness. A married person who does not have an outside job might have problems obtaining a loan unless that person has sufficient collateral to provide as security for the loan. If the person's spouse has an established credit rating, the spouse could guarantee the loan or provide other security, which would support the loan.

What are some consumer protection laws and what do they do? State regulations have been adopted in many areas including term paper sales, motor vehicle sales and repairs, home solicitation selling, and home improvement contracts. Information about consumer protection can be found on the Internet at http:///www.oag.state.tx.us.

Truth in lending: This requires disclosure of credit costs and contract provisions so that consumers can compare credit terms. It also gives a three-day right to cancel any credit sales when the collateral for the debt is a residence.

T.C. Door-To-Door Rule: This regulation creates a three-day recission right for any contract on credit and cash sales of $25.00 or more, which take place away from the seller's regular place of business. Door-to-door contracts are required to contain a bold-faced notice of the cancellation right.

Unsolicited credit cards: This law prohibits issuance of unsolicited credit cards. You may file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission if you receive an unsolicited credit card. However, you may have applied for one and forgotten about it (in the mall, at the football stadium, or the basketball arena, where you received a free T-shirt or towel to fill out an application), or you may simply have received a renewed card for an account that you have recently cancelled. If you do receive a card that you do not want, cut it up and contact the card issuer and tell them that you do not want an account.

Fair Credit Reporting Act: This law ensures fair, timely and accurate reporting of credit information. It also restricts the use of reports on consumers, and in certain situations, requires the deletion of obsolete information. The law applies to lenders and employers, as well as any business that provides credit reports.

Equal Credit Opportunity Act: This prohibits discrimination in lending because of race, religion, sex, marital status or age. The law applies to all lenders and credit transactions, not just consumer credit transactions. There are rules for taking, evaluating and acting on a credit application except when the spouse's credit history is part of the loan or the signature is needed for the lender to take a security interest in collateral for the loan. Other rules apply to furnishing and maintaining credit information.

What is the difference between a "full" and "limited" warranty? All warranties must be labeled as either "full" or "limited." Under a "full" warranty, the dealer/manufacturer is given a reasonable number of chances to fix defects but then must allow you to choose a full refund or a replacement without charge. A "full" warranty applies to anyone who owns the product during the warranty period. Few "full" warranties are given. The refund or replacement rights do not exist under "limited" warranties. Most warranties are "limited."

Are warranties important? Yes, they establish your right to have defects fixed at no charge. You should always ask for a copy of the warranty. A dealer is required to give you a copy. Texas has a Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which gives you additional rights for breach of warranty or for other deceptive trade practices. The Act offers consumers strong protection against sellers of defective products.

Do I have any protection after the stated warranty period ends? Maybe. There is usually an implied (unwritten) warranty created by statute that, for a reasonable time, an item purchased from a dealer will be fit for the purpose for which it was sold.

Do these warranties apply to used items? After the stated warranty period, there are no warranties.

Do I have to pay for unauthorized work done by a repair shop? It depends on what you told the shop when you asked them to do the repairs. The law protects all consumers on repair contracts, requiring written estimates under certain circumstances.

What if I bought a "lemon"? The Texas Lemon Law is a state law that helps consumers who buy or lease new motor vehicles and have repeated problems getting their vehicles properly repaired, repurchased, or replaced. The Lemon Law is limited to vehicles purchased or leased from Texas licensed dealers or leasers.

What vehicles are covered by the Lemon Law? New vehicles, including cars, trucks, vans, motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, motor homes, towable recreation vehicles, and demonstrator vehicles. The relief available to used motor vehicle buyers is limited to repairs only, if the vehicle is still under the original factory warranty.

How do I file a complaint? A Lemon Law complaint must be filed in writing to the Texas Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicles Division. It is important that all records be kept of repair orders, letters to manufacturer, and calls. For further information and forms, contact the Texas Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicle Division, P.O. Box 2293, Austin, TX 78768 or call Statewide toll free 800-622-8682.

Whom should I contact if I have consumer questions? Attorney General of Texas, Consumer Protection at 1-800-621-0508 or Texas Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicles Division, (888) 368-4689, or on the web at either http://www.oag.state.tx.us or http://www.txdmv.gov/protection/lemon_law.htm.

When can a person marry without parents' consent? At age 18, you can marry without the consent of your parents.

What is the youngest age at which a person can marry with parents' consent? The youngest age at which a person may marry with parents' consent is 16. (Tex. Fam. Code Ann. / 2.102.)

Is a marriage a contract? Yes, it is a contract between two consenting adults. State law creates the relationship and describes the consequences of divorce or other marital problems.

How does one get a marriage license? You apply to the county clerk no more than 30 days, but at least 72 hours, before the marriage ceremony and pay the application fee.

What is required for a valid ceremonial marriage? All you need is:

A valid marriage license

An authorized official (generally a clergyman, judge, or others authorized to perform marriages under the law)

A marriage ceremony

Does Texas recognize "informal" or common law marriages? Yes, a valid marriage may also be provided by the execution of a Declaration of Informal Marriage form at the County Clerk's office or by proof that: (1) the parties, free to marry, agree to be married; (2) live together as partners in this state; and (3) represent to others that they are married. There is no specific amount of time they must live together. An informal marriage is as valid as a ceremonial marriage, and a divorce must be obtained to end it. However, if a claim of informal marriage is not made within two years of the date the relationship ended, there is a rebuttable presumption that there was no agreement made.

In a marriage, who has to provide support? Both partners have an obligation to provide for support of the other and of all minor children. Either spouse may be held liable for necessities furnished to the other, or to all minor children.

What happens in a divorce? A judge will consider child custody, child support, and property division. As a general rule, all assets and debts acquired during the marriage are divided equally.

What are the grounds for divorce? There are 7 grounds for divorce in Texas. These are enumerated in Section 6.001 - 6.007 of the Texas Family Code. Texas has two "no fault" grounds for divorce. One is "insupportability," here the legitimate ends of the marriage have been destroyed and the parties have no reasonable expectation of reconciling. The other no-fault ground is living apart for a period of three years.

Can a father be required to support a child if he is not married? Yes. The child, the child's mother, a child support agency, or certain other parties can sue a father. A wage assignment can be obtained that will automatically deduct the amount from the father's paycheck.

What if the man denies that he is the child's father? The child, the child's mother, a child support agency, or certain other parties can start a paternity action. The court will require blood tests. Very accurate blood tests now exist. If the question is not settled, a trial will be held to determine who is the child's father.

May a parent's rights be terminated? Yes. A court may terminate parental rights for a variety of reasons, including abandonment, failure to support, endangerment of the physical or emotional well-being of the child, and various other grounds.

Does an abused spouse have to start a divorce action to get assistance from the courts? No. You can get a protective order from the court if you or a member of your family or household have been subject to abuse and the court finds that abuse is likely to occur in the foreseeable future. The order may contain a wide variety of remedies. Failure to comply with the terms of the order can be punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both. Consult the Yellow Pages under Social Services Organizations for contact information of groups serving abused spouses. (Not limited to battered wives ... some women beat up their husbands too!)

What kinds of protection can an abused spouse receive from a court while a divorce action is pending? In Texas the same relief under protective orders, as stated above, is available to a spouse while a divorce action is pending.

Can an abused spouse have a criminal complaint pursued against the offending spouse? Yes. If you are abused, immediately call the police or prosecuting attorney's office. Get hospital treatment and keep records of injuries, witnesses, police officers, and medical attendants. Get copies of medical reports. A temporary protective order may be requested to keep your spouse away from your home and place of employment.

Can an abused spouse bring an action for personal injuries against the offending spouse? Yes. To do so, a civil action must be started. You should see an attorney to discuss the sufficiency of evidence, the facts that must be proven, and the amount of damages or other remedies you could obtain.

Must a lease be written to be enforceable? No, unless the lease is for longer than one year.
What are the advantages of having a written lease?

You will have a better idea of all your rights and obligations.

You will have protection against dishonesty.

You will have protection against poor memories.

What are the disadvantages of a written lease?

Printed form leases usually favor the landlord.

The lease could change some of the rules that would otherwise favor the tenant.

What is a security deposit, how much money is it usually, and what is it used for? It is an amount of money (often equal to one month's rent, but can be any amount) that the landlord may hold as security against loss for items such as property damages, unclean conditions, and unpaid rent. The landlord may retain all or part of the security deposit to pay for damage or charges for which you are legally liable under the lease or as a result of breaking the lease. He may not, however, retain any portion of a security deposit to cover normal wear and tear. The tenant must give the landlord a written statement of the tenant's forwarding address upon moving out. If the tenant does this, and is not delinquent in the rent, the landlord must give to the tenant an itemized list of deductions, if any, within 30 days, and a refund of the unused portion of the security deposit.

May I withhold my last month's rent and request that my landlord applies my deposit to the rent due? No.

In a monthly lease, can I end the lease by just leaving at the end of a month? No. You must give one month's notice, unless a different period of notice is specified in a document signed by both parties.

If I sign a lease with 3 friends as tenants, and they move out, do I have to pay the full rent or only my quarter share? It depends on what the lease says. You will probably have to pay the full rent. You would then have a claim against your friends and could sue them.

If I break a lease, what amount can I be sued for? You can be sued for all unpaid rent, for any physical damage including unusual cleaning expenses, for advertising expenses and other costs of re-renting the apartment, and for the landlord's attorney fees and court costs, if the written lease provides for that.

Should I have renter's insurance? Yes. The landlord's insurance will cover only the building, not your possessions. Renter's insurance is relatively inexpensive.

What are my obligations as a tenant? Under the law, a tenant must refrain from damaging the rental premises and keep the premises in a fit and livable condition.

How does the landlord terminate a tenancy for non-payment of rent? If you do not pay the rent when due, a landlord may give you a notice to either payor leave within three days. This notice to leave or vacate may be preceded by a notice of default if there is a written lease that provides for one. The three-day notice requires the tenant to leave the premises within that time. If you do not leave, the landlord can file an eviction lawsuit in the Justice of the Peace court. Even if you are evicted, you are liable for the rent until you are evicted by an order of the court.
What can I do if the landlord refuses to make repairs to the premises? The landlord's general duty is to make a diligent effort to repair or remedy a condition if:

The tenant specifies the condition in a notice to the person to whom rent is normally paid.

The tenant is not delinquent in the payment of rent.

The condition materially affects the physical health or safety of an ordinary tenant.

The condition is not caused by the tenant or a member of the tenant's family or a guest of the tenant.

If the cost of the repair is minor in relation to the rent, it may be your responsibility to fix the problem depending on what your written lease may provide. When conditions are so bad as to make the premises "uninhabitable," you should consult an attorney about possible remedies. A landlord has a legal duty to provide security and safety devices such as deadbolt locks, peep holes, and smoke detectors.

Under what circumstances can the landlord enter my premises? A landlord may enter your premises at reasonable times to inspect, make repairs or show the premises to prospective tenants. The landlord may enter at unusual situations to preserve or protect the premises.

Can a landlord refuse to rent an apartment to me? Generally, yes. The denial may not be based on race, religion, familial status or national origin.

Must an employer give employees a written contract? No. Texas has "at will" employment. An employment contract is a rarity in Texas because employers do not like to hinder by contract their ability to fire an employee.

For what reasons can an employee be fired? No employee has an expectation for continued employment, and an employer has the right to fire any employee for any reason. The employee must show that the termination resulted from a statutory violation. Most statutory violations concern allegations of discrimination of some sort. Illegal discrimination occurs when an employer treats you differently because of your race, sex, religion, national origin, age, or because of a disability. You must be 40 years of age or older to have protection from age discrimination.
The Fair Employment Practice Agencies office in Texas is listed below:
Do these discrimination prohibitions apply to hiring as well? Yes. An employer is prohibited from basing employment decisions on an applicant's race, sex, religion, national origin, age, or because of a disability. If discrimination is suspected, an administrative complaint must be filed with the appropriate agency. The federal agency is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC works with the Fair Employment Practice Agencies (FEPAs). You must file your discrimination charge with the FEPA within 180 days of the wrongful conduct. These charges raise claims under state and local laws prohibiting employment discrimination as well as the federal laws enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Texas Commission on Human Rights

P.O. Box 13006

6330 Highway 290 E, Suite 250

Austin, Texas 78723

Phone: 1-888-368-4689

Website: http://www.twc.state.tx.us/customers/jsemp/jsempsubcrd.html

At what age can a person enlist in the armed forces? A person can enlist as early as age 17, with parental consent, and at 18, without. Both males and females can choose to enlist in any branch of the military. Enlistees must be citizens of the United States or immigrant aliens with immigration and naturalization papers.

Who is required to register for Selective Service? All U.S. citizen males are required to register for Selective Service upon reaching their 18th birthday. Also, all permanent resident aliens and undocumented aliens must register. Lawful non-immigrants on visas should not register. Until the age of 26, men are required to inform the Selective Service Agency whenever they change their permanent address.
How do I register?
When do I register? All required males must register within 30 days of their 18th birthday; this provides a 60-day window in which registration is possible. A man may register as early as 17 years and 3 months old.

Online at sss.gov

Complete and return a registration form available at any Post Office.

Return a reminder mail-back card that is sent to many young men around the time they turn 18.

Check "Yes" on Box #29 on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

Through the assistance of an appointed Selective Service Registrar at your high school, if available.

Will draft cards be issued when I register? You will receive a registration acknowledgment card. This card will be proof that you have complied with the law, so keep it in a safe place. If a draft occurs, you will be notified. You must report for a physical examination and processing. The notice will also provide information on possible exemptions and deferments.

What happens if I don't register? Several punishments, including fines, incarceration and loss of privileges.

In 2015, the Texas Legislature amended the state's truancy law to raise the ceiling for compulsory student attendance from age 17 to age 18. Thus, effective 9/1/15, students ages 6-18 are required to attend school. At the same time, the Legislature removed criminal liability for student truancy (defined as ten or more absences in a six-month period), but parents who contribute to student truancy may still be found criminally liable. Instead of being jailed, truant students may be ordered by a court to participate in mandatory counseling or tutoring, among other things.

State Bar of Texas for lawyer referral services
http://www.texasbar.com
800-204-2222 option 8

Attorney General of Texas, Consumer Protection
http://www.oag.state.tx.us
800-621-0508

Consumer-Reporting Agencies (fees are involved)

Experian: 888-397-3742

Trans Union: 800-888-4213

Equifax: 888-202-4025

Texas Department of Transportation
www.dot.state.tx.us
888-368-4689

Motor Vehicle Division

P.O. Box 2293, Austin, TX 78768

Texas Commission on Human Rights (FWPA)
http://www.welcome.toftchr
888-452-4778

P.O. Box 13006 Capitol Station

Austin, Texas 78711-3006

Texas Abuse Hotline

800-252-5400

NOW YOU ARE 18 is a project of the TEXAS LAWYERS AUXILIARY.

The TEXAS LAWYERS AUXILIARY gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the faculty of the SCHOOL OF LAW, ST. MARY'S UNIVERSITY, San Antonio, Texas. For Updated Versions, the TEXAS LAWYERS AUXILIARY expresses its appreciation to the Travis County Bar Association and the Lawyer Referral Service of Central Texas, and to Dean C. Paul Rogers, III, of Southern Methodist University School of Law and to Austin Attorneys Leon Barish, W. Stephen Banesh, Blair Dancy, Randy Glenn, Michelle Huhn, Tom O'Leary, Brad Reagan, Greg Reed, Bill Rossick, David Sheppard, Todd Wong, County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir and District Clerk Amalia Rodriquez-Mendoza for consideration and verification of the new material.

FOUNDING EDITOR and CHAIRMAN (1987 - 1990): Ann M. Smith, San Antonio
GRANT: THE TEXAS BAR FOUNDATION
NOTE: THIS BOOKLET [sic] IS BASED ON TEXAS LAW AND IS ISSUED TO INFORM AND NOT TO ADVISE

This material is a summary of the laws, as they existed in September 2017 at the time of publication. This is GENERAL and BASIC information only. Laws are constantly changing. Exceptions and special circumstances exist. You should seek legal advice from an attorney of your choice who can take into account all the factors relevant to your particular situation.

Copyright (c) 1987 TEXAS LAWYERS AUXILIARY. All rights reserved.

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Download the "Now You Are 18" app! Welcome to the adult world! NOW YOU ARE 18 has been prepared especially for you. Our purpose is to explain to you what some of your new rights are. Some areas of the law that you want to know about and indeed should know about are presented.

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In the article Now You Are 18! by Houston Bar Association the author believes that a person becomes an adult when you have certain new rights, i.e., to vote, make contracts in your own name, and to become completely independent. You also have certain new responsibilities and are held personally accountable for your actions.

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My thoughts on this article are that this informs the reader the generic aspects you should have when you're deemed an adult.

This article also links to Dear Martin because it relates to the main character Justyce, based on his life choices which affect thing in his future.