The Washington Post article “Age is Just a Number: Youth Right Advocate Tries to Break Down Barriers to Adulthood” chronicles the efforts of Alex Koroknay-Palicz, executive director of the National Youth Rights Association, to advocate for what he deems as a civil rights issue, the rights of youth. The five-page article will inevitably generate discussion about the issue among readers. That this 26 year-old has always had a mission to challenge the law and advocate on behalf of his beliefs is laudable. After all, don’t we want more youth involved with government, especially around advocating for more opportunities for themselves?
However, although I am intrigued by Alex’s ambition, I do not agree with his overall mission. Alex believes that a youth should have the same rights as an adult if he proves he is mature (although what defines “mature” is open to interpretation). At the end of the day, he wants the barriers to age limits on working, voting, drinking, driving, smoking, etc. lifted, asserting that youth have the right to make decisions on their own. Alex refers back to a fight he had with his parents when he was a teenager that ignited his fire for the cause. It seems to me he was just tired of being told “no” by his parents. Doesn’t this happen to every child during those years? It is surely not cause for a civil rights movement to allow youth to do what they want! Lowering the age limits on the above activities would only wreak havoc. There are numerous reasons why youth are disciplined and why rules exist. Does he know how many teens die in car accidents every year? How many drink and drive? These prohibitions are not true cases of civil rights violations, as he claims.
Although I don’t agree with his mission, I do think we should channel this same effort and intensity into policy areas that really affect a youth’s life. Alex and his supporters believe that youth should have a voice and be given a right to choose what they want to do. I agree, they should have a voice but it should not be about lowering age limits, it should be about questioning the opportunities that are available to them. For example, is my school offering the best education, and will I be prepared for college and the workforce? If youth are ready to act like adults, especially in the policy arena, then their focus should not be on lowering the drinking age or driving age – after all these things would just decrease a youth’s opportunity of living a good life. Instead the focus should be on how to increase their opportunity in succeeding in life, and tackling the social and economic gaps that limit them.
-Courtney Haynes | Hope Street Group Fellow
Courtney,
I agree with you. Society has to have a few clearly-defined absolutes in order to function consistently. I don’t know of any teenager who doesn’t think his or her elders is completely wrong on just about everything.
However, we get out of our children what we invest in them. Our generation should be inspiring youngsters to be like us and to trust us. Perhaps there is a growing concern among today’s youth that they must represent themselves because we are not doing it for them. We can’t all be immature. Someone has to lead.
You wrote: “Doesn’t this happen to every child during those years? It is surely not cause for a civil rights movement to allow youth to do what they want!”
But that’s exactly why it IS cause for a civil rights movement: If it were just that Mr. Koroknay-Palicz was told no when he was young, it wouldn’t be grounds for a movement, especially now that he’s 26. But the fact is that millions of people, some of them far more intelligent and responsible than the average voter, are deprived of basic rights. And that is grounds for a movement to liberate them.
You wrote: “Alex believes that a youth should have the same rights as an adult if he proves he is mature (although what defines “mature” is open to interpretation).”
Here, too, you made the youth-rights point: What qualifies as maturity is debatable and hard to discern. Surely, then, we cannot determine whether a person is adequately mature for a particular right by asking how old he is! Yet the whole idea of minimum ages is that people below a certain age are not mature, or otherwise well-developed, enough for certain rights. The fact is, we cannot determine anything relevant to a person’s ability to drink, drive, vote, marry, serve in the military, watch movies, or simply come and go as he pleases by asking his age.
I do not agree with what has been said. It is age restrictions themselves that inhibit the maturation of youth, and are egregious blows to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness besides.