When Do You Become an Adult?

MAUGHAN: I’m just thinking about, like, elephants being teenagers and getting in trouble and testing the rules.

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DUCKWORTH: I’m Angela Duckworth.

MAUGHAN: I’m Mike Maughan.

DUCKWORTH + MAUGHAN: And you’re listening to No Stupid Questions.

Today on the show: what does it mean to be an adult?

MAUGHAN: I called home maybe 12 times, because I was so homesick. And I thought, maybe I’m not as much of an adult as I thought I was.

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MAUGHAN: Angela, we have a fascinating question today about adulthood.

DUCKWORTH: “Adulting” or adulthood?

MAUGHAN: Well, adulthood, I think, but I think they’re tied together, and I don’t know that I’m good at “adulting.” I don’t know how you are at “adulting,” but it’s kind of forced upon us at a certain age.

DUCKWORTH: It is.

MAUGHAN: So, here’s the question: “Who decided, and when was it decided, that the age of 18 years old is considered an adult? Why hasn’t this evolved with our understanding of human brain development? Thank you so much for considering my question, Alison.” 

DUCKWORTH: Oh, so nice, Alison.

MAUGHAN: Yeah, I think this is a great question — my favorite is like, “Who decided?” Like, “Who, who are you to tell me that 18 is an adult?”

DUCKWORTH: Do you know the answer to that question? Because I know the neuroscience and the psychology on that question, but I don’t know who decided it was that at the age of 18 we are able to vote and do some other things.

MAUGHAN: I weirdly do know the answer to that, but before we jump into that, I want to ask you a question first. Was there a time in your life when you finally felt like, “I’m an adult?

DUCKWORTH: I think in high school, I actually did have a little vague feeling about this, and it’s partly because my parents, whom I loved and who were caring, were very occupied with raising my older brother and sister and they were a handful. And so, the kinds of things that some parents do, like, “Hey, it’s time for your physical,” or like, “You should probably get an eye exam,” or, “It’s time to send out Christmas cards. And maybe we should put out a jack-o’-lantern because it’s Halloween.” So, basically I did all those things in high school, and they are kind of adult things. So, obviously that was all before I was 18, but honestly, I think my first load of laundry — like, you know that first load of laundry that you do completely by yourself, and you’re, like, paying complete attention to the task. You’re like, “And then the dryer sheet goes in the, dryer.” Like,  I think the first load of laundry I did,   I was like, “Now I am an adult.”

MAUGHAN: See, I think I thought of when did I become an adult, and I remember moving to college — which by the way was 45 minutes away from the home I grew up in. And I thought, “I am an adult now. I’m moving out. I’m on my own.” And those first two weeks, I called home maybe 12 times, because I was so homesick. And I thought, “Maybe I’m not as much of an adult as I thought I was.”

DUCKWORTH: Did you drive yourself? Your parents didn’t drop you off?

MAUGHAN: No, and that is so funny because it’s become a conversation in my family. My parents were always just like, “Hey, good luck!” My friend Dave Smith and I packed my family’s Suburban — I took half the Suburban, he took half the Suburban — for all of our stuff, and we listened to Billy Joel’s “Moving Out.” And I thought I was an adult, but then I realized that maybe I still need my mom and dad.

DUCKWORTH: Well, I absolutely cried when my parents dropped me off. And I remember distinctly the feeling of watching the car get smaller in the distance. And there was just this, like, sinking feeling, and it was like, “I want my mommy.” But yeah, there are these transitions, and, you know, psychologists have been thinking about this forever. But you said you bizarrely know the answer to this. So, who decided that 18 — 

MAUGHAN: Right. So, Alison, I’m going to answer that. First of all, there’s this thing called “age of majority,” which is different than what’s called the “legal age of license.” So the age of majority is when you are legally considered an adult and fully responsible for your own actions.  

DUCKWORTH: So, that’s 18.

MAUGHAN: Most places now view the age of majority — or age of adulthood, if you will — as 18. Now, there are a few states in the United States — Alabama and Nebraska, for example, say the age of majority is 19. Mississippi says the age of majority is 21. That does not mean, however, that you can’t vote or any of those things.

DUCKWORTH: That’s federal, right?

MAUGHAN: Right, and so, legal age of license, which is slightly different, that’s when, for example, you can participate in certain activities like drinking alcohol. What’s interesting is the historical fluctuations. And the age of majority, fluctuated over time between being the mid-teens and mid-twenties for what’s adulthood. So, if we go back to the Romans, because everything goes back to the Romans.

DUCKWORTH: At least over here, in this part of the world. Go on, yes. 

MAUGHAN: The Romans in the early days considered 15 for males. They said that’s when they have obtained the intellectual capacities required to exercise full citizenship, manage their affairs, become parents, and the heads of families themselves. Now, for anyone who’s met a 15-year-old, God bless the 15-year-old Romans.

DUCKWORTH: Okay, wait, I need to interrupt you very briefly and say it’s possible that 15-year-olds back then were not the same as 15-year-olds now.

MAUGHAN: Yes, 100 percent true. But basically this is because they were correlating adulthood with puberty. And the onset of puberty roughly was 15 for males back then. What’s interesting, though, is that they still didn’t trust these 15-year-olds completely, so they would place them under temporary guardianship of adults who were known as “curators,” and the curators would validate any formal action that the 15-year-old took until they reach the age of 25. So, it’s kind this, like, balance between you’re an adult at 15, but you’re a supervised adult for 10 years.  

DUCKWORTH: Okay, so this is the historical origin of 18. So it started off as 15.

MAUGHAN: But then it changes.   As the nature of warfare changes, we start to think of adults differently. Hop with me for a minute over to England. So, in the Middle Ages, think about all the weight of defensive armor. And so the age of eligibility for knighthood turns into age 21, because that was when they felt like you could be an actual warrior.

DUCKWORTH: Like, you were strong enough.

MAUGHAN: Right. And so they change it to 21 if you’re in the military. But the age of adulthood stayed about 14 or 15 if you were an agricultural status. So, I should just say, for centuries, the tradition spread widely because of the role that the English played — 21 became that age of adulthood in much of the world. But it was, once again, war that changed it in the U.S. to 18 because we didn’t have enough people that were entering the military. So, in 1942, Congress lowered the age of conscription into the military from 21 to 18, and then that led to the 26th Amendment in the United States, where it was like, “Hey, look, if you can send me into war at 18, then I want to be able to vote at 18.”

DUCKWORTH: Ah, so voting followed the draft.

MAUGHAN: Yes, because it was like, look, if you can send me into war, I should be able to vote for who my leaders are. And then, kind of everything flowed from there, that 18 became the age. And it’s so interesting that so much of it comes down to warfare. Not psychology, not brain development, not maturity, but warfare.

DUCKWORTH: So, in the kind of like, “Well, who decided?” It sounds like there are political — I guess you could say pragmatic, but definitely political forces that say 15, 18, 21. Okay, back to 18. Well, 21 for this, 18 for that, right?

MAUGHAN: Or if you’re on the farm, then we need you to be an adult earlier, versus if you’re out there fighting a battle, we’re going to call it something different.

DUCKWORTH: Well, the thing you said about there are two bright lines —   you said there’s an age of majority, which is kind of a confusing expression except for when you think of children and teenagers as being minors. I guess that’s why it’s called the age of majority. You are no longer a minor. But then, there is the blah, blah, blah, blah about license? What was that phrase?

MAUGHAN: The legal age of license.

DUCKWORTH: Somehow, like, that phrase sounded, like, so long to me, but okay, again, the legal age of license. So, that being a different bright line, that’s a different demarcation for adulthood, at least in terms of our laws. So, that one was, you said it was like drinking, for example, and —

MAUGHAN: Yeah, and they can match up or they might not. So, if you look at some of the history: when Prohibition ended in 1933, most states set the drinking age to 21, which at the time also equated to the voting age. That continued until, again, we talked about this —.

DUCKWORTH: We needed soldiers, yeah, the draft. 

MAUGHAN: Yeah, that’s when we moved the voting age to 18 with the Constitutional Amendment. A bunch of states, in turn, lowered the drinking age to 18. But then, in 1984, President Reagan comes in and he says, “Look, you need to raise the drinking age because of drinking and driving.” It became this massive national problem, especially on kids who hadn’t quite developed the brain function, etc. So, he basically strong-arms all of Congress to pass this National Minimum Drinking Age Act, where he said that if states don’t raise the drinking age from 18 to 21, then he would cut funding for their federal highway funds. So he forced all these states to raise the drinking age to 21, but it had been 18.  

DUCKWORTH: Until Reagan? I did not know that. And are all states in the United States 21 for drinking?

MAUGHAN: Yes, so every state abides by the standard of age 21 for drinking.

DUCKWORTH: Okay, so here’s what I want to say about the age of majority and the legal age of license. So, when you’re a child, you’re a child. And when you’re an adult, you’re an adult. And I guess different societies have made the bright line differently. But there’s also this stage that is in between childhood and adulthood. I think every society would agree that it’s not childhood to adulthood, it’s childhood to adolescence to adulthood. One of my favorite adolescent psychologists is Larry Steinberg. And he is one of the world experts on this transitional stage, right? I think one thing Larry would want everyone to know is that all mammals have adolescence. It’s a phase that is biological, and it is this transition sexually. So, you know, the hormones change, you develop the ability to reproduce. And during that stage, you actually also engage in a bunch of behaviors that are true across mammals. And I find this fascinating, because there is a kind of teenage phase — even for, like, mice and rats.

MAUGHAN: I’m just thinking about, like, elephants being teenagers and, like, getting in trouble and testing the rules.

DUCKWORTH: Right. I think what’s so funny is that during this stage, you know, adolescent mammals do, like, stupidass things, like, risk-taking, sensation-seeking behaviors. And so, one of the things that Larry has thought hard about as a prominent adolescent psychologist is: when should these bright lines be made? And he’s smart enough to understand that no policymaker can handle like, “Well, it shouldn’t be —” like, you need to have bright lines. He kind of understands that even though there’s complexity, you cannot govern a society where you’re like, “For this, it’s 16 and a half, except for if this person hasn’t reached this milestone.” I mean, he gets it.

MAUGHAN: Right, that’s what’s so tricky, because the development of individuals is not uniform, but to your point, from a policy-making standpoint, you can’t have just a mushy middle forever, so we have to draw these lines. 

DUCKWORTH: So, he has these two lines as well. So, he wrote this article in 2019, so not that long ago with a postdoc named Grace Icenogle, and it’s entitled, “Using Developmental Science to Distinguish Adolescents and Adults Under the Law.” And, you know, he summarizes decades of research, including the neuroscience on brain development. And he says, “Look, we need two lines. Here’s one line.” And this line comes earlier. By age 16 — Larry wants to argue, and I would agree with him — it’s at that age at our capacity to reason logically is actually fully mature.

MAUGHAN: At 16?

DUCKWORTH: At 16. Now, by the way, you can point to these 16-year-olds and you’re like, “Seriously?” But he makes this distinction. He said it’s in cool decision-making contexts. In other words, like, not emotional, not peer-pressured. But if you actually give 16-year-olds logic puzzles, and, like, reasoning puzzles, they are just as good, if not better, honestly, than many of their older family members. For example, voting, you know, thinking about the upcoming election when obviously our voting rules are not going to change. I think Larry would argue that 16-year-olds should be fully capable of reasoning in a cool context. Now, you might not argue that this election is a cool context, but I think this is what he means.

MAUGHAN: And “cool” not meaning, um, fun, popular. Cool as in, like, non-emotional.

DUCKWORTH: Oh, yes. Not Stanley Cups and Adidas Sambas, but, like, “cool” as in not emotionally hot.   He says, it’s a different thing when you’re asked to make decisions in a hot context. That’s one that, you know, there’s time pressure, there’s peer pressure, and there’s something emotional. Like, say you’re angry. That’s actually where teenagers get in trouble. Teenagers actually do not get into trouble in, like, pencil and paper hypothetical scenarios. They do not make stupid decisions. But when they’re with their friends and they’re in these, like, emotional, anger-inducing, or embarrassment-inducing, or, and also, you know, I mentioned this, like, thrill-seeking and sensation-seeking. Whenever I talk to undergraduates, I mean, I sound like that old person, but I do tell them, I’m like, “If you can get through this period of time, as you move into your mid-twenties, the urge to do those stupidass things, it just fades. Like, this one kid in my class was like, “So Dr. Duckworth, do you mean this? When I was a kid, well, not that long ago, actually, I guess I was in high school, there was a steep hill near my house. And I would ride my bike to the top of the hill, and then I would go down as fast as I could, with no brakes, right through an intersection.”

MAUGHAN: Oh my gosh.

DUCKWORTH: “Again and again, because it was fun.” And he was like, “And Dr. Duckworth, I, I kinda think that’s crazy now, like, I would never do that.” And I’m like, “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

MAUGHAN: So, here’s this distinction, though, that sounds like you’re making is: this kind of cold-decision making. In other words, like, the rational, thoughtful, analytical, logical. And then, there’s the hot, and the hot takes a lot longer to master, if ever. I don’t know that any of us ever master this idea of peer pressure, frankly. I mean, I think we’re maybe less susceptible to it.  

DUCKWORTH: I think he wants to say 21 — and by the way, you know, he’s not saying that, like, a miracle happens between 20 and 21 on that day. But again, he’s a practical guy. So he was like, you know, a society has to have laws and the laws have to have round numbers and you need that unambiguous separation. But the reason why he says 21 is very much informed by brain research. So, like, basically, the prefrontal cortex — you know, the part of your brain that sits right behind your forehead — it is the last to develop in evolution, and it’s the last to mature in your life. And so, for anybody who has young people in their lives, you should just know, like, this part of the brain continues maturing structurally and functionally well into your twenties. And there’s some disagreement about exactly how long, but part of Larry’s reasoning about age 21 is that that part of your brain that is in charge of impulse suppression, task switching, working memory, all that stuff, that is the part of your brain that you absolutely need to be had on, you know, high alert and in high functioning when you’re in an emotional hot decision-making context. And the other reason I know that Larry thinks about 21 is because when I told you about the sensation-seeking impulse — that is really strong throughout your teens, and it starts to fade. And so, I think that’s why Larry wants to say, and I’ll quote him from his article, “Some of the legal situations that require mature self-regulatory capacities: driving, consuming alcohol, gambling, resisting impulses” — these are the ones that a society should set a legal boundary that’s possibly as old as 21. He also mentions 18. But it’s not 16.

MAUGHAN: I do know that Angela and I would love to hear your thoughts on what it means to be an adult and when, if ever, did you start to feel like a grown up? So, record a voice memo in a quiet place with your mouth close to the phone and email it to NSQ@Freakonomics.com. And maybe we’ll play it on a future episode of the show. Also, while being an adult is hard, sharing a podcast is simple. So if you like the show and want to support it, please do the responsible grown-up thing and tell your friends about it. You can also spread the word on social media or leave a review in your podcast app. 

Still to come on No Stupid Questions: should the U.S. adopt a formal rite of passage into adulthood?

DUCKWORTH: I lost count, but I think at some point I had, like, 27 bar mitzvahs or bat mitzvahs in a year. 

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Now, back to Mike and Angela’s conversation about adulthood.

MAUGHAN: Our view of what an adult is, I think changed a bit. And I, I look at this Atlantic article I read by a woman named Julie Beck: “When Are You Really an Adult?” And it talked about how this transition to adulthood used to be this big collection of markers:  getting a job, moving away from your parents, getting married, having kids. But what we’re seeing is this massive trend across the United States, but also happening in many societies globally, where people are getting married later, having kids later, moving out later, or maybe even as adults living with their families. And so, adulthood isn’t always still associated with age of your body, it’s not always associated with the development of the mind, but rather we have these constructs. And I think one fascinating thing I listened to recently was from Trevor Noah, who’s the comedian, wrote one of my favorite books, Born a Crime. But he talks about this almost infantilization of singlehood. And that we treat single people as sort of not fully-formed adults, because we have this preconceived notion that adulthood should include all those things that Julie Beck listed in her article.

DUCKWORTH: Well, okay, that is its own super interesting debate. I thought you were going to say Jean Twenge when you said The Atlantic, because Jean Twenge is — well, she’s a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and she’s very famous, actually, for writing in places like The Atlantic.

MAUGHAN: Yeah, and we’ve talked about Jean’s work before.

DUCKWORTH: Right. So, she wrote this paper with another professor named Heejung Park, and it’s called “The Decline in Adult Activities Among U. S. Adolescents, 1976 — 2016.” So, over this 40-year span, fewer teenagers in the United States engaged in what she calls “adult activities.” I guess we could debate that. And here they are: having sex, dating, drinking alcohol, working for pay, going out without parents, driving. And so, she’s documenting that there is this shift. Now, I do want to give you, like, the evolutionary argument for all of these changes. The human body, we go through puberty. And in that phase all these things come online. For a long time, I think people thought like, “Oh, it’s biology.” Like, somehow your cells know on a certain day to change. You know, the testosterone or the estrogen starts flowing. But one of the major theories in evolutionary psychology right now is called life-history theory, and it says that these things that you think are just fixed and just are, like, on some kind of cellular clock, they’re profoundly influenced by experience and there’s an evolutionary reason. If you sense that you are in a chaotic, uncertain, and dangerous environment, you better get to adulthood fast. Get to adulthood, reproduce, and get the hell out of there. You don’t have a lot of time. But so this life history theory says, like, what if you have the sense that you are in a stable, rich, secure environment, where you’re probably going to live for years and years? Well, then you have an incentive effectively to forestall puberty and whatever line you want to give yourself for being in adult roles, and whatever responsibilities, and everything. And here’s why. It’s the period of childhood and also adolescence where you learn the most. So, this theory says that you can procrastinate on adulthood if you live in a secure world, because then you have time to learn from your parents and to go and get more educated from your peers and to develop skills. So, this life history theory is actually one of the things that Jean Twenge draws upon. She also thinks that social media as an invention is a major reason why people are, like, not going out as much and doing some of the things that teenagers used to do.

MAUGHAN: Well, I think it makes a lot of sense that your body’s ability to say, hey, I can postpone puberty because I’m in a safe environment versus the evolutionary response to I’ve got to reproduce. And, and you look at marriage and the age for marriage, in previous societies girls would be married as — and current societies in some parts of the world, there’s still lots of teenage marriage. For example, in Iran, there were 35,000 marriages between March of 2017 and 2018 of girls who were between the ages of 10 and 14, 170,000 marriages of girls between 15 and 19. So, there’s still this idea in some parts of the world, but certainly in other times, it was very customary to get married at a very young age. Mary the mother of Jesus was 14, they say. I have no idea who came up with that number, but biblical historians would say that, right?

DUCKWORTH: I did not know that. 

MAUGHAN: So, this idea, I think, that goes along with this concept that you’re talking about. With a less stable environment, with a lower lifespan, there was just this, we’ve got to go reproduce earlier.

DUCKWORTH: I mean, one of the things that I had to look up actually at some point — and you know, I am, in some respects, an adolescent psychologist, so I kind of can’t believe that I had to look this up. But the age of puberty. So, puberty actually is starting biologically earlier than it used to. And there’s an evolutionary argument for that too.

MAUGHAN: Wait, it’s starting earlier? See, I would have guessed the opposite.

DUCKWORTH: That’s why I had to look it up!

MAUGHAN: Because they’re in a more safe, stable environment.

DUCKWORTH: Now you’re making me feel less stupid, because I was like, “Wait.” Just thinking about this life history theory, you’re like, “Oh, well, you’ve got time. Isn’t that why we’re going into adulthood later? Like, there is some sense to that. So, there’s evidence from one of my very favorite neuroscientists. Her name is Allyson Mackey, and she studies the developing brain. There’s evidence that our molars, you know those big teeth in the back of your mouth, this emergence of permanent molars, the molars that you don’t lose — her research shows that the more early life stress you have, the earlier your molars erupt. And she would argue, in this life-history theory context, that would be consistent with people who grow up in secure, enriched environments are sort of waiting, right? The pace of development is slowed down so you could capitalize on learning and exploration. So, I don’t think we’re wrong to think, like, “Wait a second, wouldn’t puberty be later?” But here’s the complexity of the human condition, Mike. Like, other things are also true. And one of the reasons why puberty is a movable event and it’s not preprogrammed into your cells that it’s like, okay, exactly on this day, is that other things also influence, including nutrition. So, that’s the big thing. So, when an animal has enough food, and also you have to as a female predict that you can make it through pregnancy and then nurse this child. Anyway, we are consuming more calories and we’re consuming a lot more calories than we did in childhood than we used to. And so, that is I think probably the biggest — I don’t know, but I would just venture a guess that lots of things are going on, but one of the things that’s going on is that we eat so much more.

MAUGHAN: Just raw calories.

DUCKWORTH: Just raw calories. And so that makes the age of puberty go earlier. So, it’s complicated, but let’s just put two facts together. If the age of adulthood is getting later, and the age of puberty is getting earlier, then you have this extended adolescence. And some scientists would say, like, that is a historic event, that we have this adolescent period, where you’re not strictly a child, but you’re not fully an adult. It really is an unprecedented phenomenon.

MAUGHAN: And I don’t know that any of us know yet the good or bad ramifications of it. Angela, I wanted to just bring up, as we close this conversation, a survey that was done by resumetemplates.com that got a lot of press.

DUCKWORTH: Ohh, that sounds, uh, extremely verifiable, resumetemplates.com? 

MAUGHAN: It shocked me.

DUCKWORTH: Okay, I’m going to hold my breath. Go on.  

MAUGHAN: They asked 1,400 Zoomers, which is kind of the Gen Z — they call them “Zoomers.”

DUCKWORTH: Oh, that’s a thing? Okay, “Zoomers.”

MAUGHAN: But, they asked them a bunch of questions about jobs, and job interviews, and resumes, and stuff like that. And they found that 10 percent had had their parents write their resume. Sixteen percent of respondents said their parents had submitted job applications for them. But this was the number that shocked me most: 26 percent of Gen Z respondents said that at one point or another they had brought a parent with them to a job interview.

DUCKWORTH: What? They brought their mom or dad to their job interview? I can’t believe — is that possible?

MAUGHAN: I would immediately invite both to politely exit the office and never come back. Now, maybe in fairness, they meant, “I got a ride.” I don’t know. Anyway, my point is this: that was a shocking stat to me. And sometimes in our prolonged adolescence, maybe we’re doing it wrong if that’s what we’re doing.

DUCKWORTH: I mean, I have heard complaints — you know, as a university professor, right? I teach — I guess you could call them adolescents between 18 and 22. Some scientists, by the way, want to argue for a new term because, you know, if you’ve got this adolescent period that’s so long, they’re like, “How about if we rebrand the part of this life course that’s between 18 to 25,” so think about, like, basically your college years and your first job. There’s some people, most prominently Jeffrey Arnett, who’s a professor of psychology at Clark University, he wants to rebrand that as “emerging adulthood,” or he wants to say that’s, like, a distinct developmental period. At any rate, I teach these adolescents, or if you want, you can call them “emerging adults.” But it is interesting, because I have heard stories, complaints from my fellow faculty who are like, “This kid had their mom call me about their quiz grade. Like, I used to get these annoying complaints from the students themselves, and now I’m starting to get complaints from parents who are like, “Excuse me, professor, but, you know, I think this grade was unfair —” Like what? So it is interesting.

MAUGHAN: That is mind-blowing. 

DUCKWORTH: I take back “interesting.” Mind blowing. Horrifying. Catastrophic.

MAUGHAN: Yeah, interesting was the nicest way you could possibly say that.

DUCKWORTH: Yeah. I will say this. I grew up in this neighborhood where everybody had a bar mitzvah or a bat mitzvah other than me. Because it was a highly Jewish area. And I lost count, but I think at some point I had, like, 27 bar mitzvahs or bat mitzvahs in, like, a year. I remember one day I went to three. Of course, this is a ceremony where you enter adulthood at a single point in time. And it’s not the only tradition where, you know, you were a child and now you are not a child — you are an adult. But I didn’t have that ceremony, not being Jewish. So, then I you know, wondered like, oh, well, if I don’t have this rite of passage, you know, when does it happen for me? I do think, and I have long thought, that the United States — maybe because we’re so diverse, right? Maybe because we’re a melting pot — or choose your metaphor — we don’t actually have a consensual — like, we don’t have how do you say it? Quinceañera? Is that the — you speak Spanish.

MAUGHAN: When you’re 15, you have a quinceañera, yeah.

DUCKWORTH: Quinceañera. But, like, many societies have a rite of passage, as it’s called. Like, we are going to, as a society, induct you into the next chapter of your life. And it’s not this, like, super gradual, maybe at some point, you’ll wake up one day and feel like you’re on the other side of the line. And I have long thought that the United States would benefit from some kind of clear social ritual — not a private ritual, but a social ritual — where you can say, “Now you’re an adult and here are the responsibilities.” So, I know this is not going to happen. Like, I don’t get to legislate this.

MAUGHAN: “Everyone must throw a party at this stage.”

DUCKWORTH: We could agree on that. 

MAUGHAN: See, I always viewed high-school graduation as sort of that moment. It’s a lot of pomp and circumstance. You’re 18, usually, I mean, when you’re graduating. It’s not an individual celebration, like a bat mitzvah, or a bar mitzvah, or a quinceañera, but it is sort of that ritualistic, like, you’re crossing a stage, you’ve now completed —.

DUCKWORTH: That’s right. You’ve, like, donned a gown. By the way, most rites of passage have these things: like, everybody shows up in a certain costume, there are songs —

MAUGHAN: And rituals associated with it.

DUCKWORTH: Yeah, there are people of authority who usually, like, say the same thing over and over — I mean, it is like a bar mitzvah or a bat mitzvah. So, funny that you thought of that as high-school graduation. Now, some would argue it has to be college graduation. Obviously not everyone goes to college. But then some would argue that you go to these college graduations, you hear “Pomp and Circumstance,” people go out to dinner, and a lot of people would say, and I would agree with them, that those 22-year-olds are not thinking like, “And today I’m an adult.”

MAUGHAN: It’s a fair point. So, Alison, thank you for your question. Who decided? Sounds like warfare and the Romans a little bit. When was it decided? I think that what Angela and I have discovered is that it’s still being decided. And thankfully, we have a lot more science and neuroscience and understanding of the brain nowadays. But I will just say, as my closing remark, if you ever want to really be considered an adult, don’t ever, ever bring your parent with you to a job interview.

DUCKWORTH: And it’s never too early to start doing your own laundry. 

Coming up after the break: a fact-check of today’s episode and stories from our NSQ listeners.

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And now, here’s a fact-check of today’s conversation:

Mike and Angela say that you must be 18 years old to vote in all elections in the United States. The 26th Amendment does give this right to citizens who are 18 and older. However, certain states allow 17-year-olds to vote in presidential primaries or caucuses — as long as they’re 18 by the time of the general election.

Later, Mike notes that Biblical scholars believe that Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus, was 14 years old at the time of her son’s birth. The New Testament does not say anything about Mary’s age,and researchers have varying opinions on how old she may have been. Certain academics have written that, according to ancient Jewish custom, she may have been as young as twelve or twelve-and-a-half, while other scholars say that Jewish women of that period often married in their late teens or early twenties, making it likely that she was older.

Also, Angela says higher caloric intake is one the primary reasons that the age of puberty has dropped in recent years. Researchers have concluded that a high-calorie diet may play a role, but most prominent academics and physicians believe that a combination of risk factors is likely responsible for the decline, and it’s unclear exactly what they are. Potential contributors include: obesity, food with endocrine-disrupting chemicals, plastics, stress, and lifestyle changes.

Finally, Mike wonders if the parents who were identified in a survey as accompanying their children to job interviews actually just drove them to the appointment. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. According to the survey: “For those who had a parent come to an in-person interview, 37 percent say that their parent accompanied them to the office, 26 percent say their parent physically sat in the interview room, and 18 percent say their parent introduced themselves to the manager.”

That’s it for the fact-check.

Before we wrap today’s show, let’s hear some thoughts about last week’s episode on why we listen to sad songs.

Samuel LAROCQUE: Hi Mike and Angela. My name is Samuel and I am a French Canadian from the province of Quebec. My dad died of cancer when I was 23, and had a really hard time processing it. The song named “Rainy Season” written by Patrice Michaud, is about a man telling his wife how he lives with cancer and his imminent death. It took me one year before I could hear the song without crying, and two before I could sing it with only my eyes getting wet. And today, I’m grateful for this song. I think it had a lot to do with my recovery. It gave me a better understanding of what my dad was living and what he was trying to tell me. The song says, “Ce n’est plus vraiment mon corps.” “It’s not my own body anymore.” Word for word what my dad told me. It also reconnected me with myself and today I love to sing this song.

Maya SABATINI: Hi, Mike and Angela. This is Maya from Kansas. About a year ago, my best friend and I were both going through some difficult times, and we made a playlist together that we both added to throughout that time, and it consisted of only heart-wrenching songs. It brought a lot of solace during that time, both in being able to listen to sad music and feel my feelings, but also to know that someone else was right there with me, and that we were sharing those experiences together. And now, even though we are both doing much better, I look back at that playlist, and although the songs don’t mean quite as much anymore in terms of their sadness level, it still means just as much to know that I had a dear, dear friend right there with me throughout all that time.

Mitch MAZZOCCO:  Hi Mike and Angela, it’s Mitch here from the UK. I’m a music teacher and I recently did a Masters in Music Education, during which I came across a phenomenon that might be interesting to this topic. It’s called rhythmic entrainment, and it’s the tendency of people to fall into alignment when they’re moving together with the steady beat. So you talked a lot about how people might listen to songs to feel a sense of social connection through identifying with the lyrics. But rhythmic entrainment is really interesting because it is all about feeling a steady beat together. Our heart rates synchronize a little bit, our moods become aligned, and we feel a sense of social affiliation.   So there’s another way in which music can help us feel connected, even without words. 

That was respectively, Samuel Laroque, Maya Sabatini, and Mitch Mazzocco. Thanks to them and to everyone who shared their stories with us. And remember, we’d love to hear your thoughts about what it means to become an adult. Send a voice memo to NSQ@Freakonomics.com, and you might hear your voice on the show!

Coming up next week on No Stupid Questions: Is anyone truly evil?

MAUGHAN: I almost wish I had a malevolent laugh right there, but I  don’t know that I have one.

That’s coming up on No Stupid Questions.

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No Stupid Questions is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network, which also includes Freakonomics Radio, People I (Mostly) Admire, and The Economics of Everyday Things. All our shows are produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. The senior producer of the show is me, Rebecca Lee Douglas, and Lyric Bowditch is our production associate. This episode was mixed by Greg Rippin. We had research assistance from Daniel Moritz-Rabson. Our theme song was composed by Luis Guerra. You can follow us on Twitter @NSQ_Show, and you can now watch video clips of Mike and Angela at the Freakonomics Radio Network’s YouTube Shorts Channel or on Freakonomics Radio’s TikTok page. If you have a question for a future episode, please email it to NSQ@Freakonomics.com. To learn more, or to read episode transcripts, visit Freakonomics.com/NSQ. Thanks for listening!

DUCKWORTH: And think about it, you know, 16-year-olds are no stupider than we are. Their brains are new and shiny and they work.

MAUGHAN: Their brains are shiny.