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When do kids become adults?

When does a child officially become an adult?

The cast of "Skins," based on a British comedy-drama known for its frank depictions of sex and drug use. Taco Bell pulled its advertising over concerns that the show might violate child-pornography laws.
The cast of "Skins," based on a British comedy-drama known for its frank depictions of sex and drug use. Taco Bell pulled its advertising over concerns that the show might violate child-pornography laws.Read moreMTV

When does a child officially become an adult?

There's so much cross-wired legislation about who's responsible for what, and when, that once kids enter high school, parents might want to put a lawyer on retainer. How else to keep up?

The New Jersey Senate has approved a bill that would establish fines for parents if their snowboarders and skiers younger than 18 didn't wear a helmet on the slopes.

"We had to set the age somewhere," said State Sen. Anthony Bucco (R., Morris), the bill's sponsor. "Children are the most vulnerable."

Numerous versions setting the age at 14 had failed to get out of committee since the 1990s because they would have held resort operators accountable for noncompliance.

No doubt, when an adolescent hurtles down a mountain on a slab of fiberglass, the odds of surviving improve with protective headgear. It's just harder to force a business to protect its immature customers than to nail the fools responsible for spawning the reckless devils.

On the deadly-weapons front, parents have more responsibility and less. You can't stop an 18-year-old from going to war, but in most states you can't let him buy a gun before he turns 21.

Should he attend college, get D's, and party so hardy he's hospitalized for alcohol poisoning - no need to trouble you with the news. Paying for tuition, extra-long twin sheets, and rehab doesn't buy a parent the right to meddle. You need his written permission.

On the bright side, with the new federal health-care law, your policy can cover your son's ER visits and your daughter's gynecological exams and birth control until they're 26. But if their wisdom teeth come the day after their 23d birthday, dental insurers can opt out, and the bill is your baby.

In most jurisdictions, until children turn 16 they need parental consent to marry. Unless they're pregnant.

To keep things in perspective, neither pregnancy nor a marriage certificate guarantees a teenager a taxi. Cabbies can decline a ride to someone under 18 who's traveling alone.

As consolation, 18-year-olds get to vote.

When Richard Nixon became president, not so. In 1971, in many states, at 18 you were old enough to buy your own Boone's Farm, get drafted, and die for your country, but too young to decide which politicians picked the battles.

Thus the 26th Amendment lowering the voting age.

One of the lesser-known privileges of turning 18 is that you can get your own stateroom on the QE2. (On the Holland America Line you must be 21.)

Not that most teenagers can afford the luxury. Usually they are living in their parents' basement. Banks aren't keen on issuing mortgages to anyone who gets carded at R-rated movies.

Car insurance and loans are harder for ambiguous adults, too. Under 25 and want to rent a car? Until recently, most companies would say, "Take a hike." Now they exact a $25 surcharge. (They had to set the price somewhere.)

Does this make sense? To policymakers, perhaps. To psychologists and neuroscientists, not really.

"Age is an absolutely arbitrary marker of maturity," says Jennifer Lynn Tanner, 37, a developmental psychologist at Rutgers University.

Studies show that between 18 and 25 the brain develops "executive function." During this phase it hones the ability "to recognize this is my goal, these are my options, these are my resources, and given my circumstances, this is the best choice."

But too many factors contribute to intellectual and emotional growth, Tanner says, to assert that maturity begins only when this phase is complete.

Unlike height restrictions for riding roller coasters, which rely on physics to ensure that short people don't fly out and die, age requirements for enjoying grown-up privileges are based on guesses, politics, and profits.

Take MTV's series Skins, featuring a cast of Lolitas and soft-skinned boys licking rolling papers, toads, and one another. A major advertiser, Taco Bell, pulled out over concerns that the show might violate child-pornography laws. Some of the actors, like many in its viewing audience, are under 18.

That familiar echo you hear is from 12-year-old Brooke Shields' playing a prostitute in Pretty Baby, Calvin Klein's nubile underwear models in 1990, and the stars of the 1995 film Kids who were too young to watch their own lurid actions on screen.

Same old, same old. But more naked now.

Meanwhile, a 17-year-old in Los Angeles may be charged as an adult in the shooting of two classmates. He allegedly reached into his backpack for something to eat and triggered a loaded Beretta he'd taken from his stepfather.

The boy's name was withheld because he is a minor.