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Is 18 really the point you become a 'man'?
5 days ago
General
In 2008, when I was 13, I attended my best friend-cum-classmate's Bar Mitzvah at the Israeli Embassy in Beijing, China. He just turned 13 then. His mother and father, both Israeli diplomats, even invited our school principal to the occasion. While carrying the Torah around the multipurpose hall as part of the procession (temporarily made into a synagogue), he briefly turned to me while walking halfway down the aisle while I was seated at my pew: "How am I a man now?" Rabbi had to nudge my friend to continue walking. No stopping halfway!
Fast forward to 2016, my Israeli friend and I parted ways after he kept supporting far right content of Facebook. He's generally an asshole and likes calling women "idiots" and "whores" which I found too much for me to handle. His behaviour hasn't improved since 2023 (age 28 by then) when he posted images of unexploded Palestinian missiles landing in his backyard in Tel Aviv (he's now back in Israel). I'm glad he and his family are okay, but I don't like his advocacy that the IDF needs to shoot Palestinian babies. (Disclaimer: I'm not against conservatives, I'm against assholes.)
And that brings into the question of what marks the cutoff point at which someone becomes a man? The age of 13? 16? 18? 21?
Because I've met people age 14 who seem to act like they are 25. And then there are 35 year olds who still act like they are 9. They are both immature people, one by statutory age, the other by behaviour.
Sincèrement,
~JAF1320
Fast forward to 2016, my Israeli friend and I parted ways after he kept supporting far right content of Facebook. He's generally an asshole and likes calling women "idiots" and "whores" which I found too much for me to handle. His behaviour hasn't improved since 2023 (age 28 by then) when he posted images of unexploded Palestinian missiles landing in his backyard in Tel Aviv (he's now back in Israel). I'm glad he and his family are okay, but I don't like his advocacy that the IDF needs to shoot Palestinian babies. (Disclaimer: I'm not against conservatives, I'm against assholes.)
And that brings into the question of what marks the cutoff point at which someone becomes a man? The age of 13? 16? 18? 21?
Because I've met people age 14 who seem to act like they are 25. And then there are 35 year olds who still act like they are 9. They are both immature people, one by statutory age, the other by behaviour.
Sincèrement,
~JAF1320
Mentally...results may vary. Because there are factors like: Environment, & Personality Traits which are never the same.
Using your power to help and protect others, to be gentle at all times, to take initiative, to be accountable for one’s actions and mistakes, to admit when they’re wrong, to keep an open mind, to not tolerate people who would seek to abuse others, and finally to encourage boys to go down the same route.
That is a man.
A real man admits they've pulled the wrong lever, and accept responsibility.
Legally speaking its 18 or 21 depending on country
Biologically speaking its after puberty and you have puberted at the conclusion of being a puberting puberer.
Mentally? Varies. I have heard of tales of 10 year olds support disabled parents and run their household and behave more maturity than some mentally sound people who are beyond 70 who throw kiddy tantrums at every thing...
So take what you will from it.
Someone can act like a man but still be like a child in areas that are either minor or major parts of importancy of what is portrayed as an responsible human.
A person can grow or shrink as a person depending on exposure of the outside world and experience. However, so does a lot of other factors that comes to play from outside exposure on what shapes a person into the person they are, and through life experience. Even through life people can still act like assholes and not being exposed to other things that gives them an insight on that most things are complicated, not as it seems or black & white.
What is interesting is your friend's world view. Why does he see things in the way he does?
When it comes down to cutting them off it comes down to you talking to him about his behaviour, attitude and your stand on it.
If this have been going on for so long and it's effecting you in a bad way, than you are not doing yourself any favour by still being his friend.
So the question is to you: Do you still want to be friends with someone who is like this?
That is up to you.
That said, my Israeli ex-friend was exempted from 3-year mandatory Israeli military service because of ADHD. Sometimes I find that people with mental and intellectual disabilities use it as a an excuse for bad behaviour. As a former discord mod a few years ago, I know this too well.
Good on you for not keeping contact with that ex-friend of yours.
If you mean socially, you don't become a man. You absolutely can loose being a man, but it's much harder to become one (because a man is a cis/het hard-working male who's only emotions are stoic, angry, and stoic pride and one who gets all the sex) than it is to loose it. (got fucked? not a man. No job? not a man. No bitches? not a man etc etc)
If you mean biologically the point at which a male becomes fully mature, the jury's still out at that one. Brain development could never end, it could stop at 25, it could stop at 18, etc etc. That or you're a tman and you develop into a man in your 30s, 40s, etc
If you mean legally, a man is someone who is A) over the age of 18 and B) has the stamp that says they are a man (which is usually their sex, because we gotta institutionalize that patriarchy).
If you ask me, a man is someone who says they're a man. It's just a label, and if people are made more comfortable by using it on themselves let them. 13 year old can be a man. A person with tits bigger than their head is a man. Someone who is also a woman is a man. Don't care bout anything besides how they identified themselves
History has shown us how young an adult can be, though 18-21 seems give people enough time to leave being childish behind, as well as getting used to the hormone challenge of being a teenager.
Again, if the parenting is there. But between letting their child run wild because 'let them be children' and the pressure of getting a good education, pushing a child too far and essentially costing them their childhood, not to mention parents pushing their outdated views on their kids?
You wonder how we have a functioning society at all anywhere in the world.
We have some, don't we? Functioning societies I mean. Because sometimes I'm not sure.
What I define to "be a man" is to have the competency to take responsibility and accountability to one's action and lead those around him. It's also having the maturity to act on rationality rather than act on primal emotion. Age is often a suggestion but some guys are forced to grow up early or never had a reason to grow up in their adulthood.
If you need a number on when a person becomes a man, I would say past age 32 when mind reaches it's prime. After that it starts slowing down and everything begins to click in place. That youthful energy that you no longer have sets the reality and you just start becoming content and set in your own ways.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a master at ruminating on my mistakes, even small ones, and I do have my insecurities. But compared to my teenage years, I'm not the train wreck I was.
But you're right, it's really responsibility and accountability. I sometimes struggle with these things because insecurity sometimes causes me to want to avoid them because I don't want to disappoint people or hurt expectations. I learnt that inevitably, responsibilities you ignore or procrastinate on will come back to bite you.
And a hero is just a man who knows he's free.I use "major" to describe those above 18, and "adult" as an earned privilege, not a technical given.
In Hungary, the legal adult age is 18.
Mentally adult...yeah, that varies by every case.
It usually happens in the twenties..!
As for mental maturity, each person is different. When I was eighteen I was told I acted much older, now I'm 45 and I get told I still act like someone half my age. So there can't be a 'everybody is mature at 'X' Age' hard line. But the law requires something to judge if a person is an adult or not for responsibility and for criminal acts. so in the US they settled on 18 to vote.
I tend to judge folks based on their actions, not their ages. But there are some lines that shouldn't be crossed.