Assignment: Transition Into Adulthood

Assignment: Transition Into Adulthood
Assignment: Transition Into Adulthood
The transition into adulthood may differ depending on cultural traditions and rites of passage from adolescence to adulthood. The transition into adulthood is also a time for relationships and romance from a normative perspective.
Describe at least two unique rites of passage to adulthood on the basis of ethnic or cultural variations.
Explain the concepts of pluralism and assimilation and describe how they affect the rites of passage of individuals.
Describe different attachment styles.
Explain the attachment style you feel would be most effective in forming lasting relationships.
Describe the different types of attraction.
Explain the type of attraction you feel would be most effective in establishing lasting relationships.
What does it mean to be an adult, in your opinion?
When does a person reach adulthood?
Is it defined by a specific age, a statute, or a life experience?
What makes you feel this way?
Safy-Hallan Farah, the daughter of protective Somali parents, writes in “License to Not Drive” about how learning to drive began her journey into adulthood:
“When Saudi Arabian women are allowed to drive, I’ll start driving!”
As a teenager, I would vow to my mother, as if I were one of those superstars who promised not to marry until homosexual people could.
I was always half-joking, but jokes have a way of cloaking lethargy in a gleaming coat of armor.
The long explanation to why I don’t drive is that growing up as a privileged firstborn daughter straddling two cultures — American and Somali — resulted in apathy.
My cautious parents rarely encouraged me to leave the house since I was deeply geeky, introverted, and anxious at the time — I had my Milo Ventimiglia GeoCities fan page to tend to, after all! — and I was highly nerdy, introverted, and anxious.
As a result, I’d make plans to learn to drive and then abandon them.
The short explanation is that I’m a slacker.
I’m not without embarrassment.
The remark “You’re a virgin who can’t drive” delivered by Tai to Cher in “Clueless” with the punch line “You’re a virgin who can’t drive.”
It was the image of Saudi Arabia’s disempowered female until recently.
According to TLC’s anti-scrub hymn (“Hanging out the passenger side/Of his best friend’s ride”), it’s one of the defining characteristics of a “scrub.”
Moments in cars have defined my life, from the happy (road trips where my mother and I would compete in an endless game of Yellow Car, keeping score of every non-taxi yellow car we passed on the road), to the stormy (like when, at 17, I flung open the side door of my mother’s minivan to tuck and roll down the highway, though I changed my mind), to the surreal (like when, at 17, I flung open the side door of my mother’s minivan to (when I drove for the first time two summers ago).
At the age of 26, it happened one night in Sterling, Virginia.
Skidding jagged loops around a parking lot, like if I were a giddy youngster playing a frantic game of go-kart, was exhilarating and cathartic.
I felt the freedom that had been right in front of my eyes all along.
Students, please read the entire article and then respond to the following questions:
— How crucial is it for you to learn to drive?
Is it a “rite of passage” into early adulthood in your family, community, or hometown?
— In your culture or society, what rites of passage mark the shift from youth to adulthood?
Getting your driver’s license, graduating from high school, or having a quinceaera, Sweet 16, or bar or bat mitzvah are all examples of typical occasions.
They could also be more unusual experiences, such as having a sex conversation with your parents, learning how to deal with a police interaction, or seeing a loved one’s death.
When do these rites usually take place, and how do they help young people in your society prepare for adulthood?
— Have you taken part in any of these activities yet?
If yes, how did you find the experience?
— Are you looking forward to these milestones in your life, such as acquiring greater freedom, taking on more responsibilities, or being regarded as an adult by others?
Are you, like Ms. Farah, more unconcerned about them?
Or would you prefer put them off and linger as long as possible in your childhood?
Why?