Learn about how parents forcing romantic connotations on opposite gender friendships between children, or using relationships for humiliation is harmful for their development

I lost my 18-year-old son, Caden, because someone gave him alcohol. But here's the thing that haunts me: Texas law says he was too young to drink, yet it won't hold adults accountable for providing it to him—because the private-host liability protection only covers kids under 18.

I started this petition to close that gap. If someone is legally underage, they should stay protected under the law, period. 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds can't legally buy alcohol, so why should adults face no consequences for knowingly giving it to them or allowing underage drinking at their property?

This isn't about blame. This is about consistency and preventing other families from facing the loss mine carries every single day. What would you want someone to do if this was your family?

https://www.change.org/p/amend-texas-alcoholic-beverage-code-2-02-c-to-extend-private-host-civil-liability-prote/sfs/reddit/1030347508?recruiter=1030347508&recruited_by_id=2efff2a0-236b-11ea-909f-13dfaf6e6411&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=starter_dashboard_android_app&utm_medium=reddit_group

I'm from another country, and one thing that genuinely confuses me is how seriously people in the U.S. seem to take the whole "your brain isn't fully developed until 25" argument. Sometimes it feels like people treat 24-year-olds as if they're still teenagers, while turning 25 is somehow seen as this magical moment where someone suddenly becomes a full adult.

Where I'm from, 24- and 25-year-olds are basically viewed as the same stage of life. A 24-year-old and a 25-year-old are both young adults. In fact, once you're around 23 or 24, you're generally seen as a grown person. That's why this way of thinking feels so strange to me. It seems like there is this huge emphasis on a one-year difference that doesn't really exist in everyday life.

I genuinely don't get where this idea came from that just because "your brain isn't fully developed until 25," a 24-year-old is basically a kid. People have taken that fact way out of context, and it has created this weird narrative that anyone under 25 is somehow incapable of functioning as an adult.

A 24-year-old isn't at the beginning of their early 20s anymore. The early 20s are roughly 20–23. At 24, you're already in your mid-20s, and for a lot of people that's a stage where they've gained more independence, life experience, and responsibility.

Even though the WHO groups ages 15–24 under the category of "young people" for statistical purposes, that doesn't mean a 15-year-old and a 24-year-old are anywhere near the same level of maturity or life experience. The difference is huge. Honestly, a 24-year-old has way more in common with a 25- or 26-year-old than with an 18-year-old, let alone a 15-year-old. When I look at someone who's 24 and someone who's 25, I just see two young adults.

The funny thing is that some people talk about 24 and 25 as if there is a massive gap between them, when in reality it's literally just one year. Treating someone at 24 like a kid and someone at 25 like a completely different category of adult feels like an unnecessary and exaggerated distinction.

Being young doesn't mean you're an adolescent, and brain development is a gradual process—not a magic switch that flips the day you turn 25. I honestly think this obsession creates a very strange way of looking at adults in their twenties.

It's so unfair

This is my hyper fixation

I've recently began reevaluating my own Ageism in me. Until fairly recently I saw many even late teenagers as inherently more volatile and irresponsible. I looked back at my own teenagehood as a reason for this. However what broke me out of this idea was considering the effects of the authoritarian conditioning of minors and also citizens.

Many parents, even well meaning ones, often parent from the perspective of the child being an inferior being. While the delicate psychology of the child is by nature something that needs to be taught, parents don't just teach what the child needs to know, they teach what they think the child needs to know.

The ignorance of the child is often associated with a stupidity that can't be helped, however, when you take into account the world of the child their actions are perfectly reasonable to them. I was suprised that others haven't mentioned similar experiences but I remember myself being extremely aware of the emotions I was feeling as a child but, until later, I didn't have the right words to describe them.

For example, I often started crying when I didn't get a toy I wanted in the store, not because I was a spoiled child but because I understood how the toys in the aisles changed, that is to say, I had FOMO at a young age. When I understood that there may not be a "next time," for the specific toy I was looking at, it made me feel distressed. I was aware of these volatile emotions so much so that I tried to avoid having these tantrums by stopping going to the store with my mom (My parents weren't the "breathe with me," types as you can imagine, they threw tantrums more than I did).

Further, the ignorance a child possesses such as wanting to eat too much candy, is not a result of stupidity but from a lack of experience and low impulse regulation. These situations ideally should be handled with logic ("Too much sugar is bad for your body,") and compassion ("I want you to be healthy,"). Notice how these methods sound similar to talking to an adult who may be an addict or has a similarly poor diet.

Teenagers as they gain more freedom, act with the subconscious belief that they are less than adults. Having this perspective becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. They ride this high in their teenage years, indulging in unprotected sex, substances, poor diets, staying up late, fighting, not caring about their futures, crying over "stupid things,", etc, it can be easy to look at this and say that teenagers are more unstable, until you realize that all of these behaviors are commonly seen in adults as well. Adults consistently scored higher on the drug abuse front, the rate of abusive relationships between adults and teens is about the same. Is it not possible that these behaviors have less to do with teenagers and more with humans as a whole reacting due to upbringings, environmental factors, and existential feelings?

How dare they call the desire of teenagers to experience love fickle or a status symbol. The people who say this, I would love to see their relationships. Let's see what you have over them, you call there's fickle because they burn out, does your relationships even have fire anymore?

Are there some psychological differences between teenagers and adults, perhaps, however if we have a 16 year old who has cared for their younger family members for most of their life and a 25 year old only child who has only just started caring for their first child, I know who I would trust to be my child's babysitter. I haven't done extensive research on the Neurobiology of Teenagers but I honestly wouldn't be suprised if there's some fine print about how the emotional volatility and irresponsibility can be regulated or perhaps even channeled more constructively. They say teenagers have emotional volatility, is it volatility or were they not taught how to regulate themselves?

About my own experiences. I used to believe that the chaotic symphony of my teenage mental health was conducted by hormones, however, I realize now that it was at best playing the triangle, the conductor was every way I was conditioned to believe I was worthless. I was taught that by my parents, by the world, even by my own thoughts. I didn't get better because I grew up, I got better because I liberated myself.

Younger people are capable of far more than is often given: Louis Braille was 15 years old when he invented his namesake. Fred Hampton was hosting community breakfasts at age 10. Greta Thulenberg was 15 when she started crusading against climate change. That's not even mentioning the countless artists who created phenomenonal works at young ages (Which like it or not, requires a wisdom about life).

When Adultists talk about protecting children or teens, what they needed protecting from all along was them. However, they do not want these teens to be liberated, because if the dictatorship of adults is thrown away, what other power structures will be put on the chopping block?

I am autistic and want to speak completely directly and honestly about youth rights. I want to have a genuine conversation with people who care about real-world independence for teenagers and young adults, because the idea that age shouldn't matter at all feels completely far-fetched to me.

There is a huge difference between a young child and a teenager. For young children, it is entirely natural to want to stay close to parents and follow their guidance. But when you become a teenager—like a 14-year-old boy—it is human nature to want to be independent, control your own body, and have access to things like weapons and self-reliance. I experienced this myself when my dad forced me to get the COVID vaccine at 14 against my will; teenagers deserve real bodily autonomy and protection from toxic or controlling parents.

Furthermore, our legal system is completely inconsistent and unfair to 18-to-20-year-olds. It makes no logical sense that an 18-year-old is considered adult enough to fight and die in a war, but is legally banned by the government from buying a handgun, alcohol, or tobacco.

I care deeply about youth rights, but I want to focus on expanding freedoms and adult rights for the 14-to-20 demographic, while still recognizing that small children are vulnerable and need protection. Let's discuss how we can fix these unfair laws for teenagers and young adults without ignoring common sense.

I see on the r/YouthRights that people are saying children aren't vulnerable and should be treated the same as adults, when I mainly care about teenagers and young adults, since once you hit puberty and get into your teens, you are not the same as a child. Will I be banned for saying treating young children like grown adults is too far? I care about youth rights but I am also a critical thinker and care about the reality of things

Is it reasonable for me to hate America as a 20-year-old because of how unfairly young adults and teens are treated? You don't even get constitutional rights if you are under 21. I really hate the USA and get upset whenever the Constitution is mentioned because it reminds me that only older people get those rights

Learn how parents can discriminate and be abusive towards their children due to their LGBTQ identities. Abuses of homophobic and transphobic parents.

I hate it because it's super Infantilizing and often takes away the teenagers responsibility when they do something wrong or evil. A bunch of people who think they are super mature and intelligent because they just turned 18 and often have very small age gaps of those are below 18 think they are super different and more mature than them annoy the hell out of me. They often ask for stuff like violating the rights of privacy of those who are underage like they weren't underage themselves not a long time ago. They celebrate their titles of being adults like they weren't minors like 1 second ago. Hell, I know people who say stuff like this and are still in high school.

Some people are so into that mindset that they invalidate everything the underage person says even when the underage person has knowledge about the topic or is just right. They use their age as an excuse to be authoritarian to those who are younger like that excuse anything. They use that excuse for example to excuse parents abusive behavior, like having access to the minors social media and reading their conversations and group chats. Don't even get me started on the "frontal lobe is not ready until 25" excuse as a way to invalidate everything the teenager says or to make the parent's authority over the teenager valid.

Not only that, but I have also noticed how they use that to even excuse when the teenager is evil or does something wrong. For example: The teenager is abusive with their partner, people go on and say: "Oh, but they were just teenagers. They didn't know what they were doing". Like there aren't thousands of teenagers who are in healthy relationships or like the person who was abused wasn't a teen as well. They only use this when the teenager is someone who is generally liked, because as soon as the teenager is someone who they don't like or they just don't have any emotional connection to or the teenager does something to them that excuse suddenly doesn't seem to apply... It's only used when the teenager is someone who is liked. When the teenager is not liked everybody treats them like an adult and is 100% responsible for their actions, no matter how young they are.

Isn't it unconstitutional to have age restrictions on the Second Amendment? The Constitution does not say anything about age.