Celebrating 20: Getting Out of the Teen Years

Our society likes to choose some birthdays as more important than others. We fixate on 1 (for the parents more than the kids -- Yay, you've kept your baby alive for a year!) 13, (You're a teenager! -- Why this is something to celebrate is beyond me!) 18, (the age of majority), 21, (the age when you can drink legally), 25, (It sounds grown up), 30, (Your childhood is over), and then every round numbered birthday after that -- 40, 50, 60, and so on. We also like 65 (the beginning of senior citizenship) and anytime a person survives long enough to be 80, 90, or 100. My aunt is turning 80 next week.  I couldn't find one funny You've made it to 80 card.  They were all somber, like, great, you survived thus far but now you're practically dead.

But I want to focus on another special number that none of us seems to think about. 20. That's right, TWENTY. Twenty is sandwiched between 18 (You are now able to vote, be sentenced as an adult, get married, play the lottery, and a few other things) and 21 (You may now get your liquor from a bartender, as opposed, to, say, your dorm friends.)  Twenty, as far as I can tell, is overlooked, and for no good reason.

My older daughter is turning twenty next week. I'm planning on celebrating big.

Twenty indicates the teen years have come to an end.

Though the teen years technically start at thirteen, they definitely pre-start, for girls at least, around 11, maybe 11 and a half, definitely by 12.  Somewhere in there, your daughter begins to think you know nothing, that she knows everything, that spending an afternoon at the mall is better than spending it with you, that her phone is somehow her most important possession. (Okay, maybe as adults we continue to think that.) So by twenty, you've now been through nearly a decade of this, not to mention raging hormones, contemplating what you want to do the rest of your life, college applications, the drama of middle school (UGH!) and the drama of high school (UGH! again).

Being a teenager sounds pretty cool when you're twelve. I remember thinking I was hot stuff as I went from 12 to 13. But then...being a teenager goes on for far too long.  You're a teenager forever. You've shed more tears than you can ever remember doing before. You've learned to drive (and maybe crashed the car). You've made (sometimes) unreasonable demands on your parents and friends and teachers, and you've graduated to adulthood.  But you still have '"teen" after your age two years into college! Two years after you earned the right to vote! Two years after your parents could no longer -- at least technically -- tell you what to do.  And then, finally, you turn 20.

Twenty sounds infinitely better than 19. It signals adulthood, for sure. It signals that you are no longer in that horrible not-quite-adult-like-place-but-expected-to-act-like-an-adult phase.    Twenty is, like, the first time you might actually be taken seriously. By at least one person.

In your twenties, you graduate from college. Your career starts and may take off. You may very well get married, have your first child....You go from barely two years out of high school to maybe a homeowner. Living completely independent of anyone else. And did I mention...finally being taken seriously?

So rejoice in 20! Celebrate it as a special birthday. Even if there are no greeting cards specifically for it.

Happy Birthday to my very favorite 20 year old.