Expressway: 26 is the new 18

I recently turned 26 and I'm finally an adult! I think.

It sure is confusing to be a (young?) adult in America right now -- mostly because it's so hard to figure out when you are an adult. By law you're no longer a minor at 18, and you're also free to vote, play the lottery and serve in the military -- although only military service seems to have any tangible benefits. New York State says you cannot buy tobacco products until you're 19 or alcohol until you're 21, though I don't think any age is old enough to know better.

It doesn't end there. Most rental companies won't rent you a car until you're 25, and, according to the new health care legislation, you can stay on your parents' health insurance until 26. That seems odd, considering I know a few people who have children of their own by 26. Will health care plans go multigenerational to compensate for grandkids?

True, we know people tend to "grow up" slower these days. My parents were married with kids and a mortgage when they were both the age I am now, yet I have neither. People my age seem to spend so many years "finding themselves" that it almost makes sense that 26 is the new 18.

After all, this is Long Island, where the cost of living results in most people having gray hair before they finally move out of their parents' house, and it's really hard to find time to meet someone and fall in love when your mother still makes you take out the garbage. But it also doesn't make it any easier to "become an adult," or even see yourself as one, when the various age requirements keep getting pushed ever upward.

So what is the exact age of self-responsibility? When does one become a completely non-dependent adult, in charge of all personal legal decisions? I teach at three colleges, and many of the freshmen seem to think the age of personal responsibility isn't - or at least shouldn't be - 18, mostly because it would mean that they're solely responsible for getting to class and completing their homework on time. I know it's unfair of me to lump my freshmen students into one category -- especially since a few are close to my age or even older -- but if you heard as many "it's not my faults" as I have in my short-time teaching, you'd see where I'm coming from.

Perhaps what bothers me most isn't that these students get away with -- or at least think they can get away with -- the theory that they're too young to know better. It's that I am now old enough to complain about teenagers being irresponsible. After all, my favorite teenage excuse was "I didn't know," though it rarely worked. But while the youthful-inexperience card may still work at 18, it loses its usefulness by 26. For instance, I couldn't use it as an excuse to send my income taxes in late.

Although this year, with the refunds, Albany seems to be pulling that one on us for a change. I guess you can still be irresponsible at any age.

Christopher McKittrick lives in Hempstead.