significance of the 21st birthday
... extremely different experiences and because of these experiences they also had a range of diverse opinions. To begin with I established that two out of the three generations I had interviewed had celebrated their 21st birthday. This satisfied my expectations; although surprisingly I thought it would have been the two older generations to be the ones who celebrated their 21st, especially Megan, the middle generation. I believe this expectation has a great deal to do with the way social prospect within the macro and micro world have influenced society and culture throughout Australia. For example turning 21 used to be the time when a person’s identity was technically recognised as an adult. Through having certain lawful rights, such as being able to vote and obtain alcohol. In line with my predictions I found the opposite; Megan (45) was the only person who didn’t celebrate her 21st; possibly this is due to socialised gender roles within her family beliefs and ongoing traditions. As when I asked her if it was mostly males celebrating their 21st, she stated, “Yes now looking back it did look that way, I have two brothers whom my parents organised a 21st for. I also had a boyfriend that had no family in Australia and my parents organised a 21st for him too. I wasn’t fussed about my 21st I honestly didn’t even care about not having one, it wasn’t a big thing.” It seems as though over more than two decades ago the 21st birthday was a very important traditional family orientated celebration. Perhaps it was like the coming of age ‘debut’ ceremony for young ladies, where father’s presented their daughters to society. Whereas the 21st birthday could have been a chance for fathers to less formally present their sons to society as a coming of age ceremony. As Ian (64) stated, “my father organised a huge 21st birthday party for me with all of my male friends, the whole of my family and a few female friends with whom my father wanted to set me up with” Now the 21st birthday appears as an informal excuse for a celebration. For instance when I asked who organised Karrie’s (21) 21st birthday party she claimed, “It was self organised, with slight assistance from my mother”. This quote is also in contrast to weather or not the celebration was important to a person as Karrie said, “Being a traditionally celebrated birthday it was an expected thing, in retrospect at the time I felt it was important being a ‘milestone’, although now it has little significance in relation to ‘real’ milestones within my life” Although when I asked Ian the same question he said’ “most defiantly it was, not only to me but my whole family it was like a more fun Christmas because I received all the presents but everyone had a good time. Looking back on my 21st birthday now I can easily say it was the most important event in my life, it was where I met my wife. This is evidence to support the previous point, as although the 21st birthday has less significance than it had a decade ago, as it doesn’t represent the same rights and social identity. It is still celebrated as the same imperative birthday event. This demonstrates continuity within our society and culture. Perhaps it even illustrates the influence in which America bestows upon our society today. In Australia the 18th birthday now represents what the 21st birthday use to in Australia and still does in America today. For example Karrie stated, “I don’t see that the 21st birthday is any more or less significant than it was a decade ago, although the 18th seems to be becoming a more increasingly celebration, probably because it is now when a person is able to vote and drink alcohol”. On the contrary to this statement when I asked Karri...