The Second Coming

Cultures all over the world host lavish coming-of-age celebrations to mark young men’s and women’s transitions into adulthood. Malina Bickford missed out on this rite of passage and became a grown-up the old-fashioned way – by growing up. Is it too late for a do-over?

Growing up is such an arduous and confusing process. There’s puberty, then sex if you’re lucky, getting a job, figuring out how to order the Starbucks mocha half-caf half-soy chai latte with three ice cubes and a whisper of whipped cream in a venti cup that you love so much, learning to drive a car, accessing all the internet porn you could ever dream of without a Praetorian Guard of parental controls cramping your style, voting, etc. Can anyone actually pinpoint the exact moment they cross the threshold into adulthood? Fortunately, cultures across the world have developed a handy tool for alerting children that they’re no longer their parents’ problem: coming-of-age parties.

 

 

Of course it would be a party. Probably the coolest thing about living in the First World (besides clean water, gel manicures, access to medical care and Cool Ranch Doritos) is all the awesome parties we have. A girl gets pregs? Party. Baby’s first birthday? Party. Second birthday? Party. Third? You guessed it. For most of us, these special gatherings continue until we graduate from high school and first experience a celebration that honours an actual achievement beyond simply living to see another year.

Of course it would be a party. Probably the coolest thing about living in the First World (besides clean water, gel manicures, access to medical care and Cool Ranch Doritos) is all the awesome parties we have. A girl gets pregs? Party. Baby’s first birthday? Party. Second birthday? Party. Third? You guessed it. For most of us, these special gatherings continue until we graduate from high school and first experience a celebration that honours an actual achievement beyond simply living to see another year.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, around adolescence, a whole bunch of kids are treated to a customary event that marks their symbolic crossing into maturity. If you’re Jewish, this means a Bar/Bat Mitzvah and involves a fuckload of money being spent on the themed festivities of your choosing. All your friends, family and community members dance around a banquet hall as you get hoisted into the air on a chair and paraded around like a little deity.

Central and South American girls have a quinceañera, or fiesta de quince años, at age 15 – lavish wedding-like balls that centre around the young lady and her special dress. Filipino girls enjoy a similar debut at 18, at which they’re honoured with roses, candles and speeches. Variations of this can be found all over the world. Then there’s the American version: Sweet 16, which may or may not have been invented by MTV to exploit the greedy, rotten offspring of my country’s top-1% income bracket.

 

 

The difference between a coming-of-age party and, say, a wedding or graduation celebration is that the coming-of-age extravaganza doesn’t require an actual accomplishment in order to take place. Basically, if you make it to 13, 16, or whatever point in your adolescence that your particular tribe has designated the official jump-off into adulthood, an all-expenses-paid rager is yours for the taking. No wonder teenagers are such assholes. They get parties just for existing.

I know what you’re thinking: “It’s about tradition, Malina!”, “Jews are the chosen people; their children deserve it, Malina!”, “Deje que las niñas tienen su fiesta, Malina!”, “Live and let live, Malina!”

But I can’t. I just can’t. Because I’m on the outside, lookin’ in. Stuck in purgatory. Not a girl, not yet a woman. Because if you’re like me – a middle-class white girl from the Midwestern US of A – you don’t get shit. Nada. Maaaaybe, if your parents are the generous types and your grades in school are particularly excellent, they’ll hook you up with a rusted-out 1994 Buick LeSabre on your 16th birthday, but that’s the extent of it. Sure, you’ll eventually have a few fetes down the road if you complete university, marry and squeeze out a pup or two. You might even get a little shindig in your honour for landing a great job or promotion, but crossing the magical bridge from youth into womanhood just never really comes up.

Sometimes I try to figure out the point at which I myself came of age, if in fact I actually ever did. Am I a woman at all? Without a fancy gala and poofy sequined gown, it’s basically impossible to tell. Was it when I began menstruating? Obtained my driving licence? Perhaps I became a woman upon losing my virginity to my high-school boyfriend in his parents’ basement as Pee-wee’s Big Adventure blared out from the television in the background. Could it have occurred the first time I changed my own flat tyre? Purchased alcohol? How about when I traded that old Buick in for a shiny new whip paid for entirely by moi ? Maybe it was when I left a man who didn’t treat me well because I realised I deserve better. Or what about the first time somebody called me ma’am? WHO KNOWS?
Looks like I’m left with no choice. I’ll just have to throw my own damn party! Better late than never.

 

Credits:

Words by Malina Bickford.

Photographs by Levi Sawyer.