It was five-and-a-half years ago when I became a man. After months of over-the-shoulder monitoring and repeated instructions from my parents, the two of us were finally left alone. I called her “Chung Lee,” and she was the first I ever had. She had power windows and a sunroof—both uncommon in 1988 Honda Accords. Thanks to a freshly acquired driver’s license, the silver beauty and I were let loose that crisp, cool October evening. As we coasted through suburbia together and Chung Lee’s draft rearranged the leaves floating atop the pavement, I thought to myself, ‘you’re the man.’

Next came voting and the right to serve America. Two years later I moved out on my own, and a year after that, I could buy alcohol. Then after college I’ll be thrown into the “real world” of job hunting and paying bills. I'm far enough along this line of perks and rights to see adulthood smiling and giggling from around the next corner. I just never thought it would play hard-to-get for so long.

There are many young people like me confused about when their suspension in adolescence, the period between childhood and adulthood, ends. Despite the perpetual road to adulthood, there is a growing movement of people demanding more rights for young people. They say teenagers possess higher levels of competence than some pieces of legislation acknowledge and also believe more responsibility will foster growth and maturity. Others involved in the movement call for the abolishment of restriction on adolescents all together.

“Maybe our society should have some sort of right of passage where you are now of age to do everything on your own,” says Thomas Spencer, a psychology professor at San Francisco State. “We have various ages (in which people receive rights), like driving a car or drinking. They’re all different ages, and they’re all arbitrary ages. If you can give your life for your country, why the hell can’t you drink?”

The United States, Indonesia, Mongolia, and Palau are the only countries in the world with a twenty-one minimum drinking age. Most countries set the age between sixteen and eighteen, while some have no minimum at all.

A non-profit organization, Choose Responsibility, was established last year to advocate for a lower drinking age in America. The group recently proposed a program that would give eighteen to twenty-year-olds provisional licenses to purchase and consume alcohol after passing a course and final exam similar to driver’s education.

Psychologist Robert Epstein, author of “The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen,” believes competency-based tests, like the one being developed by Choose Responsibility, should give teenagers the opportunity to gain all their rights. Under Epstein’s system, young people could earn the right to drink, smoke, marry, have abortions, and start businesses—every responsibility an adult has. He argues it would minimize behavioral problems and encourage youth to join the adult world sooner. He is not alone.

“I honestly believe every different age-related privilege should be more like driving and come with a test that validates responsibility,” says Bryce Bishari, a twenty-one-year-old living in San Francisco. Bishari also thinks maturity can be stunted if privileges like smoking and drinking are made taboo. His mother never hid alcohol and let Bishari takes small sips of drinks at a young age. “When you forbid teenagers from doing anything, it’s only going to make them want to do it more,” Bishari says. “If you go all through high school without drinking alcohol or anything and then you get to college, and you’re surrounded by it, you could potentially do something really stupid because you don’t know how to handle yourself.”

Such was the case for Brian Brown, a twenty-one-year-old student at Chico State University, who had loads of restrictions growing up. Brown wasn't allowed to watch PG-13 movies, had stacks of daily chores, and always had bed times throughout his teenage years. During high school, his father even offered him money to behave the way he saw fit.

Brown was to receive fifteen hundred dollars if he abstained from kissing a girl, smoking, or drinking, but failed the challenge when he kissed his first girlfriend sophomore year. “That was a very expensive kiss,” he says, letting out a laugh, sending the messy clump of hair on his head into a sway. Brown made it through high school without touching drugs or alcohol, but started drinking heavily when he began college in 2005. During his second semester he was introduced to marijuana, then ecstasy, mushrooms, and finally cocaine. Brown, feeling he had nothing to lose, smoked marijuana daily and took harder drugs on weekends. “I got all these responsibilities and freedoms and went over the edge with it,” Brown says. “I did everything to the extreme and then finally I figured out, wow, this is no way to live a stable life.”

Bishari, who grew up on the other side of the coin, with freedom, believes if teenagers are sheltered from the world too long, they’re more prone to regretful experiences like Brown’s. “It’s really sad, but that’s what happens when you shelter kids for so long and then throw them into the lion’s den.”