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Bar Mitzvahs for the rest of us

Bringing back the rite-of-passage ceremony.
  (+9, -6)
(+9, -6)
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Maybe the rest of you had a different experience, but I don't have any idea when it is exactly when my father first started thinking of me as a man. <tongue-in-cheek>(maybe it was after that operation...)</tongue-in-cheek>. Nor do I myself have anything specific to point to, besides maybe graduation. And I suspect that the same is true for many kids, enough so that it seems to be a cultural deficiency among modernized nations. Most primitive cultures had some sort of rite-of-passage ceremony, yet we seem to have lost it. Therefore I propose a knighthood ceremony, with swords, tunics, jugglers, fire-eaters, and lots of food, and a return to a coat-of-arms. Or perhaps a Gentile's bar mitzvah party at which both the parents and children could agree to start seeing eachother as mutual adults, with a change in responsibilities.
RayfordSteele, Apr 17 2002

a holiday for the rest of us http://www.interlog...teous/festivus.html
[mrthingy, Apr 22 2002]

[link]






       Isn't it usually the first time you get chunderingly drunk. (oh, that's when your friends think you're an adult)
ok, is it the seventh time you promise your parents you're not going to come home *that* drunk again? (er, no.)
I see the problem. But frankly, I couldn't care less when my parents started thinking of me as a grownup. It would only mean they'd start demanding rent! I'm happy with being legally adult. (However, causes problems with moving between country: strangely enough, I was an adult at 16 in Scotland, then I moved to England and became a minor, having to wait a few months before I was 18 and an adult again.)
sappho, Apr 17 2002
  

       I have yet to have my Father think of me as a man.
bristolz, Apr 17 2002
  

       The two rights of passage (Northern Ontario style): drivers license, loss of virginity. These two usually occur close to each other, when you live in the middle of nowhere you can't get a date without a car.   

       for bristolz and company we need a gender neutral rite of passage.
rbl, Apr 17 2002
  

       Can't say I've ever came home drunk, as that usually requires alcoholic consumption.
RayfordSteele, Apr 17 2002
  

       Oh, I dunno. A female knight might be kindof interesting...
RayfordSteele, Apr 17 2002
  

       The mystical Age 16, in Britain at least is the right of passage for all males and females. Unless they are gay, in which case its eighteen.
[ sctld ], Apr 17 2002
  

       One of the wonderful things Bar/Bat Mitzvahs is the large amount of cash the kid gets from everybody. Nepotism set in place for another generation.
thumbwax, Apr 17 2002
  

       // I have yet to have my Father think of me as a man. //   

       Same here. And he never will.
waugsqueke, Apr 17 2002
  

       [waugs]: True, albeit for very different reasons.
bristolz, Apr 17 2002
  

       Albeit. And so it shall remain.
waugsqueke, Apr 17 2002
  

       Albeit, indeed
thumbwax, Apr 17 2002
  

       My Father knew Lloyd George.
po, Apr 17 2002
  

       The First Grey Hair
neelandan, Apr 18 2002
  

       Frankly, I think most parents are ready to relent when the child moves out (unless they're not adults themselves). That's probably as close as you'll get in this age to a common, modern ceremony.
phoenix, Apr 18 2002
  

       I had a boyfriend once whose parents MOVED and didn't tell him where they were going!
po, Apr 18 2002
  

       I want a foo mitzvah.
jutta, Apr 18 2002
  

       A Foo Mitzvah would be a fun thing for which to invent a set of ritualistic practices. I'm imagining propellor beanies . . .   

       What would the invitations look like?   

       [po] You only had a boyfriend once?
bristolz, Apr 18 2002
  

       just the one whose parents moved without telling him first <g> Oh please bris., don't you start pleeese.
po, Apr 18 2002
  

       "It would be nice if guys of a certain ilk did not have to always be proving that they were men."   

       Perhaps an anti-bar-mitzvah for the moment you enter your second childhood, or for men who act like children and want to make it "official".
Morbius, Apr 19 2002
  

       Much of human believe are really just lines draw on the sand. It only has meaning because everyone agrees that it has the meaning. Only good thing about them are, because it is almost impossible to change everyone's mind after certain believes set in, people can focus their attentions on something better than debate endless on a meanless topic. I mean is 18 year old drunk driver that much more dangerous than a 40 one? Does age always correlated to responsibility? Do all girls start to have period exactly the same number of days after birth? Since nature never draw the line, why do you think people can do a better job?
bing, Apr 19 2002
  

       p icky p icky blith mith.
po, Apr 19 2002
  

       <Wonders what "pleurilly" means. Something to do with pleurisy?>
bristolz, Apr 22 2002
  

       we could do with an um pair around here
po, Apr 22 2002
  

       I got aupaired once.
sappho, Apr 22 2002
  

       [Meph]: You could be singularly unpaired. Or just single and unpaired, which I believe you are.
angel, Apr 22 2002
  

       'Becoming an adult' is just another way of saying 'becoming a miserable old git'. Avoid it like the plague, I say.
DrBob, Apr 23 2002
  

       Good doctor, do you speak from experience?
waugsqueke, Apr 23 2002
  

       Absolutely! Now, does anyone want to come outside and play in the puddles?
DrBob, Apr 23 2002
  

       A foo mitzvah? <head scratching sound effects> As in a foobar mitzvah maybe? Sort of a "Coming of age, congratulations, now you're screwed like the rest of us" type party? A sort of ying-yang celebration where one goes from being considered a kid and wishing they were older to being considered an adult and wishing they were younger...
RayfordSteele, Apr 24 2002
  

       ... RS: you forgot the "and mazel tov" part!
Urania, Apr 24 2002
  
      
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