| Child | Adult |
| 0-17 | 18+ |
After 1988:
| Child* | WTF | Adult |
| 0-17 | 18-20 | 21+ |
How prohibition ruined your social life, turned millions of adults into children & enticed a generation of sexual predation.
Before 1980 there was a clear line between children and adults in two-thirds of the United States. The line was drawn in 1971 when the 26th Amendment set the voting age to 18. The states also lowered the "drinking age" to 18 effectively granting millions of young people full access to traditional adult society. The line between children and adults began to blur around 1980-1984 when a movement against "drunk drivers" succeeded in revoking the right to access adult culture from over 13 million young Americans regardless of their alcohol consumption.
When the age was raised to 19 in a few states those at 18 were socially stranded outside the adult culture venues. Instead of mixing with peers under adult social conditions they were pushed back towards more intimate contact with those 17 and below. Once the age was raised to 21 everywhere all these former adults felt backward social pressure toward interacting with and as teenagers or children instead of mature young adults.
The results were equally tragic for adult society which lost access to a constant stream of vibrant newcomers eagerly seeking mates. Most people at that time would have children by their early 20s. Seeking and finding mates happened under adult social conditions with no guilt or deception about age. That was over by 1988 as every state conformed to the National Minimum Drinking Age Act.
Other coincidental features of this lost world include:
- Those under 18 were not "charged as adults" for serious crime.*
- School shootings were very rare and somewhat less violent.
- Child sexual predators were practically unheard of, but did exist.