The process of becoming a grown-up is confused and muddled these days. Sure, we have small milestones that mark our progress toward adulthood, like driver's licenses, drinking, voting, clumsy sex, adult sentencing, and legal drinking. But none of those accomplishments gets us all the way there; we still have 20- and 30-somethings who live with their parents, working dead-end jobs, avoiding marriage. We're becoming adults at a slower pace than ever, with no clear point at which we can definitively say we've made it.

Throughout history, different cultures have handled this transition into adulthood in a much simpler fashion. After reaching a certain age, typically after certain parts of the body drop, the elders would round up all the adolescents and, over the course of an afternoon, turn them into adults. They would do this with rites of passage -- tests used to demonstrate the adolescents' toughness and courage.

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It'd be like if you had to pass your driving test with a whole bunch of snakes in your lap.

And although toughness and courage aren't perhaps as useful as they once were, there is something impressive about a teen composed entirely of elbows standing up, facing his fears, conquering them, and emerging on the other side a man.