AIBU to not consider 21 a milestone birthday?

[DragonsAndDaffs]

Do you consider 21 a milestone birthday?
DD is 21 soon, and many of her friends have already turned 21; none of them has had a party, and they have all just marked the birthday like any other... they all consider 18 the milestone coming-of-age birthday, and I would agree.

I'm old enough to remember my aunt turning 21 in 1969, before the voting age was lowered in 1970.

YANBU 21 is not a milestone
YABU 21 is still a milestone

It's a milestone to everyone I know.

It’s obviously a milestone birthday

Yes - it’s the key to the door! Very significant birthday.

My dd is 21 in a couple of weeks. We won't really be doing anything extra to what we normally do like a meal out and a couple of hundred quid ! Then again none of my kids have ever wanted big parties or anything for their 18th or 21st.

I think 21 is a milestone in the US but not in the UK.

16, 18 and 21 are all milestones for various reasons, so you have to pick one to go big on.

No, I was born long after the 'age of majority' changed to 18 so I have no idea why it would still be considered significant.

Personally I'd just consider 18 to be the 'big' birthday. None of my nieces and nephews did anything for their 21st birthdays and I didn't do anything for mine.

I do know some people who treat a 21st as a milestone though, either instead or as well.

What do you mean by milestone? So we're all talking about the same thing.

It's always been considered as 'finally' arriving at 'proper' adulthood - in the UK at least. If anything, I'd say it seems strange that 20 - a lovely round number: two whole decades - is never considered remotely 'special'.

I think it's interesting how, whenever very obviously much older people jokingly 'lie' about their age with a wink, they always say "I'm 21!" (sometimes adding "plus VAT" or "or maybe just little bit more") but I've never, ever heard any of them pretending to be 18, 20 or 25.

Marking an age-specific event. For example, being legally an adult at 18.

I would have considered 21 a milestone birthday before 1970 when it signified coming of age.

Do you not consider any older ages to be a milestone either? 40 or 60 for example?

For me it wasn't that much more special than 20 or 22. The only things you can do at 21 that you can't do at 20 is drink in the US and hire a car (at great expense).

You asked me what I considered a milestone birthday, and I gave an example.
You didn't ask me to list every birthday I consider to be a milestone.

21st are a milestone birthday, they're pretty big here in Ireland and as far back as I can remember. Parties were more popular than now but there is still lots of parties, I had a party and went to Greece for 2 weeks and that was over 30 years ago. My own kids have had a different selection of things from parties, meals, weekend away or 2 week holiday, depends what they can afford and want. I'll be going to three 21st parties this year 🍹🍾

That’s an oddly snippy response to a normal, relevant question in the discussion and I wasn’t the person who asked what you considered a milestone either.

But why? Surely that changed when 18 became the mark of coming of age.

I'm in my late 50s and didn't celebrate 21 as a special birthday. I'm finding the replies very interesting.

The Govt ought to be looking at raising the voting age to 21 not lowering it to 16.

As non Brit, can someone explain why 21 is big milestone, please? Like to a five year old🙈

@ToKittyornottoKitty

Appologies.
Yes, I do consider other birthdays to be milestones, but this thread was specifically about 21.

21 used to be the age of maturity. The age at which one could vote, inherit property, make contracts, borrow money without a guarantor. Around 1970 it was lowered to 18.

We treated 21 as a milestone for our kids.

I was just curious of your opinion, it’s not a derailment. Anyway I shared my opinion that it’s a milestone, different to turning 18 I guess where something changes legally, but in terms of celebration it’s a milestone like 40, 70 etc. I realise it’s old fashioned legal use has gone now, but it’s just traditional I guess, although clearly not to everyone, maybe it’s dying out

I think it's still culturally significant for historical reasons. But you don't have to make a big deal of it if you don't want to.

There is even a song :
She's twenty-one today
Twenty-one today
She's got the key of the door
Never been twenty-one before
Her father says she can do what she likes
So shout Hip Hip Hooray
For she's a jolly good fellow
Twenty-one today