Becoming a Man?

Title: Becoming a Man?

Topic: Rites of Passage

Source: This week’s reading in the ANTHO textbook, talking about Rite of Passage and what Arnold van Gennep considers to be the "rituals that mark a person's passage from one identity or status to another" (Robins, p. 139)

Relation: Growing up in a single-parent household, I never understood what "Rite of Passage" was or why people considered it to be important. With my dad gone, I had no one to teach me about it. When I was a freshmen in high school, I was told what Rite of Passage meant. It was the thing or things that turned a person into an adult or from one stage in their life to the next. 

Description: While in high school, I was told that Rite of Passage was something that people did to consider themselves closer to adulthood or to the next step in their lives. I had a friend that saw getting his driver license as a rite of passage. I personally never got that chance because I still, to this day, do not have a car nor a drivers license. I didn't do a lot of things that most people consider rites of passage. I know that getting married and going to college were viewed as passages as well, but while being in high school, I wasn't going to college anytime soon and I surely wasn't going to get married. So then I decided to view something else as my own rite of passage. This was the day I became the Battalion Commander for the Army JROTC program at my high school. Getting into this position was no easy "walk in the park". There was a lot of work and skills that I needed to learn and do in order to get the position. What a BC (Battalion Commander) does is he/she is the "boss" of the program in which they supervise and maintain all cadets and cadet staff within the program. I was put in charge of 250 students, just like myself, during my senior year of high school. I knew that this was one of my biggest rites of passage. I went from being a little freshmen to being the person who was well known and trusted within 4 years. 

Commentary/Analysis: Going into my third year in college, I realize that rites of passage are anything that takes a person from one stage to another in their life. Wether it being getting a car and drivers license, or becoming a BC and running a program of 250 students. Just like the young men in the Maasai community, they are circumcised to represent their entry into adulthood (Robins p. 140), I personally looked at being the BC as my rite into becoming an adult because if I could be trusted with leading 250 students to greatness, then I knew I was ready for life. Now, I have my own home (that isn't my mothers), going to college and being my third year here and having my first job at the HSU bookstore. I have definitely changed from being a shy freshmen in high school to being a Battalion Commander for the JROTC program to becoming a college student with my bills and house. (Not happy about the bills part of adulthood).