Shining the spotlight on sweet sixteen

“You’re turning 16?” 

“Oh my god, it’s like you were a child yesterday”

“I can’t believe you’re already an adult”

In the Dostoyevsky length list of milestone birthdays, 16 stands high — lined with fluorescent fairy lights, hailstorms of 12 am phone calls, MTV flashbacks and the word “sweet” spelled in silver glitter. Sixteen is almost like that one kid who gets straight As (or, in this case, a personal, permanent adjective) without opening the textbook. Unlike 13, your initiation ceremony into ripped jeans and rolled eyes, or 18, the day you no longer have an excuse for monosyllable scoffs and grunts, 16 parades its neon-lighted flag to a beaten “coming of age” story board. 

As every Disney movie montage will promise and nostalgic aunts will sob to, a 16th birthday is the moment the yellow traffic light — blinking to your teenage sarcasm – switches seamlessly to green. It is supposed to be that all-defining moment with a flip in vantage points, at the edge of the last stride to a finishing line. It is the moment when you are closer to becoming an adult that you were to princess tea parties and picture books. Sixteen lies at the cusp far enough from kindergarten but just at the cusp of adulthood. 

I turned 16 last month, and these turning points wafted away from my peripheral vision to stare directly into my eyes —and I felt exactly the same. Rather than the symbolic switch from flats to stilettos, the thought of booking my own doctor’s appointment pinched at the awkward 12-year-old in me. Growing up is a riot, I’m sure. 

Why is, then, that we shine a white spotlight on our ‘sweet’ 16? Is it not just a year away from 15? Is it truly the boardwalk to adulthood and the pier where everything falls into place? Why go the extra mile? 

With seven billion other people in this world, 19 of who share your birthday, it’s easy for birthdays to wash between the waves of false Netflix show-induced expectations. Unlike the heavy labels that plaster themselves across this number, 16 is more a step towards the red line of adulthood than the band mark of unbridled maturity. A 16th birthday lies out of the range of milestone birthdays, but perhaps that is intentional. Perhaps 16 is not an all-defining moment but, rather, a celebratory warning signal for change to come.