When is the Coming of Age?
In Lutheran churches in northern Europe, the confirmation is a well established tradition the year someone turns 15. Jewish tradition has its Bat and Bar Mitzvah at 12 and 13. The Catholic Church confirmation age varies with country, early teens in the United Kingdom and mid-teens in the United States, and younger in some European countries.
The right time for a Humanist Coming of Age could be somewhere after what we would call the “age of reason,” at which children attain the use of reason and begin to have moral responsibility. In Norway, where Humanist Coming of Age is most popular, they use the same year as the country’s Lutheran state church, 15.
