Grown-up?

"... I sealed my act of rebellion against my mothers dictatorship 

by smoking the cigarette

 I'd stolen from my uncle two weeks earlier..."

(Satrapi, Persepolis, 117)

- When children become grown-ups? I think, this is the main question for all children. When do you  pass this imaginary line of childhood?

- Technically, you become a grown-up at the age of 18, don't you?

- That is a good point, Ms. Reason. Why do children then do all these crazy things while they are teens?

- Hmmm... they want to protest against their parents' care, because they think that it is their own life.

- Well, I think, I know that. I was so impressed by the chapter The Cigarette in "Persepolis". I think, this is a good example of teenage maximalism. Though Marjane Satrapi wrote it rather seriously, I notice a bit of sarcasm. She kind of makes fun of herself at the age of thirteen, and now she understands, how childish it was to think that with the first cigarette you become a grown-up.