As midnight creeps up, a small group of friends gather at the bar for their first shot of the night. The beginning of a long and messy tradition for one lucky individual called, The Crawl, is a Rite of Passage event for some emerging adults on their 21st birthday. Erik Erikson’s theory of identity development plays a role in an emerging adult’s rite of passage tradition because these practices assist in forming personal identity. Tradition is not the only factor that plays a role in identity development, however rituals like the crawl exist in many college towns. In able to form an identity, emerging adults must go through certain types of events like conformity, understanding their own uniqueness, experimentation with different roles and attitudes,
…show more content…
Other famous crawls take place on 6th street in Austin, TX. The person who is becoming the legal drinking age gets a free shot at every single bar only on this night. By the time the reach near the end of all the bars the emerging adult is extremely intoxicated, most likely feeling sick and completely inebriated. They call it “The Crawl” because the lucky individual that turned 21 is likely to be crawling by the end of the night due to being so intoxicated that they cannot even stand up and walk on their own. Embarrassing events of regurgitating on the sides of buildings, bathrooms and bars is usually an outcome of the person celebrating their birthday. Luckily, when I turned 21 I did not have to go through this ritual because none of my friends were old enough yet to go out to an actual bar, however, I have been the friend who held hair for friends while they threw up and changed them out of their beer, vodka and vomit soaked clothes at the end of the …show more content…
Emerging adults partake in a ritual of drunkenness through religious tradition or baptisms, weddings, funerals, and night celebrations, (Sande, 2002). Not only do emerging adults, mostly men, partake in this ritual, but their families and local community do as well and the celebration ritual can last 2-3 weeks. Although the Norwegians do not seem to bar hop into sickness on one night alone, the use of excessive alcohol on their emerging adults is seen as a rite of passage into adulthood. Sande, 2002, suggests that the use of alcohol in their rite of passage ritual is to transform the experience of reality, eliminating old relationships with parents and teachers, and to develop new ones, change the meaning in life and social identities. These actions correlate with Erikson’s identity development theory because the emerging adults are de-structuring cognitively and are re-surfacing with a new outlook in life and concepts about themselves and
Other famous crawls take place on 6th street in Austin, TX. The person who is becoming the legal drinking age gets a free shot at every single bar only on this night. By the time the reach near the end of all the bars the emerging adult is extremely intoxicated, most likely feeling sick and completely inebriated. They call it “The Crawl” because the lucky individual that turned 21 is likely to be crawling by the end of the night due to being so intoxicated that they cannot even stand up and walk on their own. Embarrassing events of regurgitating on the sides of buildings, bathrooms and bars is usually an outcome of the person celebrating their birthday. Luckily, when I turned 21 I did not have to go through this ritual because none of my friends were old enough yet to go out to an actual bar, however, I have been the friend who held hair for friends while they threw up and changed them out of their beer, vodka and vomit soaked clothes at the end of the …show more content…
Emerging adults partake in a ritual of drunkenness through religious tradition or baptisms, weddings, funerals, and night celebrations, (Sande, 2002). Not only do emerging adults, mostly men, partake in this ritual, but their families and local community do as well and the celebration ritual can last 2-3 weeks. Although the Norwegians do not seem to bar hop into sickness on one night alone, the use of excessive alcohol on their emerging adults is seen as a rite of passage into adulthood. Sande, 2002, suggests that the use of alcohol in their rite of passage ritual is to transform the experience of reality, eliminating old relationships with parents and teachers, and to develop new ones, change the meaning in life and social identities. These actions correlate with Erikson’s identity development theory because the emerging adults are de-structuring cognitively and are re-surfacing with a new outlook in life and concepts about themselves and