Why do we need milestones and life expectations?

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I do seem to feel as though everyone follows the same milestones expected by our societies when we get to certain ages and that if we go through those times not doing them it makes the people feel like an "outsider", "abnormal" or whatever. For example, starting school at 5, leaving school at 16/17, learning to drive at 17, starting a job or going to uni at 18, be a fully fledged working member of society by 25 with experience of relationships, getting married in the late 20s/early 30s etc.

I started school at 5, I left at 18, did manual driving lessons at 21 and automatic lessons at 24 and passed at 28, started paid work at 26, and had no experience of relationships although someone I met once did want one but I wasn't ready at the time. I felt like a fully fledged working member of society in my 30s after kept hold of the job for a long time when I seem to think those on the autism spectrum don't hold down jobs for very long than their "neurotypical" peers.

Do we need milestones and life expectations? I wasn't aware of that!

A complicated collective survival mechanism.

That back in the day, there are expectations towards children at a certain age to be able to do things.

That is if they manage to survive illness or whatever culled newborns and children from reaching adulthood before the modern age of medicine.

Then came with coming of age ceremonies, where a child is then considered an adult. Usually in a form of trials -- usually a test of courage, a test of strength or a competency of some particular, and some of those trials are particular milestones to accomplish before they pass and be considered an "equal" or something else.

Some of those trials are grounded and actually is tied to survival, and some are just ritual thingy where one dictates their path in life...

And if they reach those milestones, they'll be assumed that a parent is successful, that their children can survive and eventually reproduce offspring on their own...



Now translate that into modernized societies in modernized times.

Where dying at a young age is significantly reduced, that monetary system and having money itself is tied to survival.

Money means status and career.
Career and status means relationships and what haves.

Relationships and what haves implies particular experiences related to the social norms, things passed on that warped and evolved.

That things that may not even be necessary for survival, is associated with survival.
To a point that now so much of humans fear social death more than actual death.


That your up coming of age is either finishing high school and being able to drink, owning a driving license and losing virginity, or your own household's way of doing things where they stop treating you like a kid.
In some countries, a very difficult exam one prepared for since childhood, migrating to somewhere else, having an aspiration, etc.

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I thought they were important, but now I don't care by force. Screw it.

We don't need milestones. People go through big transitional phases in their life at all ages.

I think people nowadays are a bit more understanding about homeownership (nobody expects you to have a house by 30-35 anymore), and marriage (people realize that rushing into a marriage just for the sake of not being the last single person in your friend group) isn't a good idea.

That being said, I think people should work if they're physically able to. Even if it's part-time.