[originaltext]W: Hello Danny.M: Hello Kitty.W: Now, I have a question for you

W: Hello Danny.
M: Hello Kitty.
W: Now, I have a question for you: at what age did you leave home?
M: I left home at 18.
W: That’s quite young, isn’t it? Why did you leave home?
M: Well, I really wanted to see more of the world.
W: We could say that was the end of your childhood and the beginning of your adulthood. Well, according to some experts, the age when adulthood begins could be increasing, and it varies from country to country. In England, people can get married without asking their parents at the age of 18. Can you guess what the youngest age is when men can legally marry in Bangladesh?
M: I honestly have no idea. 15 perhaps.
W: No, older than that in England. It’s 21 for men and 18 for women.
M: But in the UK, people regard 18 as the age when we reach the end of adolescence—a point where you’ve changed from being a child to being an adult.
W: Well, that is the theory. We know that people develop at different speeds and some never grow up. And child psychologists now think adolescence could last until the age of 25.
M: Twenty-five is when they stop being an adolescent. Medical and educational professionals now have a better understanding of how our body develops and how our brain works. They say that we keep developing into our twenties.
W: A child psychologist called Laverne Antrobus, appeared in a BBC magazine article recently and said that the idea that suddenly at 18 you’re an adult just doesn’t quite ring true. Her experience of young people is that they still need quite a considerable amount of support and help beyond that age.
M: So she says the idea that we become an adult at 18 doesn’t sound true. Young people need help and support until they’re older.
W: She also suggests that some young people continue to live at home because they need more support during the time when they are growing up. Well, that might be true for some but I was ready to leave home at 18—I was bored at home and ready for my freedom!
M: I know the feeling. Well, in the same BBC article, Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, thinks what you did is a good thing. He says that there is a loss of aspiration for independence and striking out on your own. When he went to university it would have been a social death to have been seen with parents, whereas now it’s the norm.
W: So he thinks living at home makes you lose the desire to be independent, and he says in his day it would have been social death. It’s so embarrassing to be seen by others to live at home!
M: Yes, and I think he’s saying living at home stops you growing up quickly.
W: Does this mean we are developing a generation of big babies?
M: Maybe not, but this is an interesting subject.
This is the end of Conversation One. Questions 1 to 5 are based on Conversation One.
1. When did the man leave home?
2. What is the youngest age for people in Bangladesh to get married?
3. Why do psychologists think adolescence could last till 25?
4. What does Laverne Antrobus believe?
5. What is social death, according to Frank Furedi?