By now you probably understand yourself better than when you started the book. The term “Third Culture Kid” implies that the person becomes that because of cultural factors. However, the term “adolescent” does not if you are from a culture where adolescence has been a part of the culture for a century or more. Just knowing that both of these are cultural creations makes many adolescent TCKs more comfortable with who they are.
You may feel that it is not fair to be an adult but not be treated as one. You are right. You may feel that it is not fair to be sexually mature but not allowed to marry and express that sexual maturity in the marriage relationship. You are right. You may feel that it is not fair to be physically and cognitively mature but not allowed to work and be a full member of society. You are right. Few people would say that this is fair or logically sensible, but adolescence has been a part of our culture for so long that no one can remember what it was like for thousands of years before that, and few people question it.
Someday the culture may change back to more logical “stages” of development, but it will not be in your lifetime. It took more than a century for the concept to develop in our culture, and it will likely take even longer to remove it. Since you have been “handed” this concept in your life, the best you can do is to adapt to it as well as you and your parents can. Then when you have children do whatever you can to make their adolescence as easy as possible.
One further thing to consider is that at the same time that our culture was inventing adolescence, it was inventing retirement. That was fully introduced into USA culture with the passage of the Social Security Act in the mid 1930s. We have now reached the point at which those who began working under the Social Security program have retired, and the system has matured. At this point the program appears to be in financial difficulty, and only time will tell whether or not people between 18 and 65 years of age can produce enough income for everyone under the age of 18 and over the age of 65 not to have to work.
In the past no culture has been able to do that, so people began working when they matured in their early teens and continued working until they were physically unable to do so any more. We are all part of a massive social/cultural experiment to see if we can produce enough to have both adolescence and retirement. You will likely learn if our culture can do that in your lifetime. I wish you the best.