The community ritualizes the coming-of-age process in the Ceremony of Twelve. When the Elevens turn Twelve, they receive their assignment, which will be their adult career. After each child is called to the stage during the ceremony, the Chief Elder thanks them for their childhood and announces their permanent assignment. After year twelve, people stop keeping track of their ages and simply transition into full adulthood and then again to being simply Old.

The Ceremony of Twelve marks the beginning of Jonas’s journey to greater maturity and understanding. For normal children in Jonas’s society, the transition to adulthood does not grant them greater independence, freedom, or responsibility—just like children, the behavior of adults in the community is strictly controlled and monitored. Jonas’s own coming of age is quite different, however: as he receives memories of the past and learns more about emotions, Jonas can’t help but notice a disconnect between what he has always been taught and his new understanding of the world. For example, when Jonas learns that he—and, by extension, other adults—can lie, he begins to doubt some of the other “truths” espoused by the community, such as that the community has always existed.