Thank you. I really enjoyed seeing and reading about these young women from various places. My advice to all of these girls is to not just "hope" for college--be determined to finish! I started saving for it (and a 30 year career afterwards) at age 12 and eventually earned a M.A.

So where are the boys? Do they not have stories to share as well? Why ignore half of the population?

The hope of all mankind is 18 years old womankind.

This was great. Thank you NY Times. On the cusp of adulthood but still really children.....doesn't matter where you live -

great content and format. thank you for this.

Wow!! Powerful!! Makes me optimistic for the future!

Thank you! I loved this, and have shared it with all the teenage girls & young women I know (amongst others). For me, part of its value is in showing, so accessibly and without proselytising, how far the global movements for economic and gender equity still have to go. And apart from that, it was just lovely on a human level, both in terms of the wonderful young women featured and re the developmental opportunity for the talented young photographers. Well done to all involved! Please, please do more!! There are so many rites of passage you could cover, for every gender. Thanks again.

Great piece.

I am not quite sure I understand the motivation behind this. Is it meant to be some sort of anthropological or sociatal time capsule? It's got sort of a voyeuristic, Vanity Fair feel about it, and I don't know what the take-away is meant to be; is it that 18 year old females around the world share differences and similarities? I have an 18 year old daughter, so perhaps this is why I find this entire spread to be nothing special. I showed it to her, and without prompting she commented, "that's great, they all seem nice, but what's the point?"

So nice to have something like this amongst the normal doom & gloom of the daily news. Format was tough on computer but I kind of liked the old-school scrapbook/yearbook feel to it. I wish them all the best.

My heart breaks for the 18-year-old in Mississippi. She either was not supported as a younger teen and provided birth control with self esteem encouragement by her parents or bought into some guy's lame "happily ever after" song and dance. Now, she is held hostage for the next 18+ years of raising that kid by herself.

This is rad. Keep stories like this going.

As a Marriage and Family therapist who has specialized in teen girls and their families for generations, I was so energized by this tender and gritty moment in a young woman's life. And then to hear from these women dotting the globe, it made the piece especially powerful. I hope it gets shared a zillion times. Thank you. Thank you.

I loved it. Loved the details of their favorite songs/slang/food. Congrats!

Thanks NYTimes for this. Great to see and hear the future in these young women.

I'm sorry these flashed by so quickly that I couldn't enjoy them as I would like.

This is sexism. The focus on only women is gender discrimination. I am constantly amazed at the relentless tire pumping by the Times for girls and women. You'd think boys and men don't exist and are irrelevant. One has to imagine that everything the Times want to reinforce is simply feeling good aspirational talk and unlikely in real terms to ever exist. Its endless Stuart Smalley incantations instead of the practical application of focused methods, efforts, and goals.

Beautiful piece! Will show to my daughters (pre teens still) tonight. Thank you! Saba

What I get from this piece is what I had imagined all along: ...That in spite of the many stresses, and the ubiquitous challenges that confront young women everywhere, just being one and being true to one's self is a gift, that keeps giving every day... -- PS: I am a man. Nevertheless, I do what I can, to picture for myself what women everywhere are thinking and feeling. It's the least I can do.

Fascinating! But the young woman with 20,000 selfies of herself? Yipes. I sure hope that's not representative of 18 year old women today. A bit much, no? LOL.

This is amazing and beautiful. Thank you.

Love the Baby Boomer scrapbook layout and Boomer colors to represent digital age Generation Z young women. After half-a-century of Boomer culture, it would have been nice to see a layout the Zetas themselves would have preferred.

Loved this piece. Thanks for this.

This piece is fantastic. Kudos to NYT for terrific reportage. I've spent most of the past 35 years in NGO work, helping the poorest and most vulnerable around the globe. I was buoyed up reading about 18-yr-old girls around the world in 2018. Granted, none of them are the very poor or very rich and they are all somewhat urbane, but that’s part of what was so encouraging—more and more girls are NOT super poor, and they can think about things like school, music, slang, relationships. The sidebar features like photos of what they eat for breakfast etc. celebrate both the similarities and the differences between cultures and just between people. WELL DONE!!!

Wow! I loved this! Finally a hopeful article about our youth! I have two sons, 19 and 23. I see the future in them, and the future is bright. Congrats of a great piece!

Stunning! A dose of purity, hope, and reality blended into a beautiful narrative. I loved the multimedia nature of the feature too! Humbled by how mature these young ladies sound beyond their years. Thank you for sharing this with the world.

Bittersweet - so many hopes, but also fears, just due to being a woman. Best of luck to all of them. I’d love to see a follow-up at 21!

beautiful! t

Hi-I am a high school science teacher in Troy, NY. I absolutely loved this piece and will share with the cosmetology class teachers at our career tech school. This was incredibly beautiful and wonderful.; and well done! Thank you-I forgot for a minute how tough the politics of our world are and saw great hope in the wonderful women in the future!