When do you become an adult?

define "adult".

At age 53 myself, having grown up in a very restrictive Catholic system in Ireland, I can empathise with this, because as a child in the 1970’s as a teenager in the 1980’s, corporal punishment by everyone, including by the police, was regarded as the great “cure all” for anything to do with mental health issues in childhood - yet in my case, the damage has already been done and I’ve also experienced the same discriminatory attitudes from other gay people, who should know better - I was only diagnosed with autism in 2021 and regardless of the motivations of those pushing me towards a diagnosis (without the help and support that I should have had, aside from being punished for being bullied in school  by being sent to a residential facility for 9 months and being labelled as mad and not quite right in the head) so many years of my life has been wasted and I’ve been held back from doing stuff for no good reasons) - it’s perhaps why I feel now that my conservative Catholic religious values as an older gay man are my safe space 

TheCatWoman said:

I never want to see an adult, shaking, crying and having a near meltdown over cutting themselves a bit of French Stick ever again,

That's awful.Some step fathers can be total s**te* An experience I remember though it was over 40 years ago. Last and longest stay in psych hospital. Kicked off a cookery course for struggling to peel and cut potatoes. Accused  of being uncooperative and badly  behaved.  Not the only incidence of such.- genuinely struggling with things, but treated as though it was deliberate behaviour.

Neither person I was talking about were on the spectrum, it was pure choice and cultural expectations and was not aimed at you or anyone else with genuine difficulties. I knew my ex could do oven chips, because he did them fine when I wasn't there, it was my pressence that made him lose the ability to use the oven, put chips on an oven tray, even chose an oven tray and cook them for 20 mins. My friends problem was with her controlling husband refusing to allow her adult responsibilies even when she's cognitively fine and he was dying.

Personally I find it fairly easy to see when someones got genuine problems and when they're choosing to be useless. There are loads of things I cannot do and people get really frustrated and angry with me or laugh at me, my Mums a bit the same, there are things that I watch her try and do and find myself amazed at her approach. Some of them are a it funny though, like when I gave her some shower gel for her birthday, and she asked when did you put it on, before or after the soap? It never occured to her that it was an alternative to soap. I've also spent time with people undoing things they've been told they're bad at to the point where they have a near phobia about them. A uni friend who's mum remarried, to a man who always had unsliced bread, my friend had always grown up with sliced bread, her new step father got angry and humiliated her for not knowing how to cut bread. I never want to see an adult, shaking, crying and having a near meltdown over cutting themselves a bit of French Stick ever again, seeing her sense of achievement at this simple thing was a amazing.

Oh yea !!  Good point !!!! ...... I hadn't twigged that.

Happy belated birthday! 

ADAPTIVE FUNCTIONING difficulties    Common though not universal among those with ASD. Has nothing to do with being lazy or not wanting to 'grow up'. Judging by comments here  it's not something many here have experienced. If you're of average or below average intelligence with such a difficulty you're far  more likely to get help for it than if you're way over on the right side of the bell curve. If you're way over on the right side of the  bell curve you're treated as though you have a character defect. You're denied help to improve your adaptive functioning, because it's reckoned you can do it, but don't want to.

It took till I was 60, and my daughter countering  false and ignorant  beliefs  that had been allowed to become entrenched, for it to be realised it had feck all to do with having a character defect etc. That I do genuinely struggle with some things.

See:   https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs...62361321995620 , and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6519242/ 

I think there are some people who deliberately refuse to do certain bits of adulthood, like taking responsibility for household tasks, like cooking and cleaning and others who refuse to let others take any control at all. My ex husband had to be cajooled into doing household talks in the same way as my children did, if I was ill then he suddenly couldn't cook oven chips without my help. A friend, who's husband always took care of financial stuff, wouldn't even tell her things like who their electricity provider was in the few weeks before his death. Both my friend and thier children were begging him to let them know all the important household stuff. When he died his family were left both grieving and not knowing how to run the house, somethings they didn't know about until final notices came in. So my friend became an adult in her late 70's. My exhusband refused to grow up when there was a woman around.

I wonder if greater diagnosis of things like autism is always a good thing? It's great that people get the help they need at school and work, but are we in danger of always pushing the lowest common denominator at people in other areas, the so called life skills? Is being able to cook a simple meal from scratch with fresh ingredients a life skill, important for self worth, health and general living, or should we expect people to just eat pizza and burgers because they're easy? When is someone old enough to do their own washing and ironing? I taught my kids to do it when they were about 10, how to read laundry lables and what they meant, how to use a washing machine, how to iron a shirt. I taught them how to wire a plug, how use the right fuse in a plug, what you need in a basic tool kit. When we moved to the countryside, I let them roam a bit and learn to be independent.

If it had been known that I as autistic then, would I have been allowed or encouraged to teach my children all these things? As a child I had a door key on a piece of string around my neck, so as I could let myself in after school, I found I loved being alone in the house, learning to make choices about what I ate, what I did, what I watched on telly. In the school holidays I learned how to run a house, how to shop, to cook and manage a budget, how to use the laundrette. If i were a child now, would child protection have been called because at the age of 10, I was home alone for a couple of hours?

For some of us, being an adult is only dependent on the opinions or “infinite wisdom” of those around us, especially family members, who aside from using religious teachings, will only (allow) us to be an adult in situations where it suits them in certain areas and in certain situations given our condition - for example, following a diagnosis, perhaps because of thier adherence to traditional religious based moral values, they will not approve of our living alone, having a mobile phone or internet that is not as closely monitored as possible, even with support and they will insist that the only way to manage our condition is by means of ultra strict discipline, either by them or someone that they approve of acting in the role of live-in carer/mentor - they believe that they have to be “cruel to be kind” and that we have to be “hectored” into living our lives in thier way (in a certain way) with certain rules designed by them which they believe and maintain is “for our own good” regardless of what anyone else thinks, even if it may be regarded by others as bullying or abusive 

I didn't feel like an actual adult until at least my early 30s.

Among neuroscientists, the consensus seems to be that the brain doesn't finish its progression from adolescence to maturity until around or after the mid-20s. A couple of interesting snippets: 

From MIT:

"As a number of researchers have put it, "the rental car companies have it right." The brain isn't fully mature at 16, when we are allowed to drive, or at 18, when we are allowed to vote, or at 21, when we are allowed to drink, but closer to 25, when we are allowed to rent a car".
"According to recent findings, the human brain does not reach full maturity until at least the mid-20s".

https://hr.mit.edu/static/worklife/youngadult/brain.html

From University of Rochester Medical Centre:

"Understanding the Teen Brain

It doesn’t matter how smart teens are or how well they scored on the SAT or ACT. Good judgment isn’t something they can excel in, at least not yet. The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so.

In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.

In teens' brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing—and not always at the same rate. That’s why when teens have overwhelming emotional input, they can’t explain later what they were thinking. They weren’t thinking as much as they were feeling."

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051

You are on dodgy gound there The Cat Woman, expressing some views very similar to my own.

(And not for the first time eiether!)

Although as a white male, I'd add that I woudl like to be more able to express the frustration or sometimes just confusion I sometimes feel, without semi-automatically being called an "extremeist" or something else that ends in -ist.  

Wow what a lot of brilliant replies, I will try and add my piece to a few of them, so please don't feel offended if you feel left out or misunderstood, theres a lot to take on.

Good question Caelius and one that deserves a thread of its own.

I think becoming an adult isn't something that that just happens when you reach a certain age and then stops, but one continues to mature through life. Sometimes I think back to something I did when I was in my 40's and think 'I was so young then', but I didn't feel young at the time.

In skeletal terms an adult body is one where the growth plates on long bones like the legs and arms as well as the collar bones fuse. These tend to happen between the agesof 18 and 25, the cranial sutures will fully close and fuse when one is in their 30-40s. These are some of the ways in which an anthropologist can age a skeleton.

I don't think we do youth well, ,I'm not sure we ever did, but to me it seems that people are being held back from developmental milestones. When is it OK to work, when I was a teenager you could get a part time job at 14, many of my friends worked late nights, 5-8pm on thursdays and fridays and all day saturday. Now, some people would call that child exploitation, but it didn't feel exploitative, it felt validating and a part of moving towards adult hood. Students had a full grant and didn't have to work, although most did part time work. Now the situation with student loans is awful, although at 18 you are independent of your parents, can have loans, credit cards, deals and even a mortgage, how much you're allowed to borrow is determined by your parent income, even though you are soley legally responsible for repaying it. Many parents won't pay towards their young persons education like this and I've seen the hardship this causes, its awful.

To me this sort of muddle reflects the whole way we infantalise people, the disabled, especially those with mental health problems get told far to much of what they can and can't do, obviously something are really not a good idea, but so many of these things seem to be quite random.

Why is my anger less valid, for example, than anothers? Is it because I'm female, is it because I have physical disabilities, or learning difficulties, or am autistic? Do I not have the same right to be angry at perpetually late public transport, say, than a white, male with no disabilities or learning difficulties? Why do some people think it's ok to say stupid stuff like 'well you'll have to get up earlier' and then it me thats in trouble for pointing out that the bus before that didn't come either, or the train or whatever. Is my money worth less than everyone elses when I pay for a service that's not properly delivered, my autism isn't to blame.

Sorry I seem to have gone off on one a bit there, but the denial of emotion and the double standards applied ot some groups, particulalry the young is a cause for justifiable anger.

In 365 days

firemonkey said:

The educational system in the early 1960s to mid 1970s wasn't equipped to do the best for children and teenagers like me. Thankfully it's a lot better nowadays for such children and teenagers, though still far from perfect.

I agree. The education system now is much more accommodating for those with different needs such as yourself.

With the 98% of the population who are not with our needs I feel that they are now being coddled and shielded too much so that when they come to leave school they are chewed up and spat out in the working world and lack the training to be able to adapt and cope.

I have an uncle who is a former headmaster (long serving) and he shares this view. He suggested that any training for pupils in "real world" skills would not be approved by a lot of parents in case it traumatised their kids.

I'm lucky in that I have scope to give this sort of education to a handful of autistic teens who are approaching school leaving age here and their parents want them to be prepared for the outside word. Here in Brazil there is way more prejudice against autism so I help the kids know what to expect, teach them some comeback lines to use (this needs a lot of repetition to make it always available), how to be assertive and how to know when to walk away amongst other things.

This is something I really wish I had growing up as it allows you to co-exist with neurotypicals and advocate for your needs. As you can imagine this is a stretch for teenagers but role playing this again and again until they can script it has proven very effective.

A lot depends on the level of capability of the person so the approach has to be tailored to each individual and I have the time to do this luckily.

Iain said:

If the person if not mature enough at 17 to be treated as an adult then the education system and parents are failing their children in teaching them life skills and the right mindset to mature.

Nearly 50 years on  from  knowing I couldn't  cope with the non academic side of uni life I've got better, but still struggle with day to day practical things  that many others take in their stride. The educational system in the early 1960s to mid 1970s wasn't equipped to do the best for children and teenagers like me. Thankfully it's a lot better nowadays for such children and teenagers, though still far from perfect.

Even now much of the psychiatric system has a mindset that thinks if you can do x well , then automatically you can do y well. Failure to do so gets you branded as having a 'character defect'. You don't get much needed help and support, because it assumed, quite wrongly, that you don't need it.

It took till I was 60, thanks to intervention by my daughter, for long held false beliefs about me  to be demolished. Unfortunately its too late to fix the damage  that was caused.  For peace of mind I have to live with as things are, rather than how they should've been.

I'm not sure many here can understand a person like me. The vast majority of the population very probably doesn't.

Churchill said; "The truth often requires a bodyguard of lies".

I often surround uncomfortable truth by a "troupe of clowns"

Sadly that "reframing" is often used more to hurt or mislead people, and it's both powerful and subtle.    

I was young for my age when it came to being sufficiently independent. The two major factors that lead to my developing a severe mental ill were the bullying , and the acute anxiety of trying to please my parents by being the first in our family to go to uni. That being juxtaposed with knowing I didn't have the necessary non academic skills to cope  at university.

Before I became an adult, I couldn't wait to be an adult. However, when I did become an adult in the eyes of the law, I soon realised that it wasn't as good as I had imagined it to be. 

During my teens, I pushed the boundaries, although perhaps not as much as I could have done, especially when I think about some of the things my peers had been getting up to. When I was 17, I would often go to pubs and drink alcohol. My parents knew and as they too had once been teenagers and partaken in under-age drinking, they looked upon it as a right of passage. Although I would sometimes return home feeling slightly tipsy, I never drank enough to get drunk. If I had, and had made a habit of it, then I think my parents would have most certainly put their foot down.

I was 15 when I started dating, and 16 when I felt ready to have a physical relationship. My parents had made it abundantly clear that although they had no objection to me dating, there would be no "funny business" taking place under their roof. At the time, I considered this to be terribly unfair. Even when I was considered to be an adult in the eyes of the law, on the incredibly rare occasions that a boyfriend stayed over, they would be expected to sleep in the spare bedroom... at least while my parents were there and able to call the shots.

As a 49-year-old, I can look back and say that I feel I had the maturity to do some "adult" things before I was legally old enough, but there were other things that I wasn't, even though I strongly believed I was at the time.

I used to do "stupid things" but then I discovered the awesome power of "reframing" (from my CT based studies of the mass media) and now I do "Brave Power Moves" instead!