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When do you become an adult?

TheCatWoman

Yes we all know when the legal definition is, but to me its about so many other things.

Becoming an adult is a process, and not something that happens on your 18th birthday and as a process it should be respected and acknowleged that it happens differently for different people.

Adulthood is often a cultural and social construct too, some cultures encourage their young to be far more independent than others, should we enforce conformity and if we should who's?

Should we hold someone back from doing "adult" things because they're not 18 even when they're ready?

  • I feel like it's finally happening for me in my late 30s. I started the right puberty a few months ago which I'm sure is helping.

  • hmmm, does adult even exist could be another question if we think on this.

  • TheCatWoman said:
    Should we hold someone back from doing "adult" things because they're not 18 even when they're ready?

    If we hold back people from being capable of being an adult until later and later in the name of protecting them, then we are delaying their ability to become adults - essentially creating generations of tweenagers who are being held back until later and later.

    I started working when I was 15, was seriously considering getting married at 16 (not that rare an occurrance in Scotland in the 1980s) and was off to University at 17 to a few years of drinking, sexual experimentation and all sorts of things that are denied to people these days by law.

    I'm a firm believer that the blanket rules are suffocating and restrict your personal freedoms.

    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.

    Labour are pushing for 16 year olds to be treated as adults and vote - is this a cynical ploy to harvest votes from impressionable and vulnerable children or them acknowledging that they should be treated as adults?

  • What an interesting question. When I look back at how I was in my early 20s I definitely don’t think I was very ‘adult’ at all. I know you’re not talking about physical development here, but I did read something once that said the skull and brain weren’t fully grown until 25. This really struck me as I definitely think I wasn’t acting maturely (whatever that really means) until around that age.

    i like that I still find joy in some things like I did when I was a child so in some ways don’t ever want to be a ‘real grown up’