Ask Lemmy

You become an adult when you wish you were young again

Never. There is no line to cross, no milestone, nothing.

You will always be the same entity you are now. You should always work to improve yourself, but the stream of consciousness that is "you" is always going to be the same you.

Every day you wake up 1 day older and have 1 more day of accumulated experience. It's that accumulated experience that makes people think you're an "adult".

If you really absolutely need to assign a binary "I'm an adult" label, I think it's the day you realize that there is no such thing as an adult and all the people you thought were adults and therefore could handle adult responsibilities were actually just making it all up as they went, the same as you are doing right now.

Adult is essentially like age-based gender. Different cultures say adulthood starts at different ages, physical markers, or after some ritual transition, and assign adults a certain role in society. Some people identify as adult or not adult regardless of what their culture assigns to them. It's all part of the arbitrary, usually unspoken rules each culture defines for itself.

when you buy a sensible hat

You're a child until you're 30.

Being an "Adult" just means there is a 50 - 50 that you are able to recognize the right decision / course of action in any given situation.

NOTHING guarantees that this recognition means anything at all...

Until relatively recently, in common law and some civil law countries you weren't fully autonomous from your gaurdian until you turned 21. At which point you no longer needed a gaurdians approval to make some legally binding decisions. Some institutions (eg car rental & insurance companies) find 25 to be the cut off for risky behavior. However, these measures don't capture emotional maturity as I've met people in their 50s that still act like teenagers.

I think it’s when you decide it, plenty of children walking around in grown bodies paying bills but also letting the whims of the world carry them with their current never taking a stand and steering their own lives. To be an adult is both a choice to be free from undue influence but also to be fully responsible for your own actions.

The moment they accept they don't know everything/they can be wrong.
Something that can happen at any age bracket, imho...

Thinking about it, that may also mean quite a few people will never turn adults no matter how old they are.

Some never become adults, becoming an adult to me is self-realization. That you have the ability to think and make decisions with input on your own. That you are self-capable of change in your life. It's accepting you have responsibilities outside of just yourself. I feel hat's part of it.

Conservative men never do, they just get crankier and crankier until they have a heart attack at 55 in their old Chevy pickup truck.

A child knows the adult drink is coffee.

A teenager knows the adult drink is alcohol.

An adult knows the adult drink is water.

When there's a bump in the night and you're the one responsible to go find out what it was

Personally, I felt like a "real adult" at age 30.

This question makes me think of a scene from one of the Little House On The Prairie books where one of the characters, a teenager (Mannie maybe?) is registering for a homestead in a new settlement area. The government agent is asking for his details: Name, birthplace, age.

"Oh, you can put me down for 18" wink

EXACTLY MIDNIGHT LOCAL TIME ON THE CALENDAR DATE EIGHTEEN YEARS SUBSEQUENT TO THEIR BIRTH AS RECORDED ON A LEGAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE

/s

Biologically: After pueberty.

Socially: Around 31.

Realistically: Never.

In north america its when you realize you are always miserable and none of this is what you planned for or went to school for

I read somewhere that a parent's job in life was to make themselves unecessary to their children.

Parent does everything for a baby, but as the child gets older a parent teaches them to do more and more stuff for themselves: getting dressed, tying shoelaces, reading, good study habits, time management, relationships, cooking, good financial practice, etc. Eventually the parent has nothing left to teach the child and is no longer necessary (though hopefully their company is still appreciated). That would be the point at which the child becomes an adult.

My definition of an adult is simple:

"To be an adult, a person has to understand when it is appropriate to be childish"

It's a spectrum

When you are at the point where essentially everything in your life is up to you. You make the decisions, you deal with the problems.

I'm lucky enough to be in my 30s and still have grandpa and his wife (my grandma by all accounts, but she doesn't want to be called that because it makes her feel old). I was visiting with them recently and said "I still feel like a stupid teenager. I don't feel like I'm an adult that knows what they're doing, I'm just doing the best I can" and my 83 year old grandpa replied "sweetheart, I still feel like I'm in my 20s, I don't think anyone ever really figures it out, no one knows how to be an adult".

So i think the answer is: never

It's the moment you figure out your parents didn't have it figured out and were just making it up as they went along.

True adulthood starts when you forgive them for the mistakes they made and try and do better.

When your primary concern is to help others rather than have others help you.

For me, it’s when you start paying utility bills out of your own pocket. So even if you’re living with your parents/relatives but you are old enough to be contributing with household expenses, you’re now an adult.

When they no longer feel a desire to argue with reality that they have faced fully (no lying to oneself) and have accepted that everything is temporary.

And they understand that the above is not a call for nihilism and resignation, but inner peace.

depends on the country.

When they start acting like it.

I’ve thought about this a lot since the prior social markers are less useful these days. For me it’s being someone who has the resources and abilities to navigate the things needed for day to day life.

When you act against your better interests and act in the interests of others.

That is a very subjective question with no right or wrong answer. If we're talking legally, generally on their 18th birthday. But in a more practical sense, well I guess it happens sort of gradually. Some might say when they internally feel like an adult. Some might say when they behave like an adult. Some might say when they have adult responsibilities like a job or a family.

Do you mean physically or mentally, because the former happened to me without my permission and I'm still waiting on the latter to happen.

For context, I'm a Xennial.

When the prefrontal cortex is mostly formed, somewhere around 25 to 30. It's the part that helps inhibition, like controlling your emotions and impulses, and also the last part of the brain to be finished. It's quite downhill from there!

When they decide to

Around adulthood.

It varies but I would say typically around 25. Years 18-24 are still mostly spent coming to terms with adult responsibilities and unlearning oversimplified teenager worldviews.

Life altering events or lack of can influence this one way or the other. Like moving out, starting a relationship, having children or loss of someone close. (Literally anything that makes one re-evaluate ones values and thinking)

Like someone living with their spouse and 2 children at age of 25 will likely act more mature than say socially isolated NEET still living at their parents at age 30. (Not trying to shame with the latter, just pointing out how life experience outweighs age in this)

When they learn to be ok with cleaning the icky stuff from the sink.