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.
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.
A hat is definitely part of it!
A good, stylish hat helps certainly.
Was about to say something similar. There’s no real moment. It’s not turning a certain agem it’s when you realize you are a sum of everything you’ve done, your faults and your wins. When you realize how silly you were as a teenager and are glad you’ve moved on. No date, but you’ll know when you already are.
EXACTLY MIDNIGHT LOCAL TIME ON THE CALENDAR DATE EIGHTEEN YEARS SUBSEQUENT TO THEIR BIRTH AS RECORDED ON A LEGAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE
/s
“It’s relative. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION ON THIS MATTER!”
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.
When they consistently act like one. When they take full responsibility for themself and their actions.
When there’s a bump in the night and you’re the one responsible to go find out what it was
depends on the country.
When you act against your better interests and act in the interests of others.
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.
To me having the bar be some outside goal seems so strange? So if a person is disabled and can’t “earn a living” or have the ability to navigate “the things needed for day to day life” whatever that means since it’s different for everyone, remains a child? To me this is a very dangerous way of defining adulthood and anyone denied the opportunity to earn money/gain skills is subjugated to being a child? Historically speaking this would make nearly all women children until the 1970s. Adulthood is a mindset
First of all, this is a personal position not something I’m trying to enshrine into law.
Second of all the ability to recognize that you need help/assistance, actually ask, and be receptive to receiving it is a large part of my reason for including that. It shows a level of maturity to go through that process and yes I think that people who don’t do it are child-ish.
According to Ally Sheedy’s character in the Breakfast Club, it’s when your heart dies.
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 spiritually felt like an adult at 16, which was also the traditional age of majority here, but then i moved back in with my parents to do university and felt less and less like an adult
I’m definitely more fond of the idea it’s a different age for different people. I started puberty early and always felt other people my age were out of step with me - people like me physically and mentally become adults sooner than other people. (But we shouldn’t try and use this in regards to consent laws or drinking age, of course)
But the most important consideration is if you treat people well and do things on your own initiative.
In my personal experience this happens when you start taking responsibility on.
Society at large depends on members ensuring certain things, even at their own peril, without concepts of fairness and such, so others don’t have to worry about negative circumstance affecting them.
The most simple form of that is parenthood and similar concepts. You take responsibility for other live because at first they can’t do that themselves. No matter if you are hungry or cold or tired, you will always provide for this life at any cost.
Responsibility can take many forms. Start a business, take responsibility for your employees stable paycheck. Choose a job that society needs done like nursing or such.
In theory every full member of society takes on a little responsibility more or less to their ability which results in a stable social construct.
So I would say: taking on responsibility makes you an adult. I have heard that phrased often as “realizing life is not fair”, which usually comes with taking on responsibility for others and yourself.
There are plenty of faux metrics like age. You can find plenty of old people unable to take on basic responsibility. There is plenty of experienced or wealthy or educated people that can’t be trusted with anything but maybe looking out for their own interests.
Taking on responsibility has to happen responsibly, nothing worse than taking on too much and drowning while exposing others to negative consequence from that. So taking responsibility for your own life entails realizing that you put your own oxygen mask on first and then start helping others if you have the choice.
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.
