Ask Lemmy

A child knows the adult drink is coffee.

A teenager knows the adult drink is alcohol.

An adult knows the adult drink is water.

Biologically: After pueberty.

Socially: Around 31.

Realistically: Never.

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

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.

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.

When they start acting like it.

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 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.

Self-sufficiency, responsibility

Apparently it depends on skin colour and the severity of the charges. /s

Around adulthood.

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.

When they decide to

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

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.

When they start thinking about the consequences of their actions, and act accordingly instead of following pure impulse.

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

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

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.

When you are legally considered that in your country's law. Any other distinction is fuzzy and unlikely to be really useful.

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 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 all your dreams are dead.

When I was in college (so maybe 20 or 21 years old), I asked my mom when I would start feeling like an adult. Without missing a beat, she said "I dunno. If you find out, let me know!" <3

I guess I started feeling more like a "real" adult when I started working full-time and rented a house instead of an apartment, though now even that pales in comparison to when I finally purchased my own home. Each phase of life feels more "grown-up" than the last, with new perspectives, greater understanding of my relationships with God and people, and matured confidence going into the new phase's challenges. And yet I'm still me at heart--as I like to call it, "a big kid with bills." I am very blessed.

when you buy a sensible hat

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.

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...

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.

You become an adult when you wish you were young again

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

Well, in the legal sense, I suppose it has to do with contracts and contract law. Some time ago in the US, it was determined that 18 was the legal age for adulthood because by then a person would be old enough to understand the terms of a contract and hold to those terms. Marriage is a contract. Military service is a contract. Getting a loan/mortgage is a contract.

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

/s

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 they gain the appreciation of society, which is childish and whimsical.

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.

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