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At what age do you consider someone to be an adult?
I've been rereading The Fellowship of the Ring and saw the mention of Hobbits having their coming of age at 33.
"At that time Frodo was still in his tweens, as the hobbits called the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three."
It made me wonder what all of your opinions are on adulthood/coming of age. Some questions I thought might be interesting around this topic include:
- Are there any coming of age ceremonies where you live or that you partook in?
- Are there any coming of age ceremonies you've heard of that you think would have been cool to participate in or think should be more widely adopted?
- When did you feel like you were an adult?
- Do you think the legal age that someone is considered an adult in your country should be changed?
- Do you think there are some things that should be age gated beyond the age of legal adult good? (I.e.: in the US alcohol being restricted to those who are 21+ years of age while someone is a legal adult at 18.)
Curious to see your thoughts on this!
25. This is when the body neurologically and biologically settles. Socially, we've shifted into a later-stage adulthood, as well.
Ages 18-24 are the 'consequence years' where young-adults/post-teens figure out the machinations of the "real world" and 25 is when they can start applying what they've learned effectively.
There is no evidence that the brain stops maturing at 25. This is a common misconception that is not supported by neurological evidence. It's actually pretty hard to even define what counts as a brain "maturing", and one's brain can continue to develop even until death. Neurological evidence does not support the idea that brain maturation slows or plateaus at that age, at least not anywhere close to universally. There is definitely a sociological component to one's early 20s feeling like less than a full adult, and impulsivity can decrease with age, but it has nothing to do with how developed one's brain is.
Thank you, Sparksbet, your knowledge continues to change my life for the better.
In sharing this article with me, you have allowed me to question my own beliefs on this particular topic.
I still do believe that 25 is a good-age to consider someone a full adult socially, because this is the age that most individuals in modern society achieve the milestones for adulthood, but I am no longer under the impression that brain development plateaus around 25.
Yeah I think socially it's still the case for a lot of people in our modern world, at least in the first-world countries I've lived in -- I definitely feel like there was a big difference in my own experiences of adulthood in that way!
Car insurance premiums go waaaay down and you can start renting cars at that age because the data backs it up. Actuaries and tons of research go into these decisions and it basically boils down to "this is around when people stop fucking around and have enough lived experience to apply to things".
I still think 18 is fine for a "legally you're on your own now" cutoff, but you already put it better than I possibly could.
I agree with this. Personally, I didn't really get my act together til 25-26yo. That's when I really started thinking about the future, but also taking concrete steps towards that future. Before that, it was more just hopes and aspirations, but mostly just wanting to have fun as a young legal adult. I'll get around to working on tomorrow, tomorrow...after I finish off this fifth of vodka!
I noticed the same with some of my friends and peers. That's not to say that others didn't get to this conceptual adulthood before that (or even after 26yo). Certainly getting married, or having kids, or other life events can accelerate getting there. But even without any of that,, some were always more, Idk, put-together I guess, while still <26yo. I have a few younger friends who are like that now. They've achieved more than I did when I was their age. Because it seems like they had their eye on the ball earlier.
Some countries, like Germany, will hold high-risk violent juveniles in juvenile detention facilities up until the age of 25 because by then their prefrontal cortexes and executive decision making will have fully developed, greatly reducing recidivism.
At the age of 25 impulsivity just drops off the cliff.
Yeah, at least in the Western world, it seems like 23-25 is socially when most people start to act like adults and not kids who finally got off the leash and are letting loose. Obviously this probably varies a lot depending on how someone was raised and the situation that they're in, but for the average person it seems to be a good rule of thumb.
The silliest use of that fact was when some trolls used it to advocate for raising the age of consent to 25. They gave away the trolling game by specifying it should specifically be raised for women and gay men.
What is an adult? I think people have a lot of different definitions, to the point that it's an abstract term.
18 is legal adulthood, 21 is sort of 'full' adulthood in that you now have all the privileges. But I don't think many people over 30 see 21 year olds as full adults.
Someone mentioned 25, as the age when brain development is considered finished. But of course that number has gone up over time and recent studies suggest it continues until at least 30. So who knows? I do like the insight that our brains are far from finished developing at legal adulthood. Biological maturity seems like a pretty good definition. So that would be 30+ with the most current science, maybe it will be adjusted up again at some point.
But is adulthood more than brain development? If I think about times in my life that I considered myself an adult, I'm not sure the current me agrees that I was, in fact, an adult. I fully expect that to keep happening.
Eventually you arrive at a point where no casual observer would accuse you of being anything other than an adult, maybe that's adulthood? I suppose that's early to mid 30's.
Or maybe adulthood is a spectrum that you never reach the end of.
I felt like an adult when I had my first kid; up until then it felt like most of life was out of my locus, regardless of whether it actually was or was not. I've also got ADHD and some mild imposter syndrome, mind you, both of which probably delayed that feeling due to the belief I'd sorta fallen into everything in my life rather than decided or earned it into my 30s. But even adopting dogs didn't quite get there.
I am my kids' ward, the decisions for them fall to my partner and I without much question of their validity, and I am not simply given that power but am endowed with it by my partner and to my partner by means of trust and confidence that we'll be good parents. All that makes you feel alone, but steadfast and self-sufficient.
It may just be the newborn overwhelm, but nothing has made me feel less like an adult than having a baby. Did the feeling kick in from birth for you or was there a particular moment or subconscious build-up?
It was a moment; my wife had to go back to the hospital a couple days in. I was alone with a newborn for a night, but despite how dire everything was, it felt like I knew what was going on and what had to be done, and I was going to do it, and that was that.
Don't worry, I think it'll wear off even if you don't get some kind of moment. First newborn period kinda suuucks, hang in there. If it doesn't happen, just wait til you make them smile or laugh and eeeverything bad starts to wash away...
Hobbits certainly age at a slower rate than humans. But to answer your question, the age between 17 and 24 feels like a second adolescence from my experience.
To me, it’s always felt like 21 is the dividing line. That’s when most people finish their bachelors. The defining feature of western adulthood is, for better or for worse, having to make your own decisions, and at this point, whether you go on to work or pursue more education, it really is up to you. Undergrad feels like the transition from adolescence to adulthood, and the end of undergrad is the start of adulthood.
Most people definitely don't have bachelors at 21
Some indigenous tribes in the Amazonas has a coming of age ritual that is a fascinating insight in what it can mean to "become a man".
Young boys have to wear a glove full of bullet ants and endure the excruciating pain from the bites.
Smithsonian
Yes, let us go back to rites of passage and the blooding of males to create real men out of boys.
The bullet ant gloves are hellish, and other similar rites are too. But hey, live and let live. Just stay away from me with that glove.
I imagine that life lived closely in tune with nature is very, very physically challenging, dangerous, and totally not Disney-esque.
Such rituals may have culturally evolved as tools to help make their participants feel prepared for the challenges of life in nature. If you can psychologically survive a glove of bullet ants, anything the Amazon throws at you can feel manageable.
The industrial world has isolated us from those dangers and challenges. Gender roles are largely diminished and irrelevant: everyone is reduced to units of labor to be educated, trained, and employed within massive industrial apparatuses. Our rites of passage — matriculation — prepare us for lives of intellectual labor, not hunting or subsistence agriculture and gathering.
I was making a throwaway joke and your reply makes me feel silly for not taking it seriously!
I'm fully in agreement though. I understand that these rites are purposeful and/or meaningful for the participants and not just there to hurt people.
This is such a great question.
I feel like an adult in relation to the younger, lees experienced ones.
The older, more experienced ones will think of me as a kid.
My peers are adults, but also kids. They probably think the same of me.
In retrospect, everything I wanted and thought previous to this period in my life seems childish.
Looking to the future, tasks and challenges seem daunting, hopefully I will act more as an adult when they come.
I wonder if I truly felt any different at any point in my life. Besides the legal safety guards et al. Being an adult really feels like a concept that’s for the most part relativistic.
The coming of age ritual I underwent, as everybody in the West, is the ritual of being alone. It is not only a physical ritual (decrease of human touch, living in a small studio), but even moreso a mental ritual (believing that you have to conquer this life on your own, becoming self-reliant in all life domains, not sharing your doubts with others, participating in the capitalist rat race).
I'm 43, married, my kid is 18 months. Adulthood should be arriving any time now. I'll let you know.
Seriously, I'm just a teenager life coerced into doing less teenager stuff. I would do it if I could.
There's some stuff I know doesn't work, like arguing. But many "adults" keep arguing their whole lives. And I still argue sometimes, of course.
Some will favor a qualitative approach. They'll say an adult must have X, Y, Z characteristics. That is highly personal, localized, cultural, and arbitrary.
"You're not an adult if you live with your parents". "You're not an adult if you require financial assistance". "You're not a real woman if you're not a mother". "You're not a real man if you don't own a house or have a CAR BRAND".
It's all completely arbitrary and doesn't work for all people or all cultures. These little rules fail to take into account cultural, personal, financial, and socioeconomic differences.
So there's definitely a difference in competence over time, but I don't believe in arbitrary thresholds for "adulthood". There's no magical switch, and the only definition of adulthood I would give credit to is that which someone applies only to themselves.
I'm going to say 20. It depends on the country you're from, your lived experiences, and the degree of freedom you have (financial or otherwise).
Most of my friends were expected to have full time jobs straight out of school (17-18), and conciliate that with a university degree during the evening. A lot of them also had to support themselves or their families during that time.
By the time I was 20, I was already expected to have a full career lined up, any mistake had real consequences, and any of them were going to be seriously difficult to bounce back from. The moment you can finally start getting your bearings and walk on your own, you're expected to run. I moved out at 18, moved countries at 20, and a lot of my friends/relatives went through similar experiences. I had the added strain of going through significant medical stress/near death experiences before I was 23, so there's that.
The medical definition of adulthood is certainly a thing, but adulthood to me is the moment where if you encounter any serious problems, you are going to be responsible for fixing 90% of it alone. Possibly the moment when you start thinking that "you have all the time in the world" is a reductive lie.
When it comes to developed countries, that may come later, however, and there's no "one-size-fits-all" answer.
Two years into a full-time work and living away from parents, roughly.
It varies highly case-to-case, but it's when people undergo significant shifts in behavior and opinions. Rubber hits the road, people adjust and then develop at much slower pace.
E.g. for dating advice, relationships have better chance to survive if both have been independent for a while.
I have yet to feel like an adult, but I do feel older. :-)
If you don't mind me asking, which country are you from?
After moving to South East Asia, I've seen how much more common it is for children to stay with their parents well into their adulthood than it was in the US. Though I understand that has been shifting as the economy does not nice things, student loans, etc. From the people I've met since moving here, their families usually see it as a waste for that person to live away from home if their job is in the same area, especially when they're not married.
Czechia, EU. We are pretty collectivist as well, but it's the norm for the kids to get out for a bit. Possibly because experience, unlike knowledge, cannot be easily transferred and has to be lived. Like buying and cooking your food, washing your dishes, doing your laundry, paying the bills... Valuing your work.
It somewhat changes what you seek in your partner. You want them to be able to weather some discomfort and pull their own weight.
Five years older than whatever my current age is. When I was in kindergarten, the fifth-graders were basically grown ups as far as I could tell. In high school, college students were adults. In college, it was the late 20s crowd. Now in my late 20s, the 30-somethings look like the ones who finally have their act together.
As someone in their 30s, I have some bad news for you... XD
Eventually, you realise no one has any clue and we're just doing the best we can, some more successfully than others.
On average, 25. Notable life experience and/or personality may lower that. Lack thereof may raise it.
Twenty-seven is probably when I felt more established and self-aware. Other people considered me relatively mature around 24–25, I think.
I don't think the age should legally be changed; it would be more appropriate to rein in predatory practices (like egregious student loans in the US). We do children a great disservice by how much we infantilize them and take away autonomy. Taking on greater responsibility is part of growing up.
As I get older that number keeps going up. I've just turned 30. I feel like I've got enough adult experiences under my belt. Housing, paying taxes, acquiring and paying off debt, maintaining a job that gives me a middle class income, and navigating the American healthcare system. Pretty sure I've now had more years with full facial hair than without. I undeniably look like an adult when I see my reflection. I still don't really feel like one though. As I get older it just feels like the number of adults in the world shrinks.
I know a lot of millennials feel like they’re “adulting” without being adults, and its something Ive never quite understood.
I think I call someone an adult by the decisions that they make, and the age of an adult has a lot to do with “are they older than I was when I learned how to make good decisions” which happens to be 25.
Every millennial that Ive met who doesn’t feel like an adult always makes really good decisions, and they’ve been making them since long before I learned how. I think not feeling like an adult might just be a risk-aversion thing, cause when I was definitely not an adult yet, I always felt so grown up and in control all the time.
It was only when I changed my mindset and started to slow down and assess the situation instead of acting on impulse that I started making adult decisions, and that happened around 25, but if you would have asked 20 year old me if I was an adult I would have told you yes.
I don't know. I'm 28 and still identify as a kid.
Anecdata: I was a free-range Gen X kid in many of the best and worst ways... moved out of my parents' house and applied for independence at age 16, working to become self-supporting and going to college. I failed out and moved back in with my parents at age 17, moved out again at 18 and restarted college.
While I could handle the details intellectually, emotional maturity in terms of coping skills took many more years of experience. It was a time of constant terror and wild emotional swings. I didn't really feel a daily sense of competence until after age 25. When you're younger, so many events are taking place in your life for the first time - failures and losses, social engagements and rejections, victories, achievements... You don't even know what your emotional responses mean, how long they'll take to resolve (crushing grief at a friend's suicide broke me for a while), how to continue doing the necessary.
I wish I'd found out about mindfulness meditation as a teen, but the experience of surviving terrible feelings sets you up to feel less overwhelmed the next time around. In some ways, I think that's where the confidence of "adulthood" arises. As I've gotten older [old!], the sheer intensity of emotion has become less extreme and easier to get an objective handle on.
I don't think there's a hard boundary for "becoming an adult". In the Jewish tradition I grew up with, boys became men via Bar Mitzvah at age 13, girls through Bat Mitzvah at 15, and it seemed like a stupid, arbitrary boundary for anything but an archaic puberty rite. The ritual meant a modicum of religious education, not anything we would recognize as a "responsibility test" otherwise. Yet historically, it meant legal responsibility and participation as an adult in the community - marriage and other contracts, etc.