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Comment by inanutshellus | Hacker News Reader

> My adulthood litmus test has always been the following: > > If you know what date it is every day, you are an adult.

Tangent - My definition of "adult" that I came up with as an early teen:

"When I realize I'm looking in the _driver's seat_ of passing cars hoping to see pretty girls, that will mean I'm `an adult`.".

Years later I had a palpable shock moment in which I glanced in a car and remembered coming up with the definition. "OH CRAP I'm an adult!"

Felt like a "hoist by my own petard" moment.

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I generally unbundle age and adulthood.

For me the definition has always been "an adult owns up to their own mistakes".

Which is the shorter version of "A child doesn't care about their mistakes, a teenager expects others to fix them and an adults own up to them".

This allows me to categorise older people who I feel like don't act like adults.

This is an adult's definition of an adult

Maybe defining "adult" is the definition for adult?

Nah no way, as some of the above definitions show, children - or at least teenagers/"young adults" -clearly conjure definitions of the adult.

There is definitely a difference though between defining an adult from the inside vs outside

Only when trying to assert that you are not one

I think it's the definition of a moral person, not an adult, but I do like it.

Yes, shockingly my tween-made definition of adult wasn't very adult. ;)

My definition that I came up with college was that adults had full spice racks in their kitchens. I had recently gotten into cooking and was annoyed that it didn't really make sense to buy spices that I would have to throw away at the end of the school year. (I lived out of my suitcase, so space was at a premium).

I am now very happy with my full spice rack.

> I am now very happy with my full spice rack.

There are so many ways to interpret that.

Being an adult is all about ambiguity!

i used to say i would become an adult the Saturday i go to buy myself a couch.

Younger folk get their couches on any day and usually from facebook/craigslist/local classifieds

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