When do we become adults, really?
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
Every five years, my life and context have changed profoundly in ways I could never have predicted.
I feel like I have lived many lifetimes.
I am not sure how I would measure growing up. I could never stay at one level long enough to get effortlessly good at it. My head is too far into the clouds. The stars are so inviting.
So I experience a lot of in-too-deep pressure, trying not to screw things up while working to achieve more than anyone might think is reasonable. With a regular remedial/recovery interval, after I screw things up.
If I do grow up in any way, it is the accumulation of resilience and loss of fear that repeatedly digging myself out of my own craters provides. I have internalized that nothing can stop me. Nothing at all. Not even me, and that is saying a lot.
What makes an adult? I think accepting responsibility for your (and often someone else's) condition is a big part of it. I did that at 15. I double downed at 30 when I became our sole provider. But it was my 40s when I started to feel like an adult.
I see many "adult" children and many more adults acting like children. The difference seems to be a combination of self-awareness, social awareness, and responsibility taking.
The things that distinguish the adults from the children in my life tends to be age less and less, and responsibility and accountability more.
Your ability to be of service to people in your family, your circle of friends, and your community is such a great measure of how you've become an adult. It isn't a perfect measure, but the best proxy I've found. It's very difficult to spoof it.
People who have aged but failed to mature tend to struggle on all or several of these metrics. Their attention, actions, and overall lives are very inwardly oriented in many ways.
It isn't to say they're bad people. My rough framework is that as social animals, we need to figure things out before we can fully integrate into our social systems as a fully functioning member. A big step in this process is figuring ourselves out. That's why kids are doing legitimate work when they play, make mistakes, struggle, and so on. They're doing those difficult steps of self discovery. Then, we need to figure out how we fit into the social layers and meshes around us. It's all very complex. It's understandable that we never fully figure it out or optimize, and that some people get hung up on early steps without the right help to be guided through. If the foundations are poor, you're going to struggle.
In effect being an adult is just being a well adjusted, integrated member of a community who functions as a generative, supportive, all around positive contributor.
That's an over simplification of course. It's a proxy I use to help guide myself, really. What can I do right now that would land me in that rough category? It's helpful to not have to overthink it.
At 40 I'd say I've begun becoming an adult but have a lot of work left to do. I think the efforts need to be ongoing because we never stop teaching the young ones, too. Complacency in some contexts can be totally fine, but in a social context I think it can be quite corrosive. We always need to care and strive for something better for each other. It's what we're here for.
Also, nice work, genuinely. Parenting at 23 was a shock to me. People thought I was handling it gracefully but it was totally ad-hoc and incredibly difficult at times. And that's with a disproportionately advantageous tech career supporting us. I can't imagine what would have happened at 15. That's admirable. I didn't even make it through school without a kid. I'm regularly amazed by what people can accomplish, including this.
how did you experience becoming a parent so early?
coming from europe i find that having kids so early is really looked down upon, but then i moved to china and found that people there get married much earlier than i am used to.
but chinese culture has a great support system. having children in your 20s means that grandparents are in their 40s and 50s, and they help you raise your children.
combined with my own experience of getting married only in my 30s i realized that the older people get, the less adaptable/flexible they become. they are set in their ways, and i concluded that the big benefit of getting married early is that you are more adaptable. you don't need to find a fully compatible partner as you are developing together with your partner. what you do need though, is support from your parents and from society.
i find this model so much better than the western one where you are left to your own devices once you leave the house, and where society doesn't at all support young parents. they are looked down upon as having messed up and not being ready.
At the time it felt like culture shock to my own 17yo self —almost as much as the party creatures— but now I see it as the healthy life strategy that it is.
Grew up poor in the US with extremely minimal family support, like the kind that kicks you out or has mental health issues. How did we become parents? Well, unprotected sex. Unless you mean how was the experience; in that case, I would not recommend my path. We both came from broken homes and we received little to no family support.
I think you have a point though. My wife and I figured out life together as a team before we were really fully formed individuals. We had so much more energy; I couldn't imagine starting over with kids at 40. The model of young working parents and helpful grandparents and other family makes a lot of sense. Kids in your 20s works well if you have the support.
"There's a dearth of people who will do what's necessary without complaining."
To me it's all about realising that there's work which needs to be done regularly, that no one else will do for you and also no one will thank you for doing.
I've been happier since I realised this myself.
I’d add that I myself had a brief period during which I went from thinking “this is hard because I’m dumb” to “this is hard because it is indeed hard”. I felt like I grew up a little in those years as well (~35-ish?). I realized that grown ups and management are all just doing “something”. There is no grander scheme, no deeper understanding behind it. Like the veil was lifted and what was behind it was a bit disappointing, but I also felt that it could not have been any other way.
Somehow this realization also made me happier. It’s all something that you could have told me before but I would have never really felt it. All these lessons need to land in fertile soil. It takes some time and experiences for the soil to be ready.
But I got kicked out of my home at 18 and it was made abundantly clear from the age of 16 onward that this would be the case. Remaining a child is a luxury that I wish everyone can experience for as long as possible
I learned so much about myself and the world and I wouldn’t be in the place I am today without my “second youth”. In a sense I gave myself the college social experience but I had an additional 10 years of wisdom to rely on (don’t follow the dealer to a second location, etc.)
Anyway, one instance:
-Graduated law school, but didn't go through the bar exam.
-Spent seven years working part time and being part of a theatre group.
-Left that in his 30s in favour of entering the workforce for real, moved abroad and had a full time job for 4 years.
-Left that job, moved back to his home country and has been coasting doing part time jobs ever since.
Plenty of people with similar stories - some of them were shaped by the 2008 economic crisis, which made several European countries enter a period of stagnation that continues to this day.
I wasn't kicked out of my home but I had the good fortune of attending a boarding high school starting at 13. This forced me to grow up and take responsibility, while still having limited adult supervision. I wish more teenagers could have that opportunity as it helps to provide a gradual transition into being an independent adult.
It used to be that traumatised kids got slapped with a ADHD, autism and/or borderline diagnosis and it got called a day. These are "that's just how you are" style diagnoses. Since 2018 there is CPTSD which finally connects the symptoms to how you got treated as a child. The denial phase is over.
Lawmakers are a bit behind, as usual, but at this point the scale of the problems can't be denied anymore. Its too late for you and me, but I'm optimistic for future generations.
This is vaguely among experts (for autism and emotional instability): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11724683
This is not ruling out a causal link in the opposite direction, that autism increases vulnerability to traumata.
And while researching case reports on child abuse, i couldn't help to notice that many cases do - indeed - start with an autism diagnosis and only escalate later, example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11886450/
While its true that parents don't cause autism... they can surely cause the diagnosis. Extra bad because it delays appropriate treatment.
We're in the over-correcting phase, where every person alive is an abuse survivor of varying seriousness.
For what it's worth I'm not a cynical person against psychology, and I read both the DSM and the ICD front to back every time a revision comes out. But with every revision, especially for the DSM, I become more concerned that we're creeping towards the "everybody suffers from a multitude of disorders therefore nobody does" territory which will bring us right back to ignoring people who need help.
An odd way to frame it but probably true.
> which will bring us right back to ignoring people who need help
That does not follow - if the environmental sources are known, people (especially teachers and social workers) can look out for them and take measures to improve the outcome for the child. And this is what I'm seeing right now.
See it on a societal scale - for the same effort put into raising kids, you get more functional adults.
The cross-over that we need to focus on is whether their neuro-divergence is actually debilitating.
This was my childhood.
Unfortunately for some the narrative of the perfect family is too precious for others to step up and intervene. It's taboo to accuse someone of being a bad parent, even if it's the truth.
Even away from my abusers for decades, the resulting issues have continued into my adulthood and led to near daily struggle that seems to have no end. With my family I've had to choose my battles and my therapist is the only one who both believes me and is trained to give me the support I require to mentally survive in the adult world, one I would otherwise be unprepared for. Without a good enough job I wouldn't be able to pay them and that support would evaporate.
Imagine if a huge percentage of the drama and anger that shows up online is rooted in formative trauma that nobody will ever admit out loud, and as a result we're distracted by trying to address completely unrelated sources of outrage.
At some point I realized “adults” aren’t people who figured things out, they’re just people who got used to not knowing — which is both kind of freeing and a little unsettling.
Adult means grown up. Grown up does not mean perfect or without issues.
As a high schooler, there was a girl in my class who seemed to have it all: smart, gorgeous, popular, you name it. Then one day, she confided in me her deepest, darkest secret: at the age of 17, she had gone to a neighboring country to get liposuction on her thighs, because she was deeply distressed about not having the "thigh gap" demanded by beauty standards at the time. (This was also the first time I had heard of the existence of such a thing.) Now it's easy to dismiss this as shallow, but to her this was debilitating to the extent that she was willing to put up with the cost and pain of surgery to get it fixed.
One becomes an adult when they learn pretty much everyone around them is desperately trying to act as an adult. There are some children that learn this lesson in their childhood, and some that learn it way too late.
There should be a name for the psychological shock everybody experiences when they figure out mum and dad are not, in fact, superheroes or supervillains, but just normal people, sometimes decent, many times a bit pathetic.
I see a lot of comments saying similar. It's almost like we should have 3 stages instead of child -> adult. Someone else responsible for you -> Responsible for yourself -> Responsible for others. You could argue that's childhood, adolescence, adulthood. I would be inclined to agree with the caveat that adolescence extends to much older than 18 or even 22 years.
Adolescence extends to a few years past when you start being treated like an adult, for some it can be extended almost indefinitely.
People increasingly want to delay being treated like an adult until after a person has reached the full maturity of an adult not realizing those two things are linked.
The transition of this happening too early or too late leads to many mental illnesses where your brain is being wired to expect and react to the world incorrectly and when most of the rewiring is done you're somewhat stuck with what you've got. (If you're pampered and protected for too long you can't handle anything but that the rest of your life, if you face adult challenges too early you develop maladaptive strategies to cope with things you can't handle, etc.)
The "25 year old adolescent" is a troubling development.
"Adolescent" is a straight pull from Latin it's literal meaning means being in the process of growing up and maturing. Adolescent is not still a child, adolescent is a child recognized as being an in-progress-to-adulthood.
"Adolescent" 25 year olds is the problem, 25 year olds still in the process of becoming adults because of progressive infantilization where parents seeing their children aren't adults are delaying further and further treating their children like they're becoming adults ... is the problem.
You're looking for a new definition but you shouldn't be.
Maybe we shouldn't send our 13 year olds out into the wilderness for a week with only a knife and a water bottle like many societies have done... but maybe our 26 year olds need to be embarrassed when they can't take care of themselves or be responsible for their own decisions.
The process of lengthening childhood into the mid 20s is the problem and new definitions isn't the solution.
- A basic level of emotional stability and self-control
- Some ability to model consequences accurately
- Some ability to negotiate and handle imperfections and challenges in social situations, including relationships and work
- Some ability to accurately locate the line between internal and external responsibility, and to act accordingly
On that basis it's not at all about age or life stages, but about social and emotional competence.
This culture has a superficial understanding of social competence - more or less defined by "socially competent people get what they want."
I don't think there's much understanding of emotional competence. The default framing seems to be "You're probably damaged and so is your partner (which is why you're not getting what you want)" and not so much "This is what a functional adult looks like."
Work is even worse, with emotional competence being defined almost entirely by its relationship to profit and shareholder value, and not by any intrinsic human standard.
I like that. And because humans are (sometimes poor) pattern matchers, we are confusing that for the proxy of age.
I feel that so much. I'm a first generation vietnamese american (born and raised in america) and it's very disappointing to see my own family lash out (at each other or even strangers) when there is some issue where the answer is unknown.
It's also very frustrating when there's such a strong emphasis on the idea that elders always know best and anybody younger cannot question them.
Discipline, wisdom, and maturity are probably the main aspects that I think define how "adult" somebody is.
What is an adult? Like most words, "adult" encodes a cluster of related behaviors and it's a probabilistic judgment as to whether any individual counts. And it's also shaped by the circumstances of the day. The roles and responsibilities of adulthood change over time, with different social expectations, and those roles may become achievable or less expected to be achievable, depending.
It's unsurprising that the article doesn't really come to any conclusion. The question doesn't admit a hard answer. A better question might be, what is the good life of today, and what transitions and when might make sense in our time.
Our lives are less structured by tradition than times past. But some biological truths can't be denied. A good life, today, might require one to be countercultural, if our ad-ridden culture over-venerates individualism and youth.
I suspect most people only realize these things in retrospect. You don't really know what doors have closed until you find yourself ignored, knocking outside.
I'd probably measure maturity in terms of how one navigates relationships.
When it comes to my partner, being vulnerable, knowing when it's ok to share that I don't feel like an adult, that i'm scared or lack confidence, and when to put on a strong front and say it's all going to be ok, to make her feel safe, is the essence of what I consider to be a "grown ass man".
But we're also planning a trip to the Lego House, Denmark together and we don't have kids. So there's that.
Personally, the older I get the more `adult` just means you have an empathetic understanding of causality.
When I lived in China I met a (physically) older guy in his 60s at the time who had lived through the cultural revolution, spent 8 years on a farm, went back to school when the universities opened up, started a business, then lost the business after various reforms during the Deng era, and had started work as a programmer in his 50s. He always said "when you're younger than 60 you can just start over" when he heard young adults having existential panics.
The guy had restarted his life so often he genuinely seemed like a curious kid, and I think that has a lot to do with just how chaotic and cyclical everything was, he was just used to it. You reinvented yourself every 10-15 years because the world changed.
And I think that's an important lesson because the stable environment that convinced people they're finished adults by the time they're 25 is about to be over everywhere. The whole house, golden retriever, 9-5 Truman show thing isn't coming back and having a childish spirit might very well be a big advantage.
Some people live the 'on rails' lifestyle, others never find the tracks, some get kicked off after a few years.
At its best it's a tool for helping make sense of life and society, but it can also be a destructive myth that leads to resentment and anger in those who end up somewhere else, like they're entitled to this outcome that just wasn't in their cards. Easy to get lost in that darkness and fail to actually make something of life.
People eager to define other people as insufficiently adult adults, should be viewed with the same skepticism as people who want to put their political opponents in an asylum.
If you think it's a problem that young adults today play too much video games or whatever, take the ball and not the man. The problem then is in the behavior, not in people's essence. The youth are as bad as every generation complains that they are, no more, no less.
Out of the dozen plus adults I regularly interact with there, we both only respect one of the “elders” (as in our parents’ generation) as someone I can look up to as an “adult”.
Out of our peers (cousins, siblings, etc.) likewise we only really consider one person as an “adult”.
That’s not to say they’re bad people. They’re all mostly cool people we enjoy hanging out with. But they’re not people we’d have serious life conversations with.
Ironically, as one of two childless couples in the family, I’m sure some of them look at us as “not adults” for no other reason than because we’re not parents. I know there’s a contingent here in HN as well that have expressed the same viewpoint. Also, the aforementioned peer (a cousin) we respect as an adult - is the other childless couple in the family. We, and she (and husband) are independent while the parent couples are still quite visibly dependent socially, emotionally, and even sometimes financially, on the older generation. If anything, our parents have started to depend on us as they grow older, which is a responsibility we happily accept.
Doubly ironic is that more often than not many members of the family come to us (my wife more so) when they need “serious adult advice”. Even the elders.
I use a rough threshold of how much responsibilities they can, or, have to endure, and manage to take care of in a good enough way.
Claiming that Talmudic adulthood begins simply "after age 20" completely misses the profound philosophical depth of the Jewish tradition!
Judaism is fundamentally, as Levinas puts it a "religion of adults". It has nothing to do with biological age, but is instead a state where one rejects the immature desire to endlessly test the waters, keep a safe distance, and leave your options open without ever making a definitive choice.
Adulthood, in the Jewish perspective (according to me ;)), is a commitment to receiving the Law directly as an ethical obligation to "the other" without fully understanding what that means. It's a commitment to becoming "hostage" to the other, taking on an infinite, non-negotiable burden to answer for circumstances and suffering you did not even cause.
In every generation, the mountain of desolation hangs over us like an asteroid, and in every generation we must make the adult effort to accept the Law and commit unconditionally to the Good.
Or something like that. At any rate, it's not simply "starting after age 20."
There are two periods where there are sharp declines: 19, and sometimes after 26, all the way to 35.
https://www.hallandalelaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/IIH...
If we assume, this is a indicator 'maturity', then the answer should be around 26-35, depending on the individual. It seems that the founding fathers were into something when the made the minimal age for a president at 35.
There is a reversal at 75+, but this is due to age related issues. And my experience from the older folks in my life, it seems people start reverting to a 'teenage' like state at 75+.
Some never make it.
It has nothing to do with age.
You could argue that a 10-year-old who is pulling hens weight in the family is an adult by my definition since they are not imposing on others in the family.
In other words: when you accept responsibility and become willing to do what's necessary to uphold your responsibilities (to your family, to yourself, and if you wish your community).
Quite a few folks will push back and insist that such an assessment is unfair, which is fine, if the world agrees with you, or if you just don't care.
Life constantly throws new things at us and we can easily come to a point where we no longer truly want to face some of its realities and we distract and dodge.
Like the article, I think much of what makes you an adult is taking responsibility. For some, the first time that happens may be when their parents die I suppose.
Another way of looking at it is, when you switch roles with your parents, and you become their caregiver, their source of strength, their guide through the world. When they can no longer help you. One example is the Godfather, when Al Pacino's character starts caring for Marlon Brando's.
(Other commenters are taking this idea far too literally, looking for exceptions.)
There are more consequences to your actions as you age, but you will never feel like are are the person your parents were when you were a kid.
Because it was a projection. Seeing my coworkers interacting with their kids and seeing them interact with other adults made it abundantly clear: there are no adults in the room, we are all just muddeling through life and sometimes we do it more or less successful than others.
nope, i realized i was becoming my dad when i noticed that i was copying his behavior towards my own kids. for good and for bad. fortunately that was early enough that i could course correct and keep the good and throw out most of the bad.
My Ex always said: Im still on that day when i picked up my Master Testimonial at university back then.
I dont think most people are very far apart from around that age anyway. Depending ofc on how one gets raised you might get to that maturity more or less quickly in life.
(it has nothing to do with skills, eloquance or such things. More to do with how well a person can adapt and respond to stimuli of the nervous system (consciousness), and in my further opinion, how well someone can take and understand the perspective of others. (understanding without judgement).
So i would say that you become adult when you have kids. Due to reasons this is postponed (or missing) to older and older age.
* corporate billionaires don't think to themselves "am I really an adult?" * religious zealots do not ask these questions * Putin does not wake up and wonder that * Donald trump does not wake up and wonder that * netanyahu does not wake up and wonder that
You have power in this world, whether you realize it or not. You can vote and talk to people and ask them to vote. You have money. You are big and strong and can move things in the physical world.
With that power also comes responsibility. I'm not asking you to shoulder the entire world on just your own - but do your part.
Answering the question posed in title - I have no idea.
When I was a kid, I thought that person becomes adult in the day of their 18 birthdays.
But being 18 years old, I didn't feel so mature. "Maybe when I finish university", I thought. But nope, it didn't feel like being adult.
Maybe when I have a stable, "real" job? Nope.
Maybe after I leave my parents home? Still not.
Maybe after marriage? It's still not that.
I suppose I still consider being adult with being serious, busy, and in total control of their lives. And I don't feel that yet, probably I will never will.
I feel that this view of adulthood is a bit childish. And most likely I never will feel adult in this specific way. We never are in a total control of our lives.
But - do I feel more mature than in my 20'? Of course I do. I have much more responsibilities. My decisions and my actions are much more deliberate than they used to be.
But I just feel that I still have a long way to go...
for me it's when you realize you do not have to define yourself within a framework of outside expectations.
Also not quite what the article is about.
Why is that so clear in other animals but not in humans? Every other social construct is just mental gymnastics. We believe we are special and need to do these gymnastics to keep the importance up.
We _know_ the human brain is finishing its development in our early to mid twenties, maybe 10 years post puberty. This extra brain development likely needed for our advanced social and tool needs, and is a unique niche for humans. Our hidden brain development does make a difference. Other primates don't display this.
there is indivual agency, which can be found and practiced, and lost and forgoten
This may be an unpopular opinion but everyone needs to face a critical mass of unfortunate events at some part of their life. The earlier it happens the easier it is down the road.
Paying for your own health insurance is insane. I would move out of any country that would force me to do that.
Your "free" health care is paid for by you and others. It's so expensive because of that. Healthcare wasn't particularly expensive before the government got involved in it.
Modern governments do indeed treat the citizens like children.
There is a guaranteed pension where I live, it's part of the social contract [1]. And healthcare insurance is much more expensive than public healthcare (both for society and the individual).
[1] https://www.etk.fi/en/finnish-pension-system/pensions/nation...
Good luck living in your capitalist free market paradise. I hope your government stops treating your companies like people and your people like cattle.
Self-reliance is adultish, not childish.
Do you want to continue to play pedantic whack-a-mole? I can go on forever.
I've paid for my own health insurance ever since I became an adult.
If you don't have an HSA (Health Savings Account), consider setting one up. It's a very good deal.
I remember the day I phoned my dad and told him I didn't need any more support (I was in college at the time). It felt good to do that, it sure felt like I'd gone through a door. Interestingly, at that moment my dad switched from telling me what to do to advising me, and became my most trusted advisor.
A free market society is a society of adults.
we won a war since WW II??
also if you want to live in free market society and you live in the USA you may want to consider moving
When someone else is paying your way, you are not an adult. Or at least not acting like one.
As for subsidies, a colleague of mine years ago bought some farmland. He had no intention of farming it, he made money off of the federal subsidy paying him to not farm.
A friend of mine grew up on a farm. He said the usual pattern was 4 years of losses and 1 year of a bumper crop that paid for it.
Nobody is entitled to be a farmer. If you cannot make money farming, it's not the responsibility of others to pay for it.
There is a rationale for maintaining an agricultural base that can feed the country as a national security thing. Make of that what you want.
For some this comes early, like a "child" looking after a sick parent. For others (like me) this comes with having children.
My wife and I look back on the years we thought we were adults, because we lived on our own, had jobs and a cat, and chuckle to ourselves at how grown up we thought we were. This type of pretending to be an adult we call "adulting".