Childhood's end.

[sobrique]

When does childhood end?

There's definitely a dividing line between child and adult.

The process of growing up is slow and steady, but comes in bursts. So I ask this.
At what point do you stop being a child, and start being and adult?

I was thinking that perhaps as you grow up, the child gradually recedes, and the adult increases.

But is there a definite event that splits the two? In much the same way as you can measure the turning of the seasons by the first green leaf on a tree, or the first leaf to turn reddish brown.

Do you become an adult:
The first time you become interested in sex?
The day you realise that Santa Claus is not real?
When you first realise that your parents are human, and make mistakes too?
You understand that one day you're going to die?
You have to pay bills, and manage your income?
You leave home for the first time?
You lose the ability to play with your toys?

Or is it simply on the day of your 18th birthday? I know some 12 year olds that I consider more 'adult' than 20 year olds, but is 'adulthood' simply a measurement of age?

How would you define the point at which you became an adult?

Is there a definitive event or set of events that made you think that: "actually, I am not a child any more?"

Comments

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I think you become an adult when you take responsibility for yourself.

As a corollary to that, I think there are plenty of people of legal age who are not adults at all.

[lisekit.livejournal.com]

Some interesting studies have been done in child psychology which suggest that children have little or no awareness of others - you can see this in any average primary school class, where kids will simply walk into one another because they don't seem aware of the relationships between their bodies. This extends for some time into later childhood, where I believe children literally do not realise the consequences of their actions for other people. (Importantly, I think this has implications for law - the current age of criminal responsibility is just 10 years old, and some studies suggest children this young are actually aware of their relationship to other people).

So, in this frame, you become adult when you take responsibility not only for yourself, but for the result of your actions on others. Naturally, I believe we can all think of examples of people who haven't quite evolved to this stage yet...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Like many such distinctions I'd expect it to be a combination of factors, rather than a single dividing line; and while it might be possible in principle to write down the way those factors combine to give an objective definition, even then I'd expect there to be large gray areas round the boundary.

Systems of rules generally go for clear, simple definitions (e.g. vote at 18) for reasons of practicality rather than because anyone believes that people magically become capable of upholding greater responsibilities at a particular age.

[crashbarrier.livejournal.com]

Adulthood.. is a very wierd thing. childhood as we know it is a victorian thing. before that children were treated like small adults and expected to act with responsibility

I think that adulthood as the modern concept comes around when the child starts to take responsiblity for things, their actions. Adulthood is i think a degree of emotional maturity, my sister Anna was emotionally mature by the time she was 9, it lead to much fustration on me and pauls part cos we couldn't involve her in many things because of age limits. but Anna understood this and as she's got old enough we take her to the stuff we couldn't.

i personally liked the idea of a rite of passage. something to prove to the world your adluthood. rather than an age, i know from my job there are people who have a mental maturity of a child and some who have mental maturity of an adult.

[xarrion.livejournal.com]

I think it's when I realised at about 13 that I was fully mentally capable of ending people's lives, especially premeditated murder. That sorta sobered me up.

But yeah, as a general definition, I'd say it's when you realise what the full consequences of your actions are, and take voluntary responsibility for them.
Maturity itself takes longer (if at all), and is the more gradual process.