Are you an "adult"?

[Scott 2]

My immediate response is no, I don't feel like an adult. I can't believe people trust me to make decisions. I'll happily buy a half dozen donuts for breakfast.

The ability to buy away problems allowed me to remain very one dimensional, through my 20's and 30's. I was insulated from most personal challenges, let alone broader adversity. So protected, I couldn't even perceive it. Through home ownership, marriage, financial independence, etc.

I could have sustained that pattern into old age. So long as I made the computers go, money came with it, and people would forgive just about anything.

Stepping away from work, coupled with the pandemic, created a shift. I've developed much further. But the feeling of novelty when "adulting" remains. I'm not sure I'll ever grow out of it. I feel like a teenager with 20 years experience. Caveat - I don't know any teenagers.


At the same time, looking to external signifiers - it's not infrequent I'm the adult in a room. But I view that more as "we need an adult" than "I've got this." Even when I do, I'm only pretending, averting collapse until an adult can take over. My response is a reluctant "guess I'm in charge?".


Objectively - my bar for adulthood is disconnected from reality. I'm more adult than many. But the feeling remains. It's even increased, as I've become more broadly aware of my own shortcomings.


This is an area where stereotypes confuse the issue too. Especially among older generations. I'm the middle aged white guy. Clearly I'm going to take charge! Only I'm not. I'm a follower. I don't like telling anyone what to do. I hate conflict.

I'm sure encountered from the other direction, these stereotypes are infinitely more aggravating.

[jacob]

This is why the distinction between adulting and parenting is useful. It makes it possible to differentiate between the 17yo teenage mom (a parent, but hardly an adult) and the 40yo career professional who spends 100 hours per week working and rarely talks with/to their own children (an adult, but hardly a parent).

[7Wannabe5]

@daylen:

MMV, but I actually think something like running your own business with employees, or taking permanent responsibility for a large permaculture project, might be more like parenting than taking temporary responsibility for other humans. It's the deeply whelming recognition that "the buck stops here" in relationship to something that is important, another human's life in the case of parenting, which makes it a growth experience.

[jacob]

Stepping away from work, coupled with the pandemic, created a shift. I've developed much further. But the feeling of novelty when "adulting" remains. I'm not sure I'll ever grow out of it. I feel like a teenager with 20 years experience. Caveat - I don't know any teenagers.

I think the problem is that both parenting and adulting are culturally stereotyped in terms of which binary boxes/milestones one is supposed to check/pass in order to qualify. This is why I find the works of Loevinger and Cook-Greuter, who interviewed thousands of adults at various ages finding some very common patterns and transitions, to be helpful. It gives the tools (words) to analyze those 10, 20, 30, 40, ... years of experience in terms of whether it was largely 20 years of the same kind of experiencing or whether the experiencing changed. Clearly it did for you going from a conventional and one-dimensional "career expert" (the most common kind in the developed world) to realizing a more post-conventional mind which led to seeing the world with different eyes. There's a similar transition from the pre-conventional (which I would consider a child's mind(set) although its also seen in some adults regardless of age) to the conventional mindset.

[daylen]

@7w5 Makes sense. Though, some CEO sociopaths never seem to connect to anything important besides themselves. Seems the green equivalent to running up against the wall is failure to solve social problems through protest alone. The yellow equivalent being the limits of understanding and prediction (uncertainty and incompleteness theorems). Turquoise is just chasing its own tail.

[7Wannabe5]

@daylen:

Green tends towards taking responsibility where it doesn't have authority, which is towards martyrdom. Orange tends towards exerting (structural) authority where it doesn't take responsibility, which is towards villainy. The adult in the 21st century room has to do both/and somehow transcend.

[Henry]

lol

[take2]

I asked my father once when he started to “feel like a man” (i.e. an adult). I was 20 at the time and still in college, very much feeling like a child. He said very tersely “definitely before I was 20”. It made sense though - he had already emigrated to a new country, had to learn a new language and had been drafted and sent to war by that age. The hardest decisions in my life at that point was deciding which university to attend, what to major in, and summoning courage to ask a pretty girl out.

I’m not sure I felt like an adult until my mid-twenties. It took working, paying for my own accommodation, and making some harder decisions about what to do with my life. Having a child didn’t actually make me feel more like an adult, but it is a constant reminder that you are one as it’s up to you to ensure your child survives and thrives.

Ultimately I think it comes down to being independently responsible for all aspects of your own (+ potentially others) lives.

[white belt]

I find this discussion interesting. I can honestly say that since I graduated college and started active duty military service at age 22, I have always felt like an adult. I know much has been written about the importance of rites of passage in traditional culture and how modern lifestyles have stripped away many of the common ones that used to mark the transition to adulthood. I also suspect that most of those who work in traditional hierarchical career fields whether that be the military, skilled trades, police, firefighting, clergy, etc will feel like they are adults at a distinct point. When the apprentice makes the transition to journeyman, it means he is ready to set out on his own. I will also note that most of these career fields require one to take care of others in a paternal sense, beyond that of just being a corporate manager with new employees below you. So once one has their own "kin" to look after, they have completed the full transition to adulthood.

[ducknald_don]

My dictionary says an adult is somebody who is fully grown or developed. The prefrontal cortex doesn't stop developing until the mid to late twenties so perhaps it isn't as soon as some people think.

[daylen]

By that definition, we could all be considered children of the biosphere we are physically coupled to. To be fully developed is to merge with it in some gaian fashion. Though, the biosphere is potentially on a critical trajectory and thus we have work to do.

[Salathor]

@7w5 Given not everyone in a given generation can feasibility have children (due to finite limits and exponential growth). Do you think it is possible to learn the corresponding life lessons through temporary responsibility for children or elderly (like extended babysitting over say several weeks or months)?

I don't think this is quite true. I think instead that it is biologically assumed that, indeed, (virtually) every adult of every generation WILL have children if they survive adolescence. Whether and how many of the children survive is the bigger question. Of course, humanity in the last ~seventy years has pivoted on that, but I don't think it's either the norm or a given long-term outcome.

[OutOfTheBlue]

Some of the most mature people or couples I've met are childless, which is a pity in a sense because they would often make much better parents than many who do have children.

I don't doubt that parenting represents a sacred responsibility that adds a new dimension, calls one to rise to the occasion, and can drive further development, but often it does not (or even arrests development) as evidenced by the abundance of parents and the rarity of true/mature adults.

Maybe a more widespread notion that human development somehow does not stop with achieving chronological adulthood would help. As well as a map/agenda for getting there. Human development never stops. Okay, you are an adult. What now? Is that it? The problem is not with people not feeling adults, but not knowing how to get there (and beyond).

And accessing a certain level of psychological maturity actually BEFORE becoming a parent would help raising more mature humans as well. Otherwise, there is a risk of blindly reproducing the same patterns, projecting our own unlived lives on our children, and so forth.

No, I don't think parenthood to be a requisit for adulthood, and parenting in and of itself to be the pinacle of human wholeness.

[daylen]

@Salathor

Say wa? Biology makes no such assumption. If it did, evolution would be a moot theory. Agents exist in a finite arena or ecosystem that limits growth. We are the survivors of an unbroken lineage but that past has no direct influence on what happens next. We may be fit [with no guarantee] to have children because our lineage back to single celled organisms happended to fall into the right attractors in the fitness landscape relative to a changing environment.

In the near term, say 100 years, we will be forced to confront the carrying capacity of the planet(*) or otherwise expand into space. The solar system may be able to support 1000 upwards to ten million times our current population(+) but it will still hit a hard limit before requiring interstellar travel.

(*) Indeed, we already are.

(+) Given a highly efficient process for converting asteroids and gases into O'Neil cylinders, likely reinforced with graphene and carbon nanotubes.

EDIT: I got the numbers mixed up, ha. More like 100 times our current population for a type 2 civilization seems reasonable. Many more if we include non-human agents.

[chenda]

I didn't feel like at adult until a few years ago, about 36. I think my mental age has been in some ways about 3/4 of my actual age. But this becomes less of a problem as you age. A 20 year old with the maturity of a 15 year old struggles to relate to their peer group, whereas a 40 year old with the maturity of a 30 year old doesn't have such a problem.

[Walwen]

I didn't feel like at adult until a few years ago, about 36. I think my mental age has been in some ways about 3/4 of my actual age. But this becomes less of a problem as you age. A 20 year old with the maturity of a 15 year old struggles to relate to their peer group, whereas a 40 year old with the maturity of a 30 year old doesn't have such a problem.

This asyncronous development was definitely my lot in life. My whole childhood I made friends with adults decades older (who I could never actually have a relationship with) and just didn't like the behaviors of fellow 10 year olds, 14 year olds, etc. Everyone told me it would be isolating to not make friends with those my age.
I passed the magical barrier of 18 two years ago.... And guess what, most of my friends are in the 35-50 range. It's not an issue once you graduate high school and can drive. Much happier now.

When I've talked to my mother (who has taught every grade from pre-k to graduate courses in her career), she tells me 15 is the turning point for the average teen, between being mostly a kid vs. more of an adult. For me in specific, she always recalls how at 12 she just couldn't see me as a kid anymore.


I read that people say if they were going to be turned immortal, they want to be about age 37, because 37 is old enough to do anything or reasonably have any job experience, enough maturity, etc., without the problems of old age.

[themodernchap]

trigger warning: suicide

This might be oversharing, but I can pretty much pinpoint the moment that I became an adult.

My younger brother died violently, he was a drug addict. We don't really know exactly what happened, but he cut his throat and wrists while he had a makeshift noose around his neck, and had taken a lot of drugs. all of this combined killed him. He was 30 years old, barely.

The police came to my house to inform me, because I was the only family member the police had an address for. I went immediately to inform my mother which at the time was the hardest thing I had ever had to do.

Shortly thereafter I was asked by police to come and identify his remains formally, the police told me in advance it would be bad and that if I could avoid it I shouldn't bring my mother.

So I didn't tell her it needed to be done, I went alone and identified his remains which is an experience which will stay with me to the day I die.

When my mother asked when we would need to identify him I lied to her and told her that because he was known to police and had identifying tattoos etc that a formal identification wasn't needed, I thought it sounded credible, I used to work in a somewhat related field so thought she would believe this.

A little while later she figured out that I had gone and done it alone, and she just sort of accepted that. She also then wanted to see him before we buried him and I told her I strongly advised against it and to my surprise she listened to me and didn't view him. I didn't tell her why I objected, but an autopsy had been carried out and I didn't want her to see him in that state. I won't go into detail, but when I identified him, due to the suspicious circumstances of his death he hadn't been cleaned up in any way when he was removed from the scene, and the autopsy had left damage which the mortician would not be able to hide.

If I wasn't an adult before, I am now. The whole ordeal, and trying to protect my mother from the utter horror of it, was the single most painful experience of my life, and one which has left lasting marks on my psyche. I felt it was my duty, and although every fibre of my being did not want to do it, I did it so she didn't have to.

Being led into the room by the coroner was like being taken into Room 101, I was terrified of what I was about to see, but I was more terrified of my mother having to see it. I think that taught me a lot, at least in my opinion part of what makes one an adult is that you have to have something that you care about more than you care about yourself, to be willing to endure burden so that the burdens of our loved ones can be lighter.

[Colibri]

@ themodernchap

This sounds like a very painful experience you had to go through. Your mother asked when she would have to identify your younger brother, she knew it had to be done. In retrospect, do you think your mom could have done it instead of you ? I understand you wanted to protect her. Then, who was protecting you ? Speaking of being an adult, your mom was an adult as well.

I felt like an adult after finishing high school. I started making my own decisions ; buying a first car on my own, picking my field of study post-secondary, going at a class or not.

I always associated being an adult with freedom. Freedom to find my own solutions to problems, freedom to screw up but also to succeed and do difficult things that I would otherwise be " advised to not proceed with" from others with a crab bucket mentality. Making my own decision of relocating 6000km away at 19 years old was extremely liberating.

As a teenager, I could not wait to be older and be an adult. Childhood was so limitating. Akin to the FU money stash, being an adult gives you the keys to say F*** Y** when needed. I love being an adult and being surrounded by people who also embrace adulthood.

[themodernchap]

In retrospect, do you think your mom could have done it instead of you ?

She could have yes, but then she would likely be the one with PTSD. I knew it was paternalistic at the time, but the potential for harm was much less from that than from the alternative.

[DutchGirl]

@themodernchap If you can (financially etc), do get some good therapy for yourself. This experience is never going away and it doesn't have to, but therapy could alleviate the burden and make your life a bit better (which in turn will positively affect the lives of those around you).

Going back to the original subject... I think at around age 35 I finally considered myself an adult instead of someone between childhood and adulthood. At that point I had finished my studies and I had been living on my own for ten years and working for ten years, being responsible for people's health and lives at some point, but I still did not fully feel like an adult. I guess maybe I needed some time to grow into one.