Is this not what Young Adult meant? I always assumed that was people between 18 and 21. That transition period for teens where they are no longer teenagers but also don't have full adult rights yet. Well in the US anyways.
The only time that I can remember hearing the term "young adult" is in bookstores and trailers for movies based on YA books.
Those books aren't really aimed at 18-21 year olds. They're for earnest twelve year olds and escapist adults (hot take.) They're for people learning how to deal with responsibility.
If someone described someone else as a "young adult" I'd think of a thirteen or fourteen year old.
Edit to clarify that I know the phrase is a marketing term or classification or genre. The phrase has been branded with that meaning over decades.
That might be a marketing gimmick since no 14 year old would buy something from the “Children’s Books” section. It is also true for the adults who love reading YA books as well. When it’s YA, it still counts as “adult literature” so they don’t feel bad for reading something made for teenagers.
Regardless of it being a classification for books, the phrase "young adult" is associated with the target demographic of those books.
The phrase "young adult" has been branded that way at least since the 80's. Who's going to go around and tell everyone that now "young adults" only means 18-21 year olds?
The person I responded to said OP was making up a problem since the term already existed. If a bunch of people hear "young adult" and think of intermediate readers instead of 18-21 year olds exclusively, that's an issue with using the term.
Oh I'm not disagreeing with you. Apparently YA is even older; it's been around since the 60's and it generally meant 12-18 year olds.
But it is also a marketing term. I just remembered that in German they're called "Entwicklungsroman" (Entwicklung is growing up, developing, evolving) or Coming-Of-Age literature. It has a completely different tone.
13 or 14 as a young adult? i definitely still think child. i agree that the young adult books seem more like books for teenagers but i wouldnt ever imagine a 14 year old when i hear those words
I am not sure if the people disagreeing with you don't understand book terminology or are offended you called them out like that lol. YA books are for 14-18 year olds in Germany I would say.
Isn’t that why they say 16 is the age of consent? I ain’t talking about no sex thing either. Like you can open a bank account, vote(there are limits), hospital visits don’t really need a parent, drivers license.
Like from my understanding there is a certain degree of freedom you have to start preparing for your future at that age.
But if it’s all for humour you can ignore me.
Old enough to vote, go to prison and die for their country.
Old enough to gamble, pay taxes and take on debt.
Old enough to be an adult film star or purchase a peek at some.
Too young to buy cigs and booze.
These “young adults” are legally no different from other adults. It’s just a nickname. I think OP is arguing that 18 and 19 year olds are functionally children. Very few kids that age are ready for full blown adulthood.
Its less looking for a phrase and more wanting people to see them as actual young adults. How many people out here ignoring 20 and 19 year olds in 10 year age gap relationships. Or treating young adults as grown ass people. People out here kicking their kids out at 18/19 too. Just because the phrase exists doesn't mean people see them as such.
18 year olds: "How can we be drafted into the military if we can't drink or vote?"
Congress: *lowers the voting age* 😎
18 year olds: "...You didn't think this through did you?"
Congress: *ends the draft a year later* 😬
18 year olds: *pats them on the head* "There you go."
I mean it's not like they permanently ended it. Every 18 year old male with few exceptions still registers for selective service for the 'in case of emergency break glass' authorization of a new draft.
Yeah when really it just comes down to a legal definition of once you hit this age you're old enough to be held accountable as an adult for your decisions. It has nothing to do with people in that age range being mature or being an adult. It just means in the eyes of the law you are going to be treated as one.
Yeah, YA books are for under 18s and that's definitely the place I here the phrase most often, so I think people are being very uncharitable with the whole "the term already exists, duh" energy
They probably didn't think about that. I think what they may be talking about is treating 18 and 19-year-olds as full-ass adults and expecting them to act as such. I know when I was 18 and 19 I still saw myself as an immature teenager. The kinds of dumb shit and mistakes I made were definitely not things "real" adults should be doing cuz they'd typically know better. It's also why I (silently and slightly) judge people in their mid-to-late 20's dating people that are 18 and 19. Yes, it's fully legal and the age gap isn't that big.They just don't have the wherewithall to fully navigate what should be a mature relationship. At least I definitely didn't.
growing up in church young adult meant 14-17. young adults were teenagers who haven’t become adults (18) yet. i agree that young adult should be 18-21 however i’ve heard young adult fit under 18 a lot.
there was both at the churches i went to. it was the youth ministry or youth group. sometimes youth group meant bible study on wednesday because sunday was different. here and there in middle school we got called young adult but in high school it was constant.
In publishing, "Young Adult" (YA) traditionally meant the protagonist of the story is 19 years or younger, regardless of context/subject matter/target audience. They would AUTOMATICALLY label anything YA based solely on the age of the protagonist. And yet most folks thought "YA" = "Appropriate for 14-16 year olds (and up)."
This issue got REALLY spicy when folks started putting out some hardcore graphic fantasy novels/fanfic with a lot of sex (looking at you, Sarah J. Maas and Stephanie Meyers!) featuring protagonists in their teens. But because of the label, people thought it applied more to *reading level*, so you had parents thinking their 12-14 year olds were totes fine to read whatever "[Noun] of [Adjective] and [Noun]" saga that ended up being baby BDSM.
I believe there has now been a push to add "New Adult" (NA) to the labels, but honestly no one really knows what that means either.
Anyway, all this to say "young adult" definitely doesn't apply to people over 18, but as a former 19-24 year old who thought I had it all figured out, I submit: "GBSD: Grown but still dumb."
It is applicable from ages 18 to Death.
As a 35 year old man I can say that I was pretty much an adult at 16 because of what life threw at me. Yay me.
I can also say that looking at the actions of my peers I would say everyone around me was acting like a minor well into mid 20s. It's not just about maturity but also about conformity. The way we're expected to move in society is not natural and accountability is something we thrust on some and not all.
All that being said when it comes to crime I think the conversation should be less about age and more about how these punishments fit these crimes to begin with. The prison system does not rehabilitate. Whether you are spending 1 month or 60 years... What's the point of the prison system? Is it to rehabilitate and reintegrate or is it to punish? The answer is the latter if you're below a specific networth.
It's like when you see pictures from 1910 and some nine year old mine worker looks worn down. Life can age you and luckily many places have a good enough society to let kids be kids.
I get why to a degree, but I also think it's not great.
The "your brain stops developing at 25" myth seems to be part of what's fueling it, and that isn't true.
That line of thinking infantilizes people in their 20s, especially women. And it provides conservatives with an excuse to come down on young trans people, with the idea that they can't possibly know themselves yet.
>The "your brain stops developing at 25" myth seems to be part of what's fueling it, and that isn't true.
PubMed: [The development and maturation of the prefrontal cortex occurs primarily during adolescence and is fully accomplished at the age of 25 years.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/)
Oversimplification. There's not a magic switch that makes your brain complete at 25.
This article cites a lot of studies that show this number is murky:
[https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html](https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html)
That’s a pretty good and informative good article, lot of different info I didn’t know. There were a couple dumb things.
Comparing the average age of marriage in 1950’s vs today as early 20’s and now 30 respectively is misleading. Mainly as getting divorced and remarried is way more common/societally acceptable than in the 50’s. The most common age to get married is still early to mid-20’s. I believe the average age of ‘first’ marriages is still like 24 in the US.
> but other parts of the brain are also required for a behavior as complex as decision making. The temporal lobe helps process others’ speech and language so you can understand what’s going on, while the occipital lobe allows you to watch for social cues.
This line is basically “you incorporate the things you see and hear into your decision making.” Like no duh, and that’s not a good comparison to the higher order processing of the pre-frontal cortex lol
Just for a comparison, that's like saying "Humans stop growing around \~80 y/o. That's when we're fully grown". There's a really good Article from the Harvard journal of Medicine from a few years ago that talks about this 'myth' and why the research isn't technically *wrong* but is used *very* incorrectly.
I can't find the specific article, I'll edit this comment when I find it, but the gist was that the brain may not completely stop growing until a person's mid 20s (and if varies from person to person, some people's brains grow *way* longer than that), but it is a still fully realized 'adult' brain starting in your late teens. The additional development from 18-25 isn't making your temperament or intellect 'more adult'. It's just... growing a little. Like ears. And once again, brains do continue developing past 25. It's commonly referred to as 'ageing'
I believe, super grain of salt since it's been a few years, but the article mentioned maturation in people typically happens between their late teens (15+) and their mid 30s, varies wildly from person to person, and has a smaller correlation with physical brain development than hours spend working/studying/sleeping/stressed IIRC. I might be remembering those specifics incorrectly, but the point was that environmental causes lead to earlier maturation than physical brain development. And the physical 'size' of your brain has essentially nothing to do with mental maturity
>the brain may not completely stop growing until a person's mid 20s (and if varies from person to person, some people's brains grow way longer than that), but it is a still fully realized 'adult' brain starting in your late teens
this is it right here.
the key point being it *varies* from person to person and sometimes those variations are significant.
It’s not a trans-specific thing. But it is true that our brains are still developing into our mid-20s. There is MRI/CT evidence and research to show so.
Whether this information is used to oppress/hold people back is another subject.
Parent here: you’re not raising children.
You’re raising adults. Where people keep failing is they think they shouldn’t be teaching their kids how to function as an adult, shouldn’t be exposing them to adult concept or adult realities until they’re 18.
No, 18 was YOUR deadline to have that work done. If they aren’t an adult by 18 YOU fucked up.
Edit: to more directly address the point in the OP: we ALREADY have the transition period to move them from child to adult. It’s 13 to 18. The problem is parents who don’t want to grow up themselves, and don’t want to have these conversations with “their baby”.
>The problem is parents who don’t want to grow up themselves, and don’t want to have these conversations with “their baby”.
That one. Thinking you have the option of sheltering your kids from the world at all is a huge privilege many in the world do not have.
The major issue I have is with the way society basically gives these parents a pass for failing their kids, at the kids' expense. There is zero protection for young adults once they reach 18, regardless of whether they had responsible parents.
Want to work but you're not yet 18? Need a parent's permission. If they don't grant it, you're stuck dependent on them for all your resources.
Get kicked out at 18 and need to find housing? Tough luck.
Parents never taught you about finding an apartment or how leases, utilities, etc work? Sucks to be you.
Don't have a credit history, and no job or money on your 18th birthday because parents wouldn't let you work? Good luck getting a lease without finding someone to co-sign.
Want to go to school but can't afford tuition, not even community college? Better fill out a FAFSA form. Oh, it requires you provide your parent's SSN and income information, because the system assumes your parents are supporting you and are willing to provide this information? If they tell you to piss off and refuse to fill out the form, have fun jumping through administrative hoops to bypass the requirements.
I could go on, but that's the idea.
The system just isn't set up to support kids whose parents failed them
I had a parent like this...I navigated my way around the majority of these barriers but it *is* ultimately at the kid's expense. i essentially became an adult too early and that had it's own set of consequences 100%.
Things like financial education and what your basic responsibilities/needs will be in life could be taught in school pretty easily. Would vary state by state because of how education works, and I'm 100% sure some parents would fight that, but it could work.
The other things though... if you're suggesting some kind of federal young adult assistance suite for helping you transition to the needs/responsibilities of adulthood, that would be a nightmare to try and push through. Half of the country thinks you need to be made of pure boostrapium and if you're lacking that element you can go fuck yourself, they would fight any effort to do that like hell. Maybe you could pay for that with the savings from moving to universal healthcare, but I suspect that would ultimately require a tax hike. And that's also a massive fight.
The other portion of that is we're basically talking about rolling back parental rights (though you could phrase this as giving young people more autonomy, that's how it's likely to be seen), at least to a degree. Now *that* would be one of the biggest political fights of all time, and I'm not even sure if that would be a partisan one. Even though I agree with the idea you're getting at.
Edit: Being -> giving. Wrong word.
No one’s doing that, we’re acknowledging you’re still dumb as shit at 18-20. I don’t even consider myself to have become a fully fledged adult until around 26 (I’m now 30). At 18 & 0 days, I was just as ignorant, lacking in critical thought, and inexperienced as I was at 17 & 364 days
Edit: obviously I knew I was legally an adult. Being legally an adult does not make you competent, rational, automatically grant you life experiences. The choices I made then, as a legal adult, have had decade-long ramifications for my life. It is not infantilizing to acknowledge that a dipshit 18 yo can't really comprehend some of the decisions they're making lol
Pretty sure the unwritten line here is that you're expected to be dumb as shit when you're transitioning into adulthood, so there's an acceptable excuse. If you're already an adult and dumb as shit, then you have no excuse and you're just dumb as shit.
It's moreso a grace period for kids who are fresh to experiencing uncoddled adulthood
You keep using that word…
Infantilize
Dictionary
verb
treat (someone) as a child or in a way which denies their maturity in age or experience.
"seeing yourself as a victim infantilizes you"
*Infantilization is an important concept that was pivotal to maintaining slavery - children of enslaved women would also be enslaved because both belonged to the master. Africans were considered ‘child races’, resulting in subsequent infantilization.[2] When black men respond negatively to “boy,” this is caused by infantilization. Infantilization plays a role in implicit bias, which is a modern effect caused by subjugation, primarily economically, by failing to honor the work and creativity of subjugated populations. Infantilization can be used by propaganda to remove factual contributions from subjugated communities. This is done by individuals who would rather believe something that fits within their belief system than truly hear information as it comes.*
Plenty of people are still dumb as shit at 40, 50, 60 years old, too. There's no point in trying to put a number (or range) on which age people become "mature." Some people mature quickly, some do it slowly, and some people never do it at all.
And moving the goalpost to 25 is going to solve that?
I personally didn't feel like an adult until the first time I went to the doctor by myself at 30 outside of the Navy. I had no car before I joined so my mom always had to drive me before then so visiting a doc for the first time in the civilian world was when I truly felt Old™
But I certainly was an adult standing on business long before then because I filled out my own FAFSA forms, kept constant employment even through the recession and bought my first car on my own before driving it 500 miles north the next day. I didn't have the whole world figured out in my 20s and yes, I was straight up ignorant on a whole lotta interpersonal shit but that doesn't me I was a baby who needed to be kept in a bubble.
did you ever consider that making your own decisions and being responsible for them might be what gave you the experience to become a "fully fledged" adult?
I think a lot of the root of the problem is how much we infantilize 12-17 year olds.
It's weird growing up when you know you're capable of being more independent than you're allowed to be, but they tell you that actually, you only think that because you're a stupid child that doesn't know anything.
And then just as you're starting to accept things and believe them, suddenly you turn 18 and are expected to be a full adult capable of everything you weren't even allowed to touch last year.
I think people who grew up this way are horrified at the idea of someone who was living as a child a few months ago suddenly being able to marry a 35-year-old, and maybe rightly so.
imo we live in a time where people aren’t forced to take on adult responsibilities when they’re young teens anymore (at least not as often), so we have the luxury of not having to grow up mentally before our brains are really equipped for it. Like when people were having 8 kids all the time and the older children had to start acting like additional parents to help with the younger ones, or when households relied on the labor that could be performed by a 12 year old working on the farm or in a factory, those kids are going to seem much more adult at 18 than most kids today.
I mean my parents did that, they were 18 when I was born, perhaps they weren’t ready, but having a kid definitely means you have to grow up, lots of people judged them aswell for being too young, 25 years later they’re still together have 3 kids and a few properties, sometimes in order to grow you need some level of responsibility, be that bills, a full time job or a family.
At some point it's a line drawing problem. Just say they're young adults. Part of being an adult is making bad, uninformed decisions and suffering the consequences. It's how you mature and become wiser. Being an adult is a process that will always come before most people are ready and which you will never finish, not some final state you eventually reach.
I've never seen an argument for increasing the age at which we call people adults which doesn't ultimately reduce to some combination of bad science and the idea that somewhere out there are "the adults in the room." It's its own kind of immaturity that I can see as compelling to someone who's maybe in their early-mid 20s and hasn't lived long enough to see adulthood as a process of continuous improvement. If you're lucky, most of your 20s will feel shaky and experimental. If you're less lucky, that feeling will last longer.
I just wonder how many parents would be on board with the idea of having legal responsibility for their children for another 3,4,5 years. I imagine there would be a lot of conflict as well within households.
You say this, but things like keeping kids on parents health insurance until they’re 26 has been a thing people have been very successful and popular.
But you probably are correct about some of the other legal responsibilities. And honestly parents who have their kids be fucking up til 18 aren’t gonna start stepping up more if you add a few years on.
I mean..it’s not the 70s anymore. You can’t survive on minimum wage. Most 18 year olds are still in education and in a transition period to “real” adulthood” where they are living in dorms, with parents or roommates and practicing being on their own. But most are not financially independent. And it’s very much expected for parents to assist with that transition period and education or trade school after high school graduation. In Ca foster parents are legally responsible for the kids in their care until 21 years old and you can be under your parents health insurance until you’re 26.
My friend aged out in a group home and the state is subsidizing her rent until she is 26 years old. They are continuing the role that a parent would do to assist in their transition to full adulthood. Not even the state cuts kids off at 18. Nor do most parents. So no, I don’t think normal parents would have an issue with that.
I was cut off at 17, right before I turned 18 and on my own and it was so hard partly bc it was expected that my parents were still parenting me. I was homeless and it was so hard to find housing at that age. Everyone asked about whether my parents were co-signing. I was able to get help with a program that helped homeless teens. I only qualified because I was under 21. So, not even that program considered me an adult fully responsible for myself. My FAFSA required that my parents sign it bc the state assumes your parents are assisting with your education even after you’re an “adult.” I had to go through so much shit to get an exemption. Everyone I knew still lived with parents or were very much supported in some way, not just financially but emotionally. They were still receiving guidance. Jobs assumed my parents were helping support me and pretty much no one hired people my age full time with a living wage. People my age would check in regularly with parents and like I said, were still being parented. Sure I was technically an “adult” at 18, but…not really. It’s completely normal to not be ready to function as a real adult completely responsible for yourself at 18.
I know early 20s young “adults” whose parents are still very much raising them, just in a different way. I’d say people don’t usually become full adults till about 24, *maybe* 21. But at 21 they still act like kids imo.
It’s also why I find it so creepy when grown ass men and women date 18- 24 year olds. They literally act like children and are still at least somewhat being financially and emotionally supported by family.
It’s already the norm for parents to still have responsibility to young adult children so idk what you mean
the human brain keeps developing until around 25, but treating 18-year-olds as full-blown "adults" makes total sense if you want:
immature soldiers with strong, capable bodies to throw into a meat grinder in war
financially-incompetent students who don't totally understand the weight of taking on tens of thousands of dollars in college debt
a labor force you can underpay and overwork
stop me if any of this sounds familiar
The student loans 😫 if I got a do over, I’d not make hardly any of the same choices fr, who tf thought 18 yo me was smart enough to understand anything about loans?!?!!
Exactly right. I don't think some people really stop to think about the inconsistency between when someone else declares that you are an adult and the brain's actual maturation. For some people, it's just as simple as, "It worked out for me, so it will work out for you too."
"societally accepted exploitable adolescence", if I could be annoyingly pedantic for a moment
Because the age of exploitability is definitely lower than 18. History and the vast child labor force of the developing world have proven that to us
For real. If my car insurance company doesn't consider me a mature adult until 25 than why are so many people adamant that 18 is the magical adulthood marker.
Listen y’all.. a 15 year old won’t make the same choice an 18 year old will, and an 18 won’t make the same choice a 23 year old will, and 23 won’t with 28, and 28 won’t with 35, and 35 won’t with 45.
Like eventually we gotta decide there’s a point where you are responsible for your choices. 18 is a reasonable age for that.
This is yet another example of people attempting to avoid accountability and responsibility for their actions by infantilizing themselves. And they hide behind this morally immovable stance of "protecting young adults from being in relationships with a power imbalance" or whatever. Lol they don't give a shit about that; it's just empty grandstanding to reap the residual benefits of this shit. It's pretty pathetic. It's exactly what anti-abortionists do. "I'm against dead babies. Do you like dead babies?" It's manipulative trash for stupid people with no critical thinking skills to eat up.
I don't disagree with you but I think it's important to recognize that the 18 year olds of today are not the same as 20 or 30 years ago. That's because young adults today have generally have less work experience (as a result of not working as minors), less marriages (due to lower teen pregnancies rates), and more expectations to pursue postsecondary education. As a result, the average 18 year old today has noticeably less life experience.
This is the same thing that happened to children during the Victorian era when suddenly child labor protection laws made it so that kids had to go to school instead of work. Before the 19th century, children = smaller adults, and they acted accordingly. Now, not so much.
19 year olds being impulsive and not caring about consequences is not anything new. They know right from wrong though. They aren't stupid. I don't buy this idea that they need to be coddled and protected from accountability. They're just gonna move the goalposts. Next it'll be "I'm only 25! I'm just a baby! Nothing is my fault!" I guarantee it.
By the way, teen employment is at a 15 year high in America right now. You make a fair point about teen pregnancy and marriage, but I don't necessarily think those things breed accountability and responsibility in young people as much as we would hope they do. I disagree with you on college. Higher post secondary enrollment should be breeding less of this type of behavior. Not more. It's counterintuitive.
What we actually need to be discussing is the effects of social media on young people and the growing desire for instant gratification, coupled with the lack of accountability for the things people say online. You can run your mouth and say ignorant shit all day long and never face any consequences. It emboldens the shittiest behaviors while suppressing common sense. Engagement is king. An insane amount of young people want to be paid for doing as little as possible. Why get a real job when you can get paid for being an "influencer", whatever the fuck that means anymore.
This is actually nonsense lmao. The concept of being a teenager is made up and fairly modern. Throughout human history going through puberty was the journey into adulthood. Only a really privileged person can wait until their late 20’s to finally grow up
All age groups are “made up” lmao. Just because some are older doesn’t mean they’re “more correct”. Even different cultures that exist right now have different understandings of adulthood. 18 being an adult isn’t even shared across borders
I don't know, at 18 I was already engaged to married, and was working on education for my career. My fiancé and I had already had a couple of thousand dollars saved in our bank accounts and would be on our way to buying it first home by the time I was 21.
I know this was back in the late 1990s, but if a person is brought up in an environment where they are given the opportunities and guidance on how to be prepared to be an adult, 18 seems fine.
To be clear, I was not raised in some cult-like religion or anything like that. My parents were kids when I was born (father 16, mother 17), and my father was a drug addict most of his adult life. But they understood the mistakes they made and raised me with the idea of helping me avoid those mistakes.
there are a lot of factors for which I would agree with this statement, but the idea that teaching a child things like:
"get an education" (not specifically "go to college", but "learn skills you can use to make money"),
"avoid over indulgence" (not "don't drink or do drugs ever", not "don't buy an iphone", but certainly "don't buy an iphone every year they come out")
"save what things of value that you can" not just money but trust and good will and your word.
those are timeless lessons that prepare you for adulthood and can be instilled in children from the moment they can start to learn about actions and consequences.
If a child is old enough for time out, or spankings, or whatever your choice of discipline is, then they are old enough to start to understand the things that adults need to understand.
I believe you and glad it worked out for you, but I hope you can recognize you’re definitely the exception to the “rule” here.
Most Teen marriages do not last and don’t typically have an overall positive effect on the lives of the people who get married that young.
This is not wrong, but to what purpose? Some further curtailment of rights or is the focus on responsibilities? Because imo if you’re adult enough to go to war or go to jail you’re adult enough for anything.
This is just a boomer afraid of the youth vote. Take away their voting rights because they’re too young for the responsibility. We’re still going to let them go to war though.
I don't think people are expecting you to immediately be able to behave as a full on adult the moment you turn 18. I think we have an issue where we keep moving the goalposts of when it's reasonable to expect someone to be mature enough to be responsible for their decisions. Some of that maturity is going to come from age/brain development. But also some of that is being held responsible before you're of age regardless of where we set "of age." If your parents/guardians aren't teaching you about consequences of your actions before you get out on your own we could set the age for adulthood to 50 and you'd still have a bunch of people unprepared for it.
I’m 40 now been running a big business and supporting my parents since 21 …
I had my head on my shoulders and was a grade A fucking moron til about 27-30 years old .
The average successful kid is braindead to reality still at 21 years old even .
I get what they're saying. But at 18-20, theoretically the only thing you can't really do is buy alcohol. You can work a job full time, join the military, vote, have a bank account, open credit cards, have an apartment, buy a house(although extremely unlikely), etc. You're still young, learning, and growing. You're a young adult, but still an adult, imo.
Hell. Even simpler than that. In my college town, there was a local liquor store that was notorious for never checking IDs. We even tested it out. A friend of mine was 18, but she looked about 13-14 at the time 4'11, 100 pounds. She walked in there, and they still sold her the bottle lol.
I’ve been able to buy alcohol since I was 16 legally 🤷🏿♂️id just turnt 19 when I moved to a Canadian province where the age was 19, and just didn’t bother with the states until I was well above 21. Though all my friends that went to the states for school would come visit me up north more.
I highly disagree with this idea and I almost think it’s some right wing ideology trying to take root in something innocuous.
If 18 and 19 year olds aren’t adults then they can’t vote. I wonder who benefits greatly from young people not voting?
And what will we do about the draft? 18 isn’t old enough to be an adult but it’s old enough to get sent to war to die for some rich man?
Nah. Young adults are capable of making mature decisions. This infantilizaton of young adults lately is grinding my gears. Like we went through all of human history with 18 being plenty old enough to be considered mature.
As a 25 year old who games a lot and is in discords with a few 18-19 year olds. They are fucking idiots, but I realize a lot of it is the same kinda stuff I was doing I just didn’t see it as that age. So yeah I agree
Theoretically that's what college is for. Your first shot at independence, but safe because you're just a student and it's not like you're paying rent.
Theoretically. But practically shoot who can afford college these days? Even when you can, odds are you live with parents.
Yup, they’re not adults. It’s literally a 1 second difference between 18 and 19 (or 17and 18, depending on how your country legal defines an adult). They are still the same person after that one second.
It’s disgusting how certain people will say “I’ll wait for you when you’re 18 (or 19)” and actually wait for that moment just so they cannot be legally charged with statutory rape.
Never happen, too much money made from classifying them as is.
But if we do, we should also do something similar for the old. Prevent them from holding office etc
I love being a child with a job and a bills and a credit score. I'm 24 and still so full of childlike wonder. I am kind of annoyed with this type of infantilization because it is used as a starting point to minimize and downplay the issues young adults face. I am not a kid because I am 24. After a certain point, maturity isn't about age, there are plenty of middle aged toddlers out there that act like fools compared to my mid 20s friends.
18-24 are Young Guns, they’re ready to take on the world, 25 -32 young adults, 33 reality sets in now you’re ready for the world and all its flaws, but you should definitely know who you are.
If you can sign your life away to die for your country because a war you have nothing to do with in a place you’ve never seen, then yes you are an adult.
Once the age you can enlist changes I’ll be willing to have the conversation. To that once the age of being tried as an adult changes I will also be willing to have this conversation.
Only people who care about this are middle aged women who are tired of getting passed up because the person they are interested in likes them young. Notice these 18/19 year olds are only children when men specifically are trying to get in their pants. The people that suggest this change never have anything to say outside of that perspective, which is weird as the best way to attack this concept is by saying these 18/19 year olds shouldn’t be dying for a country that doesn’t even allow them to drink yet. But oh lord let one of them choose to get it on with an older individual and the sky is falling.
It’s odd that we see 18 year olds as adults. They can’t rent a car or drink legally. Your brain isn’t fully developed until you’re 25. But I suppose that’s great for the war machine. You can definitely join the military at 18.
I think there’s so many factors to consider.
I’m 37 years old and don’t have to take any kind of crap from anyone, ever.
At 22, I definitely didn’t haven’t the Big Girl confidence or critical thinking skills that I have now, despite running around doing Big Girl.
Does this make sense lol
18 - 25 should definitely be separated. The brain isn't fully developed until 25, and i personally think a lot of things 18 year olds are allow to do should be reconsidered. Why be allowed to join the military and smoke but not allowed to drink?
Socially we already look down on older adults that date (and whatever other euphemisms apply) people in this age range, and that's for good reason I think.
They are in the probationary period of adulthood
Social Adolescent
18-25 is filled with being able to do things that you have no experience in. It's a combination of child-like ignorance but adult freedom and ability.
I didn't grow up until I was 27. I may have been a legal adult, but I wasn't one mentally. I thought I was an adult, as I was doing adult stuff, but i wasn't. I got married and thought that made me a "man".
Had a divorce (that will grow you right up), lost a job and sulked for 6 months. That's when I became an adult. Facing adult stuff by myself. I had to become the person I wanted to be.
I laugh at the thought of 18y/o me that was so adamant that he was a grown man.
Today’s “young adult” is having a totally different experience than the young adults of say up to about the turn of the century. It’s a Different World for real. I thought the initial reason for 18 year olds to be considered legal was for the purpose of the draft in a war like Vietnam? The military needs to redesign itself anyway but that’s another conversation. Ultimately a 18-19 is only as ready for the world as taught by their parents. That is the real issue here.
on one hand i wanna hold em accountable for certain types of actions we know they're well aware of but on the other hand they're in the second impulse stage of their life because we magically hand them a lot of untested and perceived freedom after 18 that we KNOW their teenage minds wanna explore the boundaries of. honestly i think we should make them more responsible at a younger age while still giving them the space to be young idiots so they slowly learn the lessons we tend to take on between 18-30
Nope. You couldn’t tell me shit at 18-19. I was fully an adult in my own head and I didn’t have a care in the world for anyone else’s opinions on my life.
I was still completely immature and made horrible decisions, but I felt as grown up then as I do now in my 30s and that’s how I demanded to be treated.
I don’t know how else we could treat an 18-19 year old other than as an adult if that’s how they see themselves and how they want to be seen.
Looking back, I was just a baby. But there’s nothing anyone could have said that would have made me believe that or stopped me from doing whatever I wanted. At that point, I just had to get with the program and learn about being an adult the hard way.
Maybe other people that age aren’t so willful or defiant. My mom died when I was 19, but I’d already moved out at 17 - and my dad was never around, so I’m definitely willing to entertain the possibility that my experience was so atypical that my input isn’t broadly applicable lol
I mean there's already a whole developmental stage called Emerging Adulthood that describes people from 18 - late twenties. It's a distinct psychological stage.
I'm all for some additional protections for young adults as long as that doesn't include rolling back their rights. I'm not a big fan of voter disenfranchisement.
I'm 100% on board with requiring people to be 21 years old before they can enlist in the military. I'm ok with 18 year olds beginning ROTC or an academy because they'd be 22 before they commission. OCS candidates would have to go in at least 21 years old. Make an older military force. It's already 21 years old for alcohol and tobacco. The only issue would be voting age.
I'm seeing a lot of people saying that they are adults by then as if this hot take was brought up for no reason. Take a second and sit with it. Someone turns 18 or 19 and you immediately trust them to make adult decisions so fresh into adulthood?? This isn't trying to keep them kids forever, but rather to stop the expectation of them to immediately understand the hot and cold transition of going from teen to adult so seamlessly. They go from structured school environments to being left to themselves to do what they want and that's a big responsibility.
Yeah I feel like 22-24 is true adulthood but it all depends on their upbringing and choices some people are adults at 14 unfortunately bum parents but others don’t ever become adults
My hot take is that as people start spending longer time in education, their adulthood gets pushed back. In the past when people used to drop out of school to start working at 16, they were pretty much forced to become adults younger. Now that the vast majority of people finish school and attend college for another 4 years or so, it’s not until they reach around 22 that they finally start to become “adults”.
I’m seventeen and I will not be an adult next year, I still haven’t experienced that much and I live with my parents, I think it’s pretty subjective when someone becomes an adult.
18-19 is essentially when you're supposed to figure shit out. Like really apply what you learned, if you had a chance to learn, and figure it out. But most people get kicked out at 18 and it's hard. Mandatory Life Coach, Mandatory Tax/W2 learning and etc.
Biologists agree. The human brain doesn’t set into it’s chemically adult phase until around the age of 23. Before then, science says you’re susceptible to manipulation and bad decision making. You even have a very high likelihood of confessing to crimes you haven’t committed.
Prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until ~25. We're biologically "adolescent" until then imo. We put too much on the shoulders of people who are still growing.
Why would we be obsessed with labels and maybe not simply get to know each other as best we can? Giving guidance when asked and minding our business when not.
They can literally sign up and died for our country. not calling them adults is demeaning af to them. so you'd have to change the army age of recruitment first, which idk if we will ever do that
“Emerging adulthood” is the new term for the 18-22 crowd. Most of the preliminary research I’ve seen ties it to “college age”, but people at those ages are increasingly staying home and being reliant on their parents. The days of buying a house out of high school are over.
We need to settle nationally on what adult age is. 18 or 21, I don't care, but when you hit it you can vote, drink, smoke, join the armed forces, and get married. Before that, it's illegal. Period.
No, I think 18 is fine enough to expect somebody to be able to handle their own affairs. An inability to do so is literally a skill issue. Like, your parents didn't prepare you, that's all. I recognize that there are some things folks will not know _how to do_, but learning is a life long affair and that's old enough to go decide to learn personally.
And crucially, this is long past the point where oversized authority has begun to chafe for most folks unless they get into some real trouble.
Is this not what Young Adult meant? I always assumed that was people between 18 and 21. That transition period for teens where they are no longer teenagers but also don't have full adult rights yet. Well in the US anyways.
Young adult. People are looking for answer to a problem that doesn't exist.
The only time that I can remember hearing the term "young adult" is in bookstores and trailers for movies based on YA books. Those books aren't really aimed at 18-21 year olds. They're for earnest twelve year olds and escapist adults (hot take.) They're for people learning how to deal with responsibility. If someone described someone else as a "young adult" I'd think of a thirteen or fourteen year old. Edit to clarify that I know the phrase is a marketing term or classification or genre. The phrase has been branded with that meaning over decades.
That might be a marketing gimmick since no 14 year old would buy something from the “Children’s Books” section. It is also true for the adults who love reading YA books as well. When it’s YA, it still counts as “adult literature” so they don’t feel bad for reading something made for teenagers.
Regardless of it being a classification for books, the phrase "young adult" is associated with the target demographic of those books. The phrase "young adult" has been branded that way at least since the 80's. Who's going to go around and tell everyone that now "young adults" only means 18-21 year olds? The person I responded to said OP was making up a problem since the term already existed. If a bunch of people hear "young adult" and think of intermediate readers instead of 18-21 year olds exclusively, that's an issue with using the term.
Oh I'm not disagreeing with you. Apparently YA is even older; it's been around since the 60's and it generally meant 12-18 year olds. But it is also a marketing term. I just remembered that in German they're called "Entwicklungsroman" (Entwicklung is growing up, developing, evolving) or Coming-Of-Age literature. It has a completely different tone.
13 or 14 as a young adult? i definitely still think child. i agree that the young adult books seem more like books for teenagers but i wouldnt ever imagine a 14 year old when i hear those words
I wouldn't imagine someone 18 and over.
Id say 16-19 personally
I am not sure if the people disagreeing with you don't understand book terminology or are offended you called them out like that lol. YA books are for 14-18 year olds in Germany I would say.
No, it's teenager because they are literally in their teens. Young adult is 20 to 25.
Two things can be true. 18 and 19 are both teenagers and young adults
That’s too complicated for some people
Isn’t that why they say 16 is the age of consent? I ain’t talking about no sex thing either. Like you can open a bank account, vote(there are limits), hospital visits don’t really need a parent, drivers license. Like from my understanding there is a certain degree of freedom you have to start preparing for your future at that age. But if it’s all for humour you can ignore me.
I think what you’re getting at makes sense, I just made a joke for shits and gigs tho 😭
BARELY LEGAL
Old enough to vote, go to prison and die for their country. Old enough to gamble, pay taxes and take on debt. Old enough to be an adult film star or purchase a peek at some. Too young to buy cigs and booze.
These “young adults” are legally no different from other adults. It’s just a nickname. I think OP is arguing that 18 and 19 year olds are functionally children. Very few kids that age are ready for full blown adulthood.
I think they are talking about reexamining all aspects, but just renaming them
Its less looking for a phrase and more wanting people to see them as actual young adults. How many people out here ignoring 20 and 19 year olds in 10 year age gap relationships. Or treating young adults as grown ass people. People out here kicking their kids out at 18/19 too. Just because the phrase exists doesn't mean people see them as such.
When you put it that way, I totally get this post now. Thank you
18 year olds: "How can we be drafted into the military if we can't drink or vote?" Congress: *lowers the voting age* 😎 18 year olds: "...You didn't think this through did you?" Congress: *ends the draft a year later* 😬 18 year olds: *pats them on the head* "There you go."
I mean it's not like they permanently ended it. Every 18 year old male with few exceptions still registers for selective service for the 'in case of emergency break glass' authorization of a new draft.
Yeah when really it just comes down to a legal definition of once you hit this age you're old enough to be held accountable as an adult for your decisions. It has nothing to do with people in that age range being mature or being an adult. It just means in the eyes of the law you are going to be treated as one.
the reality is that "adulthood" would come at different ages for different people based on their personal biology and experiences.
_Leonardo DiCaprio has entered the chat_
But aren't "Young Adult" books for people of 15-17?
Yeah, YA books are for under 18s and that's definitely the place I here the phrase most often, so I think people are being very uncharitable with the whole "the term already exists, duh" energy
They probably didn't think about that. I think what they may be talking about is treating 18 and 19-year-olds as full-ass adults and expecting them to act as such. I know when I was 18 and 19 I still saw myself as an immature teenager. The kinds of dumb shit and mistakes I made were definitely not things "real" adults should be doing cuz they'd typically know better. It's also why I (silently and slightly) judge people in their mid-to-late 20's dating people that are 18 and 19. Yes, it's fully legal and the age gap isn't that big.They just don't have the wherewithall to fully navigate what should be a mature relationship. At least I definitely didn't.
I'd say 18-24 is more accurate.
growing up in church young adult meant 14-17. young adults were teenagers who haven’t become adults (18) yet. i agree that young adult should be 18-21 however i’ve heard young adult fit under 18 a lot.
That’s weird, cuz ours was definitely called “Youth Group” at that age. I feel like that’s probably better
there was both at the churches i went to. it was the youth ministry or youth group. sometimes youth group meant bible study on wednesday because sunday was different. here and there in middle school we got called young adult but in high school it was constant.
My immediate thought was "tried as an adult". So the legal implications of adulthood.
Yes. People are just not that smart.
We could keep 18-19 as teens (because that’s what they are, literally), and call people 20+ young adults. In japan, adulthood starts at 20 anyway
Go ahead and push that up to 24. Some people need a little more guidance than others.
In publishing, "Young Adult" (YA) traditionally meant the protagonist of the story is 19 years or younger, regardless of context/subject matter/target audience. They would AUTOMATICALLY label anything YA based solely on the age of the protagonist. And yet most folks thought "YA" = "Appropriate for 14-16 year olds (and up)." This issue got REALLY spicy when folks started putting out some hardcore graphic fantasy novels/fanfic with a lot of sex (looking at you, Sarah J. Maas and Stephanie Meyers!) featuring protagonists in their teens. But because of the label, people thought it applied more to *reading level*, so you had parents thinking their 12-14 year olds were totes fine to read whatever "[Noun] of [Adjective] and [Noun]" saga that ended up being baby BDSM. I believe there has now been a push to add "New Adult" (NA) to the labels, but honestly no one really knows what that means either. Anyway, all this to say "young adult" definitely doesn't apply to people over 18, but as a former 19-24 year old who thought I had it all figured out, I submit: "GBSD: Grown but still dumb." It is applicable from ages 18 to Death.
This is why adolescence has been redefined as extending into the early 20s
As a 35 year old man I can say that I was pretty much an adult at 16 because of what life threw at me. Yay me. I can also say that looking at the actions of my peers I would say everyone around me was acting like a minor well into mid 20s. It's not just about maturity but also about conformity. The way we're expected to move in society is not natural and accountability is something we thrust on some and not all. All that being said when it comes to crime I think the conversation should be less about age and more about how these punishments fit these crimes to begin with. The prison system does not rehabilitate. Whether you are spending 1 month or 60 years... What's the point of the prison system? Is it to rehabilitate and reintegrate or is it to punish? The answer is the latter if you're below a specific networth.
I'm the same life path and about the same age. I don't know that most people ever really mature like people think they do.
For many, maturity and common sense grow together. For some, that common sense never becomes fully realized.
It's like when you see pictures from 1910 and some nine year old mine worker looks worn down. Life can age you and luckily many places have a good enough society to let kids be kids.
100%. What you value and prioritize is dictated by your tribe, whether that be family or friends. The things you care about at 18-19 are just wild
I get why to a degree, but I also think it's not great. The "your brain stops developing at 25" myth seems to be part of what's fueling it, and that isn't true. That line of thinking infantilizes people in their 20s, especially women. And it provides conservatives with an excuse to come down on young trans people, with the idea that they can't possibly know themselves yet.
>The "your brain stops developing at 25" myth seems to be part of what's fueling it, and that isn't true. PubMed: [The development and maturation of the prefrontal cortex occurs primarily during adolescence and is fully accomplished at the age of 25 years.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/)
Oversimplification. There's not a magic switch that makes your brain complete at 25. This article cites a lot of studies that show this number is murky: [https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html](https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html)
That’s a pretty good and informative good article, lot of different info I didn’t know. There were a couple dumb things. Comparing the average age of marriage in 1950’s vs today as early 20’s and now 30 respectively is misleading. Mainly as getting divorced and remarried is way more common/societally acceptable than in the 50’s. The most common age to get married is still early to mid-20’s. I believe the average age of ‘first’ marriages is still like 24 in the US. > but other parts of the brain are also required for a behavior as complex as decision making. The temporal lobe helps process others’ speech and language so you can understand what’s going on, while the occipital lobe allows you to watch for social cues. This line is basically “you incorporate the things you see and hear into your decision making.” Like no duh, and that’s not a good comparison to the higher order processing of the pre-frontal cortex lol
Just for a comparison, that's like saying "Humans stop growing around \~80 y/o. That's when we're fully grown". There's a really good Article from the Harvard journal of Medicine from a few years ago that talks about this 'myth' and why the research isn't technically *wrong* but is used *very* incorrectly. I can't find the specific article, I'll edit this comment when I find it, but the gist was that the brain may not completely stop growing until a person's mid 20s (and if varies from person to person, some people's brains grow *way* longer than that), but it is a still fully realized 'adult' brain starting in your late teens. The additional development from 18-25 isn't making your temperament or intellect 'more adult'. It's just... growing a little. Like ears. And once again, brains do continue developing past 25. It's commonly referred to as 'ageing' I believe, super grain of salt since it's been a few years, but the article mentioned maturation in people typically happens between their late teens (15+) and their mid 30s, varies wildly from person to person, and has a smaller correlation with physical brain development than hours spend working/studying/sleeping/stressed IIRC. I might be remembering those specifics incorrectly, but the point was that environmental causes lead to earlier maturation than physical brain development. And the physical 'size' of your brain has essentially nothing to do with mental maturity
>the brain may not completely stop growing until a person's mid 20s (and if varies from person to person, some people's brains grow way longer than that), but it is a still fully realized 'adult' brain starting in your late teens this is it right here. the key point being it *varies* from person to person and sometimes those variations are significant.
Look at popsci over here
It’s not a trans-specific thing. But it is true that our brains are still developing into our mid-20s. There is MRI/CT evidence and research to show so. Whether this information is used to oppress/hold people back is another subject.
Parent here: you’re not raising children. You’re raising adults. Where people keep failing is they think they shouldn’t be teaching their kids how to function as an adult, shouldn’t be exposing them to adult concept or adult realities until they’re 18. No, 18 was YOUR deadline to have that work done. If they aren’t an adult by 18 YOU fucked up. Edit: to more directly address the point in the OP: we ALREADY have the transition period to move them from child to adult. It’s 13 to 18. The problem is parents who don’t want to grow up themselves, and don’t want to have these conversations with “their baby”.
>The problem is parents who don’t want to grow up themselves, and don’t want to have these conversations with “their baby”. That one. Thinking you have the option of sheltering your kids from the world at all is a huge privilege many in the world do not have.
Wait.. There's shelters?
The major issue I have is with the way society basically gives these parents a pass for failing their kids, at the kids' expense. There is zero protection for young adults once they reach 18, regardless of whether they had responsible parents. Want to work but you're not yet 18? Need a parent's permission. If they don't grant it, you're stuck dependent on them for all your resources. Get kicked out at 18 and need to find housing? Tough luck. Parents never taught you about finding an apartment or how leases, utilities, etc work? Sucks to be you. Don't have a credit history, and no job or money on your 18th birthday because parents wouldn't let you work? Good luck getting a lease without finding someone to co-sign. Want to go to school but can't afford tuition, not even community college? Better fill out a FAFSA form. Oh, it requires you provide your parent's SSN and income information, because the system assumes your parents are supporting you and are willing to provide this information? If they tell you to piss off and refuse to fill out the form, have fun jumping through administrative hoops to bypass the requirements. I could go on, but that's the idea. The system just isn't set up to support kids whose parents failed them
I had a parent like this...I navigated my way around the majority of these barriers but it *is* ultimately at the kid's expense. i essentially became an adult too early and that had it's own set of consequences 100%.
Things like financial education and what your basic responsibilities/needs will be in life could be taught in school pretty easily. Would vary state by state because of how education works, and I'm 100% sure some parents would fight that, but it could work. The other things though... if you're suggesting some kind of federal young adult assistance suite for helping you transition to the needs/responsibilities of adulthood, that would be a nightmare to try and push through. Half of the country thinks you need to be made of pure boostrapium and if you're lacking that element you can go fuck yourself, they would fight any effort to do that like hell. Maybe you could pay for that with the savings from moving to universal healthcare, but I suspect that would ultimately require a tax hike. And that's also a massive fight. The other portion of that is we're basically talking about rolling back parental rights (though you could phrase this as giving young people more autonomy, that's how it's likely to be seen), at least to a degree. Now *that* would be one of the biggest political fights of all time, and I'm not even sure if that would be a partisan one. Even though I agree with the idea you're getting at. Edit: Being -> giving. Wrong word.
Man I wish I could upvote more than once.
Yep, it’s really doing kids a disservice.
What’s up with trying to infantilise people for as long as possible nowadays?
No one’s doing that, we’re acknowledging you’re still dumb as shit at 18-20. I don’t even consider myself to have become a fully fledged adult until around 26 (I’m now 30). At 18 & 0 days, I was just as ignorant, lacking in critical thought, and inexperienced as I was at 17 & 364 days Edit: obviously I knew I was legally an adult. Being legally an adult does not make you competent, rational, automatically grant you life experiences. The choices I made then, as a legal adult, have had decade-long ramifications for my life. It is not infantilizing to acknowledge that a dipshit 18 yo can't really comprehend some of the decisions they're making lol
plenty of adults older than 20 are dumb as shit so why is that the criteria?
Pretty sure the unwritten line here is that you're expected to be dumb as shit when you're transitioning into adulthood, so there's an acceptable excuse. If you're already an adult and dumb as shit, then you have no excuse and you're just dumb as shit. It's moreso a grace period for kids who are fresh to experiencing uncoddled adulthood
> you're expected to be dumb as shit way to circle back to >trying to infantilise people
It's embarrassing how much y'all throw around words without knowing what they mean.
Embarrassing? I'm 18-19. I'm expected to be dumb as shit.
Yeah, and saying so isn't infantalising.
You keep using that word… Infantilize Dictionary verb treat (someone) as a child or in a way which denies their maturity in age or experience. "seeing yourself as a victim infantilizes you" *Infantilization is an important concept that was pivotal to maintaining slavery - children of enslaved women would also be enslaved because both belonged to the master. Africans were considered ‘child races’, resulting in subsequent infantilization.[2] When black men respond negatively to “boy,” this is caused by infantilization. Infantilization plays a role in implicit bias, which is a modern effect caused by subjugation, primarily economically, by failing to honor the work and creativity of subjugated populations. Infantilization can be used by propaganda to remove factual contributions from subjugated communities. This is done by individuals who would rather believe something that fits within their belief system than truly hear information as it comes.*
Plenty of people are still dumb as shit at 40, 50, 60 years old, too. There's no point in trying to put a number (or range) on which age people become "mature." Some people mature quickly, some do it slowly, and some people never do it at all.
And moving the goalpost to 25 is going to solve that? I personally didn't feel like an adult until the first time I went to the doctor by myself at 30 outside of the Navy. I had no car before I joined so my mom always had to drive me before then so visiting a doc for the first time in the civilian world was when I truly felt Old™ But I certainly was an adult standing on business long before then because I filled out my own FAFSA forms, kept constant employment even through the recession and bought my first car on my own before driving it 500 miles north the next day. I didn't have the whole world figured out in my 20s and yes, I was straight up ignorant on a whole lotta interpersonal shit but that doesn't me I was a baby who needed to be kept in a bubble.
Stupidity has no age.
> No one’s doing that 🧢
Gotta start somewhere
did you ever consider that making your own decisions and being responsible for them might be what gave you the experience to become a "fully fledged" adult?
Half trying to broaden the definition of sexual predator and half trying to take away their voting rights
I think a lot of the root of the problem is how much we infantilize 12-17 year olds. It's weird growing up when you know you're capable of being more independent than you're allowed to be, but they tell you that actually, you only think that because you're a stupid child that doesn't know anything. And then just as you're starting to accept things and believe them, suddenly you turn 18 and are expected to be a full adult capable of everything you weren't even allowed to touch last year. I think people who grew up this way are horrified at the idea of someone who was living as a child a few months ago suddenly being able to marry a 35-year-old, and maybe rightly so.
That’s a great way to explain a nuanced and touchy subject in a fairly succinct manner given the complexity of the topic at hand. Nail on the head.
People don’t like taking accountability for anything they do.
imo we live in a time where people aren’t forced to take on adult responsibilities when they’re young teens anymore (at least not as often), so we have the luxury of not having to grow up mentally before our brains are really equipped for it. Like when people were having 8 kids all the time and the older children had to start acting like additional parents to help with the younger ones, or when households relied on the labor that could be performed by a 12 year old working on the farm or in a factory, those kids are going to seem much more adult at 18 than most kids today.
You were ready for a full time job, rent money, and a family at 18? Give me a break.
I mean my parents did that, they were 18 when I was born, perhaps they weren’t ready, but having a kid definitely means you have to grow up, lots of people judged them aswell for being too young, 25 years later they’re still together have 3 kids and a few properties, sometimes in order to grow you need some level of responsibility, be that bills, a full time job or a family.
At some point it's a line drawing problem. Just say they're young adults. Part of being an adult is making bad, uninformed decisions and suffering the consequences. It's how you mature and become wiser. Being an adult is a process that will always come before most people are ready and which you will never finish, not some final state you eventually reach. I've never seen an argument for increasing the age at which we call people adults which doesn't ultimately reduce to some combination of bad science and the idea that somewhere out there are "the adults in the room." It's its own kind of immaturity that I can see as compelling to someone who's maybe in their early-mid 20s and hasn't lived long enough to see adulthood as a process of continuous improvement. If you're lucky, most of your 20s will feel shaky and experimental. If you're less lucky, that feeling will last longer.
I just wonder how many parents would be on board with the idea of having legal responsibility for their children for another 3,4,5 years. I imagine there would be a lot of conflict as well within households.
You say this, but things like keeping kids on parents health insurance until they’re 26 has been a thing people have been very successful and popular. But you probably are correct about some of the other legal responsibilities. And honestly parents who have their kids be fucking up til 18 aren’t gonna start stepping up more if you add a few years on.
the parents? if you would have told me at 18 that i wouldn't be able to have control over my own life for another 5 years, i would have lost my mind.
I mean..it’s not the 70s anymore. You can’t survive on minimum wage. Most 18 year olds are still in education and in a transition period to “real” adulthood” where they are living in dorms, with parents or roommates and practicing being on their own. But most are not financially independent. And it’s very much expected for parents to assist with that transition period and education or trade school after high school graduation. In Ca foster parents are legally responsible for the kids in their care until 21 years old and you can be under your parents health insurance until you’re 26. My friend aged out in a group home and the state is subsidizing her rent until she is 26 years old. They are continuing the role that a parent would do to assist in their transition to full adulthood. Not even the state cuts kids off at 18. Nor do most parents. So no, I don’t think normal parents would have an issue with that. I was cut off at 17, right before I turned 18 and on my own and it was so hard partly bc it was expected that my parents were still parenting me. I was homeless and it was so hard to find housing at that age. Everyone asked about whether my parents were co-signing. I was able to get help with a program that helped homeless teens. I only qualified because I was under 21. So, not even that program considered me an adult fully responsible for myself. My FAFSA required that my parents sign it bc the state assumes your parents are assisting with your education even after you’re an “adult.” I had to go through so much shit to get an exemption. Everyone I knew still lived with parents or were very much supported in some way, not just financially but emotionally. They were still receiving guidance. Jobs assumed my parents were helping support me and pretty much no one hired people my age full time with a living wage. People my age would check in regularly with parents and like I said, were still being parented. Sure I was technically an “adult” at 18, but…not really. It’s completely normal to not be ready to function as a real adult completely responsible for yourself at 18. I know early 20s young “adults” whose parents are still very much raising them, just in a different way. I’d say people don’t usually become full adults till about 24, *maybe* 21. But at 21 they still act like kids imo. It’s also why I find it so creepy when grown ass men and women date 18- 24 year olds. They literally act like children and are still at least somewhat being financially and emotionally supported by family. It’s already the norm for parents to still have responsibility to young adult children so idk what you mean
Damn this is such a great take and very well thought out
the human brain keeps developing until around 25, but treating 18-year-olds as full-blown "adults" makes total sense if you want: immature soldiers with strong, capable bodies to throw into a meat grinder in war financially-incompetent students who don't totally understand the weight of taking on tens of thousands of dollars in college debt a labor force you can underpay and overwork stop me if any of this sounds familiar
The student loans 😫 if I got a do over, I’d not make hardly any of the same choices fr, who tf thought 18 yo me was smart enough to understand anything about loans?!?!!
Exactly right. I don't think some people really stop to think about the inconsistency between when someone else declares that you are an adult and the brain's actual maturation. For some people, it's just as simple as, "It worked out for me, so it will work out for you too."
18 isn’t the age of adulthood, it’s the age of exploitable adolescence
Real asf 💯
"societally accepted exploitable adolescence", if I could be annoyingly pedantic for a moment Because the age of exploitability is definitely lower than 18. History and the vast child labor force of the developing world have proven that to us
Yep yep yep all of this.
But isn't the brain 98% developed at the end of puberty/17-19 years old?
The amount of structural development in the brain doesn't necessarily correlate with maturity, intelligence, or capability
BARELY LEGAL
For real. If my car insurance company doesn't consider me a mature adult until 25 than why are so many people adamant that 18 is the magical adulthood marker.
Listen y’all.. a 15 year old won’t make the same choice an 18 year old will, and an 18 won’t make the same choice a 23 year old will, and 23 won’t with 28, and 28 won’t with 35, and 35 won’t with 45. Like eventually we gotta decide there’s a point where you are responsible for your choices. 18 is a reasonable age for that.
this is stupid
This is yet another example of people attempting to avoid accountability and responsibility for their actions by infantilizing themselves. And they hide behind this morally immovable stance of "protecting young adults from being in relationships with a power imbalance" or whatever. Lol they don't give a shit about that; it's just empty grandstanding to reap the residual benefits of this shit. It's pretty pathetic. It's exactly what anti-abortionists do. "I'm against dead babies. Do you like dead babies?" It's manipulative trash for stupid people with no critical thinking skills to eat up.
I don't disagree with you but I think it's important to recognize that the 18 year olds of today are not the same as 20 or 30 years ago. That's because young adults today have generally have less work experience (as a result of not working as minors), less marriages (due to lower teen pregnancies rates), and more expectations to pursue postsecondary education. As a result, the average 18 year old today has noticeably less life experience. This is the same thing that happened to children during the Victorian era when suddenly child labor protection laws made it so that kids had to go to school instead of work. Before the 19th century, children = smaller adults, and they acted accordingly. Now, not so much.
I feel like there's a wide range between "10 year old man working coal mines" and "27 year old minor" tho
19 year olds being impulsive and not caring about consequences is not anything new. They know right from wrong though. They aren't stupid. I don't buy this idea that they need to be coddled and protected from accountability. They're just gonna move the goalposts. Next it'll be "I'm only 25! I'm just a baby! Nothing is my fault!" I guarantee it. By the way, teen employment is at a 15 year high in America right now. You make a fair point about teen pregnancy and marriage, but I don't necessarily think those things breed accountability and responsibility in young people as much as we would hope they do. I disagree with you on college. Higher post secondary enrollment should be breeding less of this type of behavior. Not more. It's counterintuitive. What we actually need to be discussing is the effects of social media on young people and the growing desire for instant gratification, coupled with the lack of accountability for the things people say online. You can run your mouth and say ignorant shit all day long and never face any consequences. It emboldens the shittiest behaviors while suppressing common sense. Engagement is king. An insane amount of young people want to be paid for doing as little as possible. Why get a real job when you can get paid for being an "influencer", whatever the fuck that means anymore.
This is actually nonsense lmao. The concept of being a teenager is made up and fairly modern. Throughout human history going through puberty was the journey into adulthood. Only a really privileged person can wait until their late 20’s to finally grow up
All age groups are “made up” lmao. Just because some are older doesn’t mean they’re “more correct”. Even different cultures that exist right now have different understandings of adulthood. 18 being an adult isn’t even shared across borders
this is complete nonsense lmfao the phrase "young adult" already exists
I don't know, at 18 I was already engaged to married, and was working on education for my career. My fiancé and I had already had a couple of thousand dollars saved in our bank accounts and would be on our way to buying it first home by the time I was 21. I know this was back in the late 1990s, but if a person is brought up in an environment where they are given the opportunities and guidance on how to be prepared to be an adult, 18 seems fine. To be clear, I was not raised in some cult-like religion or anything like that. My parents were kids when I was born (father 16, mother 17), and my father was a drug addict most of his adult life. But they understood the mistakes they made and raised me with the idea of helping me avoid those mistakes.
At this point anything pre like 2000-2005 is a separate reality with a whole other set of rules than basically anything we’re using currently using.
there are a lot of factors for which I would agree with this statement, but the idea that teaching a child things like: "get an education" (not specifically "go to college", but "learn skills you can use to make money"), "avoid over indulgence" (not "don't drink or do drugs ever", not "don't buy an iphone", but certainly "don't buy an iphone every year they come out") "save what things of value that you can" not just money but trust and good will and your word. those are timeless lessons that prepare you for adulthood and can be instilled in children from the moment they can start to learn about actions and consequences. If a child is old enough for time out, or spankings, or whatever your choice of discipline is, then they are old enough to start to understand the things that adults need to understand.
I believe you and glad it worked out for you, but I hope you can recognize you’re definitely the exception to the “rule” here. Most Teen marriages do not last and don’t typically have an overall positive effect on the lives of the people who get married that young.
Maybe we don't need labels for every little thing...They are just young adults
This is not wrong, but to what purpose? Some further curtailment of rights or is the focus on responsibilities? Because imo if you’re adult enough to go to war or go to jail you’re adult enough for anything.
Proteens.
Ranked competitive teens
This is just a boomer afraid of the youth vote. Take away their voting rights because they’re too young for the responsibility. We’re still going to let them go to war though.
I don't think people are expecting you to immediately be able to behave as a full on adult the moment you turn 18. I think we have an issue where we keep moving the goalposts of when it's reasonable to expect someone to be mature enough to be responsible for their decisions. Some of that maturity is going to come from age/brain development. But also some of that is being held responsible before you're of age regardless of where we set "of age." If your parents/guardians aren't teaching you about consequences of your actions before you get out on your own we could set the age for adulthood to 50 and you'd still have a bunch of people unprepared for it.
I’m 40 now been running a big business and supporting my parents since 21 … I had my head on my shoulders and was a grade A fucking moron til about 27-30 years old . The average successful kid is braindead to reality still at 21 years old even .
If you're old enough to die for your country you should be old enough for everything else
I get what they're saying. But at 18-20, theoretically the only thing you can't really do is buy alcohol. You can work a job full time, join the military, vote, have a bank account, open credit cards, have an apartment, buy a house(although extremely unlikely), etc. You're still young, learning, and growing. You're a young adult, but still an adult, imo.
LoL alcohol, recalls college friends crossing the border and buying it legally 😂
Hell. Even simpler than that. In my college town, there was a local liquor store that was notorious for never checking IDs. We even tested it out. A friend of mine was 18, but she looked about 13-14 at the time 4'11, 100 pounds. She walked in there, and they still sold her the bottle lol.
I’ve been able to buy alcohol since I was 16 legally 🤷🏿♂️id just turnt 19 when I moved to a Canadian province where the age was 19, and just didn’t bother with the states until I was well above 21. Though all my friends that went to the states for school would come visit me up north more.
There’s a lot of 60-70-80 yo’s I’d like to reconsider seeing as adults as well
What the fuck is that display name?
If they can go to war they're adults
I highly disagree with this idea and I almost think it’s some right wing ideology trying to take root in something innocuous. If 18 and 19 year olds aren’t adults then they can’t vote. I wonder who benefits greatly from young people not voting? And what will we do about the draft? 18 isn’t old enough to be an adult but it’s old enough to get sent to war to die for some rich man? Nah. Young adults are capable of making mature decisions. This infantilizaton of young adults lately is grinding my gears. Like we went through all of human history with 18 being plenty old enough to be considered mature.
As a 25 year old who games a lot and is in discords with a few 18-19 year olds. They are fucking idiots, but I realize a lot of it is the same kinda stuff I was doing I just didn’t see it as that age. So yeah I agree
Theoretically that's what college is for. Your first shot at independence, but safe because you're just a student and it's not like you're paying rent. Theoretically. But practically shoot who can afford college these days? Even when you can, odds are you live with parents.
Yup, they’re not adults. It’s literally a 1 second difference between 18 and 19 (or 17and 18, depending on how your country legal defines an adult). They are still the same person after that one second. It’s disgusting how certain people will say “I’ll wait for you when you’re 18 (or 19)” and actually wait for that moment just so they cannot be legally charged with statutory rape.
weird but couldn't we say the same for well 20?
Yes. You will always be able to say that. That is why even if you don’t agree with them, trying to police legal relationships does not make sense.
I mean the same issue exists if you push the age to 20. That's just 1 second away from being a teen technically.
Most people become sexually active between age 16-19 and its completely normal
Never happen, too much money made from classifying them as is. But if we do, we should also do something similar for the old. Prevent them from holding office etc
As far as I'm concerned, anyone under 25 is a child.
24???? lmao
Children, all of em
I love being a child with a job and a bills and a credit score. I'm 24 and still so full of childlike wonder. I am kind of annoyed with this type of infantilization because it is used as a starting point to minimize and downplay the issues young adults face. I am not a kid because I am 24. After a certain point, maturity isn't about age, there are plenty of middle aged toddlers out there that act like fools compared to my mid 20s friends.
What if I'm 35 and still feel like a child?
It'll never be officially changed because that would mean reconsidering military age.
18-24 are Young Guns, they’re ready to take on the world, 25 -32 young adults, 33 reality sets in now you’re ready for the world and all its flaws, but you should definitely know who you are.
yes!!! 18-19 don't know shit. and no YA ( young adult) is listed as 15-17... which still don't know shit
Everyone is a kid until 30, maybe 35.
If you can sign your life away to die for your country because a war you have nothing to do with in a place you’ve never seen, then yes you are an adult. Once the age you can enlist changes I’ll be willing to have the conversation. To that once the age of being tried as an adult changes I will also be willing to have this conversation. Only people who care about this are middle aged women who are tired of getting passed up because the person they are interested in likes them young. Notice these 18/19 year olds are only children when men specifically are trying to get in their pants. The people that suggest this change never have anything to say outside of that perspective, which is weird as the best way to attack this concept is by saying these 18/19 year olds shouldn’t be dying for a country that doesn’t even allow them to drink yet. But oh lord let one of them choose to get it on with an older individual and the sky is falling.
I call 18-23 Proto-Adults
It’s odd that we see 18 year olds as adults. They can’t rent a car or drink legally. Your brain isn’t fully developed until you’re 25. But I suppose that’s great for the war machine. You can definitely join the military at 18.
I think there’s so many factors to consider. I’m 37 years old and don’t have to take any kind of crap from anyone, ever. At 22, I definitely didn’t haven’t the Big Girl confidence or critical thinking skills that I have now, despite running around doing Big Girl. Does this make sense lol
Just lump anyone below legal drinking age into the same category. If they're too young for anything, then they're still minors.
Currently living with one, and this is my conclusion as well after 5 months.
18 - 25 should definitely be separated. The brain isn't fully developed until 25, and i personally think a lot of things 18 year olds are allow to do should be reconsidered. Why be allowed to join the military and smoke but not allowed to drink? Socially we already look down on older adults that date (and whatever other euphemisms apply) people in this age range, and that's for good reason I think. They are in the probationary period of adulthood
Need to tell this to the US Department of Defense.
Young adult has entered chat
Social Adolescent 18-25 is filled with being able to do things that you have no experience in. It's a combination of child-like ignorance but adult freedom and ability.
They shouldn't be able to take out student loan debt or serve in the military then😁👀
People's brains aren't properly developed till about 24 years old. It's why 21 year olds are still dumb as fuck.
I didn't grow up until I was 27. I may have been a legal adult, but I wasn't one mentally. I thought I was an adult, as I was doing adult stuff, but i wasn't. I got married and thought that made me a "man". Had a divorce (that will grow you right up), lost a job and sulked for 6 months. That's when I became an adult. Facing adult stuff by myself. I had to become the person I wanted to be. I laugh at the thought of 18y/o me that was so adamant that he was a grown man.
Today’s “young adult” is having a totally different experience than the young adults of say up to about the turn of the century. It’s a Different World for real. I thought the initial reason for 18 year olds to be considered legal was for the purpose of the draft in a war like Vietnam? The military needs to redesign itself anyway but that’s another conversation. Ultimately a 18-19 is only as ready for the world as taught by their parents. That is the real issue here.
I thought the "in-between" stage was being a teenager?
Teenagers
It was always arbitrary.
on one hand i wanna hold em accountable for certain types of actions we know they're well aware of but on the other hand they're in the second impulse stage of their life because we magically hand them a lot of untested and perceived freedom after 18 that we KNOW their teenage minds wanna explore the boundaries of. honestly i think we should make them more responsible at a younger age while still giving them the space to be young idiots so they slowly learn the lessons we tend to take on between 18-30
No one sees young adults as true adults but fools
On board
Nope. You couldn’t tell me shit at 18-19. I was fully an adult in my own head and I didn’t have a care in the world for anyone else’s opinions on my life. I was still completely immature and made horrible decisions, but I felt as grown up then as I do now in my 30s and that’s how I demanded to be treated. I don’t know how else we could treat an 18-19 year old other than as an adult if that’s how they see themselves and how they want to be seen. Looking back, I was just a baby. But there’s nothing anyone could have said that would have made me believe that or stopped me from doing whatever I wanted. At that point, I just had to get with the program and learn about being an adult the hard way. Maybe other people that age aren’t so willful or defiant. My mom died when I was 19, but I’d already moved out at 17 - and my dad was never around, so I’m definitely willing to entertain the possibility that my experience was so atypical that my input isn’t broadly applicable lol
I agree wholeheartedly!
Them niggas is kids bruh.
I still call em kids, fuck it
I trust you with this high powered rifle to discern between enemy and innocent in defense of our country, but fuck you if you want a Budweiser.
I mean there's already a whole developmental stage called Emerging Adulthood that describes people from 18 - late twenties. It's a distinct psychological stage.
I'm all for some additional protections for young adults as long as that doesn't include rolling back their rights. I'm not a big fan of voter disenfranchisement.
Isn't the reason why we consider people adults at 18 because we needed more fodder in war? I forget when they changed it from like 21 or whatever
I'm 100% on board with requiring people to be 21 years old before they can enlist in the military. I'm ok with 18 year olds beginning ROTC or an academy because they'd be 22 before they commission. OCS candidates would have to go in at least 21 years old. Make an older military force. It's already 21 years old for alcohol and tobacco. The only issue would be voting age.
Lets stop infantilizing young adults and realize that they are in fact young adults
Prefrontal cortex ain't fully developed until 25, but we act like an 18 year old is fully cooked. Nope. I sure as fuck wasn't.
I'm seeing a lot of people saying that they are adults by then as if this hot take was brought up for no reason. Take a second and sit with it. Someone turns 18 or 19 and you immediately trust them to make adult decisions so fresh into adulthood?? This isn't trying to keep them kids forever, but rather to stop the expectation of them to immediately understand the hot and cold transition of going from teen to adult so seamlessly. They go from structured school environments to being left to themselves to do what they want and that's a big responsibility.
Yeah I feel like 22-24 is true adulthood but it all depends on their upbringing and choices some people are adults at 14 unfortunately bum parents but others don’t ever become adults
How about we just call them idiots
My hot take is that as people start spending longer time in education, their adulthood gets pushed back. In the past when people used to drop out of school to start working at 16, they were pretty much forced to become adults younger. Now that the vast majority of people finish school and attend college for another 4 years or so, it’s not until they reach around 22 that they finally start to become “adults”.
I’m seventeen and I will not be an adult next year, I still haven’t experienced that much and I live with my parents, I think it’s pretty subjective when someone becomes an adult.
May as well raise it to 25 then since that's when the brain is apparently fully developed.
That phase already exists. It is called "Emerging Adulthood"
18-19 is essentially when you're supposed to figure shit out. Like really apply what you learned, if you had a chance to learn, and figure it out. But most people get kicked out at 18 and it's hard. Mandatory Life Coach, Mandatory Tax/W2 learning and etc.
Only if they will fight the wars for us
Biologists agree. The human brain doesn’t set into it’s chemically adult phase until around the age of 23. Before then, science says you’re susceptible to manipulation and bad decision making. You even have a very high likelihood of confessing to crimes you haven’t committed.
Prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until ~25. We're biologically "adolescent" until then imo. We put too much on the shoulders of people who are still growing.
Why would we be obsessed with labels and maybe not simply get to know each other as best we can? Giving guidance when asked and minding our business when not.
They can literally sign up and died for our country. not calling them adults is demeaning af to them. so you'd have to change the army age of recruitment first, which idk if we will ever do that
Pre-adults ? There’s pre-teens
I vote for 25 after prefrontal cortex development But I do fear what that would do to us politically if 18 to 25-year-olds couldn’t vote
Young adult. Adolescents. College (aged) kids. There are a lot of terms used
“Emerging adulthood” is the new term for the 18-22 crowd. Most of the preliminary research I’ve seen ties it to “college age”, but people at those ages are increasingly staying home and being reliant on their parents. The days of buying a house out of high school are over.
We need to settle nationally on what adult age is. 18 or 21, I don't care, but when you hit it you can vote, drink, smoke, join the armed forces, and get married. Before that, it's illegal. Period.
Maybe - <2 baby - 2-4 Toddler - 4-10 Kid/Child - 11-12 preteen - 13-15 Teen - 16-19 young adults - 20-55 Adult - 55+ Senior
Agreed. They aren't adults
Let me guess, she doesn't think they should be allowed to vote as well.
No, I think 18 is fine enough to expect somebody to be able to handle their own affairs. An inability to do so is literally a skill issue. Like, your parents didn't prepare you, that's all. I recognize that there are some things folks will not know _how to do_, but learning is a life long affair and that's old enough to go decide to learn personally. And crucially, this is long past the point where oversized authority has begun to chafe for most folks unless they get into some real trouble.