When do we become adults, really?

Adolescence extends to a few years past when you start being treated like an adult, for some it can be extended almost indefinitely.

People increasingly want to delay being treated like an adult until after a person has reached the full maturity of an adult not realizing those two things are linked.

The transition of this happening too early or too late leads to many mental illnesses where your brain is being wired to expect and react to the world incorrectly and when most of the rewiring is done you're somewhat stuck with what you've got. (If you're pampered and protected for too long you can't handle anything but that the rest of your life, if you face adult challenges too early you develop maladaptive strategies to cope with things you can't handle, etc.)

The "25 year old adolescent" is a troubling development.

Grew up poor in the US with extremely minimal family support, like the kind that kicks you out or has mental health issues. How did we become parents? Well, unprotected sex. Unless you mean how was the experience; in that case, I would not recommend my path. We both came from broken homes and we received little to no family support.

I think you have a point though. My wife and I figured out life together as a team before we were really fully formed individuals. We had so much more energy; I couldn't imagine starting over with kids at 40. The model of young working parents and helpful grandparents and other family makes a lot of sense. Kids in your 20s works well if you have the support.

Out of the dozen plus adults I regularly interact with there, we both only respect one of the “elders” (as in our parents’ generation) as someone I can look up to as an “adult”.

Out of our peers (cousins, siblings, etc.) likewise we only really consider one person as an “adult”.

That’s not to say they’re bad people. They’re all mostly cool people we enjoy hanging out with. But they’re not people we’d have serious life conversations with.

Ironically, as one of two childless couples in the family, I’m sure some of them look at us as “not adults” for no other reason than because we’re not parents. I know there’s a contingent here in HN as well that have expressed the same viewpoint. Also, the aforementioned peer (a cousin) we respect as an adult - is the other childless couple in the family. We, and she (and husband) are independent while the parent couples are still quite visibly dependent socially, emotionally, and even sometimes financially, on the older generation. If anything, our parents have started to depend on us as they grow older, which is a responsibility we happily accept.

Doubly ironic is that more often than not many members of the family come to us (my wife more so) when they need “serious adult advice”. Even the elders.

For some this comes early, like a "child" looking after a sick parent. For others (like me) this comes with having children.

My wife and I look back on the years we thought we were adults, because we lived on our own, had jobs and a cat, and chuckle to ourselves at how grown up we thought we were. This type of pretending to be an adult we call "adulting".