When do we become adults, really?

I never liked the idea of dividing life into segments since you can't really quantify or rather classify the circumstances. Libertarians are praising the idea of equal opportunity and reject the idea of equal outcome. I personally reject both conceptually. No one will ever or can ever have an equal opportunity because our opportunities don't necessarily mean they are all good. In practice, an opportunity is often choosing the lesser evil and in many cases that's a decision that will follow you throughout your life and will have life-long side effects. I've had to take difficult decisions and even though I undeniably took the right ones, I understand that some of those completely derailed some aspects of my life and I've accepted it. Some of those had to happen pretty early on to no fault of my own mind you, but to me, realizing that some things are outside your control and you have to accept reality, even if you hate it, is the day you become an adult. Of course, there are people who face no consequences no matter what they do and they die of old age with the mindset of a 4 year old. Especially if they were raised to be egomaniacal, self-obsessed, spoiled brats, of which there are a lot.

This may be an unpopular opinion but everyone needs to face a critical mass of unfortunate events at some part of their life. The earlier it happens the easier it is down the road.

Are you marooned on that island in Lord of the Flies?

There are 3 stages in life - when they care for you, when you care for yourself, when you are forced to care for someone else.

So i would say that you become adult when you have kids. Due to reasons this is postponed (or missing) to older and older age.

I've seen some definitions that include a few basic requirements, such as:

- A basic level of emotional stability and self-control

- Some ability to model consequences accurately

- Some ability to negotiate and handle imperfections and challenges in social situations, including relationships and work

- Some ability to accurately locate the line between internal and external responsibility, and to act accordingly

On that basis it's not at all about age or life stages, but about social and emotional competence.

This culture has a superficial understanding of social competence - more or less defined by "socially competent people get what they want."

I don't think there's much understanding of emotional competence. The default framing seems to be "You're probably damaged and so is your partner (which is why you're not getting what you want)" and not so much "This is what a functional adult looks like."

Work is even worse, with emotional competence being defined almost entirely by its relationship to profit and shareholder value, and not by any intrinsic human standard.

Yes. When you don't have kids you can always quit the game/rat race one way or another if it gets too much. With kids - it is different. Kids are the only burden you can't easily shrug off in this life.