You become an adult when you no longer need support from your parents or the government.
So farmers who take advantage of subsidies in the U.S. to keep their farms going aren't adults? You should tell them that. To their faces.
When do we become adults, really?
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Re: When do we become adults, really?
#82You become an adult when you no longer need support from your parents or the government.
Do you lose adulthood when you get a pension then? Or when you get sick (in countries with functioning healthcare systems)?
A pension is an earned benefit. Paying for your own health insurance is an adult thing to do.
Re: When do we become adults, really?
#83Never.... we are always changing, but looking at car accident rates:
There are two periods where there are sharp declines: 19, and sometimes after 26, all the way to 35.
https://www.hallandalelaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/IIH...
If we assume, this is a indicator 'maturity', then the answer should be around 26-35, depending on the individual. It seems that the founding fathers were into something when the made the minimal age for a president at 35.
There is a reversal at 75+, but this is due to age related issues. And my experience from the older folks in my life, it seems people start reverting to a 'teenage' like state at 75+.
Re: When do we become adults, really?
#84A friend of mine once said something that stuck with me: "There's a dearth of people who will do what's necessary without complaining." To me it's all about realising that there's work which needs to be done regularly, that no one else will do for you and also no one will thank you for doing. I've been happier since I realised this myself.
I think it is this indeed, it’s something decidedly different between me and my kids.
I’d add that I myself had a brief period during which I went from thinking “this is hard because I’m dumb” to “this is hard because it is indeed hard”. I felt like I grew up a little in those years as well (~35-ish?). I realized that grown ups and management are all just doing “something”. There is no grander scheme, no deeper understanding behind it. Like the veil was lifted and what was behind it was a bit disappointing, but I also felt that it could not have been any other way.
Somehow this realization also made me happier. It’s all something that you could have told me before but I would have never really felt it. All these lessons need to land in fertile soil. It takes some time and experiences for the soil to be ready.
Re: When do we become adults, really?
#85A friend of mine once said something that stuck with me: "There's a dearth of people who will do what's necessary without complaining." To me it's all about realising that there's work which needs to be done regularly, that no one else will do for you and also no one will thank you for doing. I've been happier since I realised this myself.
People learn this at different rates and for wildly different reasons. When I was out of college working at Amazon, I would be amazed that my colleagues seemed to lack skills like doing the laundry.
But I got kicked out of my home at 18 and it was made abundantly clear from the age of 16 onward that this would be the case. Remaining a child is a luxury that I wish everyone can experience for as long as possible
Re: When do we become adults, really?
#86Labels like "adult", and "successful" etc are all for other peoples benefit rather than our own. It's all a facade. I'd probably measure maturity in terms of how one navigates relationships. When it comes to my partner, being vulnerable, knowing when it's ok to share that I don't feel like an adult, that i'm scared or lack confidence, and when to put on a strong front and say it's all going to be ok, to make her feel…
There's something about the responsibility of raising a child that differentiates adults, and I don't think there's an analog to that experience.
Personally, the older I get the more `adult` just means you have an empathetic understanding of causality.
Re: When do we become adults, really?
#87You become an adult when you no longer need support from your parents or the government.
So farmers who take advantage of subsidies in the U.S. to keep their farms going aren't adults? You should tell them that. To their faces.
I expected the inevitable parade of what about this and what about that.
When someone else is paying your way, you are not an adult. Or at least not acting like one.
As for subsidies, a colleague of mine years ago bought some farmland. He had no intention of farming it, he made money off of the federal subsidy paying him to not farm.
A friend of mine grew up on a farm. He said the usual pattern was 4 years of losses and 1 year of a bumper crop that paid for it.
Nobody is entitled to be a farmer. If you cannot make money farming, it's not the responsibility of others to pay for it.
There is a rationale for maintaining an agricultural base that can feed the country as a national security thing. Make of that what you want.
Re: When do we become adults, really?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you lose adulthood when you get a pension then? Or when you get sick (in countries with functioning healthcare systems)?
A pension is an earned benefit. Paying for your own health insurance is an adult thing to do.
You're still relying on the government for it, or a similar institution.
Paying for your own health insurance is insane. I would move out of any country that would force me to do that.
Re: When do we become adults, really?
#89Re: When do we become adults, really?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you lose adulthood when you get a pension then? Or when you get sick (in countries with functioning healthcare systems)?
A pension is an earned benefit. Paying for your own health insurance is an adult thing to do.
yea I would rather have the insane amounts of money I pay in taxes go to department of defense and I’ll spend X% of my income to pay for my own insurance - totally makes me feel like an adult each 1st of the month when the payment is processed. this is what makes america unique, there are no adults living anywhere else in the universe, just us :)