> Over the course of his research on this, Jensen Arnett has zeroed in on what he calls “the Big Three” criteria for becoming an adult, the things people rank as what they most need to be a grown-up: taking responsibility for yourself, making independent decisions, and becoming financially independent.
I got about halfway through, then kept scrolling to see how long it really was, especially since I felt that I had gotten the gist of the article... WAY too long for what could be succinctly described in a page or two.
I hold that there is one very specific moment that signifies the transition from childhood into adulthood that is universal for all people – the moment you first realize that when it comes down to it, you are the only person who is responsible for you. That eventually, the charity of others will run out and all that will be left is your own reflection staring back at you, at which point you will need to decide whether or not to improve your life or check out early.
Some people reach this point early on in their lives, and others very late. Some people only reach it after undergoing a difficult period and still others reach it with very little drama or pain. I didn't personally come to this realization until I hit my "rock bottom". People never stop feeling sorry for you, but eventually, everyone stops trying to help. When it clicked, though, it changed my life. I've never been the same since, and I believe that's because I made the transition from being a child to becoming an adult.
OP didn't say that it actually had to happen, just that you had to realize it was possible. Many people will not have to experience something drastic like OP seems to have in order to realize it, but some people don't until that point.
It's not that they don't want to, it's that they can't. They may be 3000 miles away, or they may have just got a cancer diagnosis, or their knowhow of math may not be up to snuff for your problems, or they don't approve of your habits and are doing it for your own good. But yeah, you hit a wall where the only person that can help you is in the mirror. That choice, to live your life, that's a big turning point.
There is a big difference between helping someone and taking responsibility for something. If walk over to help my neighbor take his lawn, he is still in charge of the lawn.
I'd say that the realization that you are the only person who is responsible for you is only half-way there. I'd say that full adulthood realization is that you are the only person responsible for you, but you are still responsible for other people.
The reason I say that is I've know individuals who have taken the first mantra to mean that they hold no responsibilities to other people. That it is, in a reductio ad absurdum, that a driver has no responsibility to stay off the sidewalk and that the onus should lie entirely on the pedestrians to dodge her vehicle.
I couldn't disagree with this any more. I've spent years and years of my life trying to be responsible for other people, trying to make their lives the way I thought they 'should' be -- helping people find jobs, encouraging them to do x/y/z. I'd come into people's lives and it'd be like I walked into an old house: "Let's just fix this here, and that there, and pretty soon you'll be so much better than you were before."
What an utter waste of time for both parties. Turns out I don't know anything about what's best for other people, and hardly what's best for myself. My life has been much less stressful since accepting that. I'll gladly lend a hand to a friend who asks for it -- but the 'responsible for other people' phase of my life is over.
This seems like an extreme interpretation of "responsibility for other people." There are people in my care whom I'm completely aware I cannot mold into shapes of my choice, but for whom I accept the responsibility of keeping them off the street--and therefore, primarily, of keeping myself in adequate condition to keep them off the street. And I agree with GP; that to me feels like a key element of my adulthood. [Edited for grammar]
My father used to say your not an adult until your third child. I think his point was it's not about being independent so much as juggling responsibly when you can't make everyone happy.
i've joked before that parenting 3+ young kids is really just figuring out how to ensure one doesn't get neglected any more or less than the others or that it's switching from man-to-man to zone defense. either way, you reach a point where the time/energy/money required to give your loved ones what they need no longer comes from "you" (your sleep/hobbies/friends), but has to be taken from what you can give your other loved ones as you are already maxed physically/mentally/financially. it's then not a matter of "doing everything you can" anymore, but trying to do the "right things" that you can, and balancing consequences of which are dropped and hoping you can mitigate in future. sometimes it works, sometimes it hurts.
friends will then joke "and that's why i'm never having kids" or "that's why we're only having one", but it's not "worse", just different.
I personally have made a lot of decisions oriented around the inevitability of this dynamic. I let friends fall away after they move across town or just otherwise lose the ability to stop seeing me regularly. I've walked away from commitments where I'd lost every single reason why I'd made the commitment in the first place, I don't do this lightly. I've let myself become estranged from family for the sole reason they didn't adequately value the effort I went to to see them.
One or two children will be all I have, I am never going to start a startup, band, or other such long shot waste of time. I only have so much to give, and I ultimately will always put myself first, because when I put myself first, the quality of what I have to give to the people I truly care about and who care about me goes way up. The people who fall short of that all have their own lives that I am not and never will be responsible for. I've learned this the hard way too many times.
I am so afraid of letting people fall away like you do. I have no idea why. There's something in me that says to keep in touch with everyone. Your way is much more productive.
Just realise that the friends who care about you can come in and out of your life quite freely, without holding any grudges.
Imagine leaving to travel one day, for a year, no contact with anyone. Then imagine who will be excited to see you versus who will be bitter and distant because you left. You don't need the latter.
I am of the view that you should be happy with what time you get with others, because it is a privilege to be thankful for. No one owes you their time, nor do you owe yours to others, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing.
It's hard to close your life off in a healthy way. You have to think hard about things you probably would rather just not think of. Just yesterday a friend of mine miscommunicated with me, causing me to drive 45 mins in rush hour traffic to wait for him in an empty bar for two hours before I went home.
I was livid. I fired off an angry text when he asked me where I was and he chose to argue rather than apologize. In these kinds of situations you have to decide when, why, and how, and whether to cut them off.
I decided that I would use the same rule for him as I do for my lady friends. Always meet somewhere I know and am comfortable with, never somewhere new. That way if they don't show up it's not a total loss. Also never drive anywhere but home, the coffee shop, or my bar right after work. The better and more flexible and more intelligent boundaries you put up, the more and better people you'll bring into your life.
Perhaps another way of interpreting that statement is that you are responsible for not imposing yourself on other people. Assuming "other people" to mean any member of the human race, your interpretation would seem to mean "you are responsible for everyone you have any relationship with or to", which I don't think is what the parent commenter meant.
Some are suggesting that responsibility for others is implied within a family relationship (spouses, children, elderly parents), but I disagree with this interpretation as it would exclude anyone without those relational ties from being recognized socially as an adult. I'm sure there are orphaned, spouse-less, childless people out there whom we would socially consider adults.
Don't sell your efforts short...sometimes the advice we give others is, at a minimum, the presentation of potential path(s) a person may choose to follow...
Being given options, or even being made aware that there are options, especially in the case of children, is a gift that can produce amazing outcomes...
How many of us have been given direction, even if unknowingly, by a single sentence uttered by someone trying to "help"? (e.g., "you're really good at organizing things, solving problems, etc...)
Individuals are often not very good at identifying their best, and most marketable, talents...sometimes others can offer perspective...
When you help people you should make it clear to them that they need to meet you half-way. If they ask for your help, it should be obvious that if they aren't willing to meet you half way then you aren't responsible for them and are probably hurting them by trying to help.
This is why charity via direct cash disbursements works. You're trusting that people understand their own situations better than you do, in effect respecting the recipients as adults.
This is very similar to the business and military leadership academic findings across generations that resources and authority should be allocated to those closer to the source of information for greater efficiency and responsiveness as organizations / societies scale. Unfortunately, much of the world seems to believe in a cult of Taylorist management that those that manage and oversee others can best allocate resources because the presumption is that individuals are myopic / too self-important to entrust with potentially catastrophic decisions (this is a false dichotomy even by Taylorist arguments by inductive logic if we now entrust individuals to also be managers with some portion of community resources they manage).
You certainly are not responsible for other people. If you can't see others as beings with equal rights, meaning you don't naturally treat people the way you would like to be treated, you are a sociopath. You are a danger to others and you are why we have a justice system to take such people out of our society.
You should not live for other people and other people do not have to live for you. For me being an adult is more about that balance.
Yeah, definitely send that kid out as soon as they can walk. They have equal rights, and you should not live for them. Throw your elderly mother off into the streets too. Don't even bother walking her to the nursing home, that's her own problem. You do not live for her and it was certainly her problem she lived for you when you yourself were a kid. It's about balance as an adult.
Love is selfish, I take care of my loved ones for selfish reasons and it feels good. It makes them feel good as well, to be loved by someone who wants them to feel good, not to please them, not to please my family, not to do what my culture wants or out of guilt but to be loved sincerely, because it make me feel good. Taking care of them is taking care of myself.
What you described is called being responsible for yourself and others, and responsible feels good, because it is good, by good meaning having utility, as determined by natural processes.
I don't like your previous comment because it can mislead people into doing something irresponsible even when it doesn't feel good because they think they should only be responsible for themselves and not others.
So you are saying, all human beings somehow are responsible for the happiness (we didn't define what they are responsible for but I'll assume happiness/well being) of all others? Where do you draw the line? Why are you not giving more of your salary to poor people? Who determines what is enough giving? Can I hold you responsible? Or, who can? Or do you perhaps I agree that you may feel responsible but you can't be held responsible... In which case your are not responsible (claiming one is responsible for others is the statement I originally responded to). One can take responsibility for the well being of other, this can feel good. One does not have this responsibility implicitly. Or at least I strongly believe one should not.
Example: What is a more desirable situation?
A persons taking responsibility for a child out of a deep feeling that it is good of a person feeling forced into taking care of a child because of cultural pressures? (Arguably) The child of person 2 is better off when someone is found that feels natural responsibility for him/her.
Luckily most parents feel strong responsibility for the well being of their offspring. For those that don't, we have adoption agencies and other methods to help. Generally our society believes it to be more moral that people can give their child away than to force them into a responsibility they don't want (or know they can't handle). So we already believe, even for our own children, that responsibility is yours to take, not something you have by default and needs to be forced upon you. Forced responsibility is not love, it is anti-love, it will lead to sick relationships.
So to come back to the original post: Being adults is about taking responsibility, not about complying to some culture enforce role model that is responsible for others. You can not be forced into taking responsibility (meaning you don't somehow have it) but if you don't take it, you'll end up nowhere (you'll be a homeless person or in jail.)
You're right, human beings tend to be naturally responsible because they tend to feel that way. It is important to nurture these feelings, and take responsibility with those who you feel you ought to, rather than ignoring it. It is important people are aware that these feelings are good and should be nurtured, as opposed to feelings you get when doing something that's harmful to yourself and others (e.g. drugs & cheating on your wife/husband), and those feelings should be ignored.
A certain statement like "You certainly are not responsible for other people.", is misleading and unhelpful because it suggests people who are tempted by relationships outside the home should go ahead and pursue them, even if it means feeling bad for being irresponsible towards your children and family.
Your point is you are being responsible because it makes you feel good, taking these feelings for granted. Yes, nature gives them to us to begin with, but they must also be nurtured. Between the good dog and the evil wolf in all our hearts, the one that wins is the one we feed.
"A certain statement like "You certainly are not responsible for other people.", is misleading and unhelpful because it suggests people who are tempted by relationships outside the home should go ahead and pursue them, even if it means feeling bad for being irresponsible towards your children and family."
For me that falls under taking responsibility for my own life. If I were to be constantly tempted it would be a signal something is wrong. I'd discuss this with my partner. Perhaps we should break up. The alternative is staying with him/her out of pity. Pity is not love, staying with someone out of pity is worse than leaving them imo. If my partner was constantly tempted but staying with me out of pity it would be the ultimate insult. I want my partner to be with me out of pure self-interest, because I'm the best choice, her favorite human being, her ultimate partner, the best she can get. I don't want to be a compromise.
I think that there is even a case to be made that leaving while you have children is better for them than keeping them in an unhappy marriage. You are certainly not giving a good show of what love is all about.
I do agree about the feeding, you certainly have the power to feed and deprive certain feelings.
It looks like we more or less agree, and the point of disagreement is the components of love, of which I think there are two: attraction and companionship. It is possible for a 50 year old husband to feel tempted to sleep with an attractive 25 year old who is trying to seduce him, while feeling deep love towards his 50 year old wife, who is now a lot less attractive than when he married her. He can feel tempted to cheat but at the same time feel bad about betraying his wife. Should they divorce? I'd argue in many cases, no.
I'd not, but my self-interest is rational, I'd never risk loosing the companionship of my wife who's intelligence I admire, who I find a great mother and a great enrichment of my life. I guess we do agree. As I said, perhaps I tend to harp to much on the ethics of rational self-interest. I tended to ignore my own needs in relationships, the works of Ayn Rand were a big eye opener.
I was responding to his reductio ad absurdum which is indeed valid if it is not balanced by the realization that others are equal, it should not (have to) be balanced by needing to be responsible for other people. You are not responsible for others, but they are deserving of your respect, as long as they respect you. I'd also rather have people do something for me because it makes them feel good than because they somehow feel responsible. I think you are misinterpreting my statement. And maybe I read to much Ayn Rand ;)
Maybe this is better stated as: you are still responsible for your effects on other people. You don't need to feel responsibility for every little thing everyone else does, but to the extent that you hurt someone else, it's on you to make it right.
I like this MUCH better, you are responsible for yourself and the results of the choices you make and actions you take. That combination, once internalized, qualifies you to be an adult.
As a parent consider seeking out activities for your kids that will give them an opportunity to live that experience (ideally in a safe way) so that they will understand what is expected of them.
I don't know about "for" other people, but definitely "to." The obvious example is showing up to work because it's expected of you, but more generally it's about keeping commitments. Socially, your health, personal goals etc.
It's a balancing act. As a kid the group has a natural reaction to support you, they like it because you're a kid and you like it because that's how it's been since you started to breath.
Depending on the person, it can be hard to sense how much it is part of your life, but at one point the adult around won't feel as good to support you, they also realize you are 'like them' and should be able to deal with it and they don't have to bear your cross. You also start to empathize a lot more with people and don't feel good whining or asking for help too much as you see that they faced and face the same issue. So the situation level out, or it should.
ps: btw, I really wish society would spend a little more time conveying this information. It has very large implications in you and your loved ones life. I also believe that previous eras and/or societies had a clearer path (rites of passage) whereas right now it feels like an existential free-market where you're too easily able to wander around for too long instead of swallowing the pill.
What about people suffering from any mental illness that would seriously hamper their ability to take responsibilities or reach financial independence ? I am thinking of non episodic depression, phobias preventing doing anything that is performance related, etc.
There comes a time when they are alone in front of the mirror and yet will be unable to act upon it because of circumstances outside their immediate control.
Maybe it's a bit far fetched and is an edge case though.
Maybe we shouldn't consider such people adults, then. Often times developmentally disabled children reach "adulthood" but are still considered incompetent and require guardianship.
Yay, thanks :). I'll be recruiting competent guardians for myself then. CVs welcome. Mail is in the profile.
;).
Seriously though. Often the part of living with depression is keeping up appearances, so that you don't get labeled by friends and relatives as a childish adult. For some reason, many people tend to switch to a condescending attitude then, and this is very much not helping the depressed person.
Children growing up also don't like people condescending and treating them as the children they are. If a child puts on the appearance of being an adult, should we treat them as such and give them the rights and responsibilities of being an adult?
treating a child like an adult can lead to them acting like an adult and accepting responsibilities they otherwise would not, where as condescension re-enforces their role as a child
I believe we should not. Children are not yet able emotionally to handle `adults' problems and situations all of a sudden. It doesn't leave them any space to experience good and bad things and grow up. Getting that label at an early age could prevent them of reaping the benefits of growing up and developing as a child, in the emotional and physical space that is usually reserved to children. That's what should make them into `adults'.
It's like the debate about praising children for their innate abilities (let's say: intelligence) and behaviour (let's say: trying many times to solve a math problem even if they fail at first): the first approach put them in a fixed mindset while the second ease them into the idea that they can try, blunder and try again and that's what makes them getting better (not an innate ability).
This is the reason why I've always gravitated towards friends who were aware of their own weaknesses, open about them, and open to leaning on others for support when they needed it.
In practice these were often people who suffered from some kind of disability, mental or physical, or were in some kind of minority (gay, ethnic minority, etc.). They had to swallow their pride, they had to stop pretending that they had all their shit together, and they had to learn to give others a break as well.
These friends showed empathy and understanding, while my 'normal' friends, at best, could only produce sympathy (which is still good, but not the same). And in some cases the response was pity, or worse, and thankfully very rarely, condescension.
One of the nice things I've been learning as I'm getting older and as I'm becoming less attached to 'status' and ego, is that I'm realizing how true it is that there's strength in weakness. When I get to know new people, I often force myself to be open about my particular weakness or struggles (without complaint generally), and almost every time this provides an opening for them to share theirs. Regularly, at the end of a long conversation, they'll tell me that they feel unburdened and that they've never or rarely told anyone about their struggles.
And for me, that makes it easier to deal with what I'm dealing with, because it feels like it's not pointless.
(btw, I noticed your username popping up quite often in relation to a comment that is, at the very least, thoughtful and interesting. I just wanted to mention that :))
I noticed something similar about my choice of friends - the people I consider the best as friends, or people in general, are usually those who come from a somewhat broken environment. Not broken enough to seriously damage them, but broken enough that it gave them extra capacity for showing empathy and understanding.
(Ok, with maybe one exception - I used to be friends with a girl who had absolutely perfect, loving family with both parents present, happy and caring. I actually cringe when I think about it, because a family like this seems just... impossible. But it is, and it shaped her to be an extremely positive, caring and empathetic person.)
There's an urban legend / unverified statistic that I hear in my country every now and then - not in media, but from people. It says that about half of the population is actually visiting psychologists, but people are mostly ashamed of telling anyone to avoid being labeled as crazy. My mother also likes to add that "back in communist times, we used to watch Western movies and laugh at Americans for having to spend money on shrinks". Guess what we're all doing right now.
What it teaches me is that everyone is broken in some way. We all have problems, the world is too complex to deal with. Opening up about it instead of trying to boost your ego by laughing at others can let us connect more strongly together, just in the way you described. We're all in this shit together, so why not help each other instead of keeping each other down?
> (btw, I noticed your username popping up quite often in relation to a comment that is, at the very least, thoughtful and interesting. I just wanted to mention that :))
Thanks for the kind words :). I try. I can say for sure that Hacker News has taught me a lot about not just writing insightful things, but thinking insightful thoughts. That's why I love hanging out here :).
Still, I believe the spectrum going from developmentally disabled to depression (or OCD for instance) is too wide to put every member of the set under the incompetent label.
You provided a scenario where the mental illness hampers their ability to be an adult. Those with a mental illness that doesn't hamper their ability are necessarily excluded from that categorization.
But some of those mental illness are treatable (depression, OCD, etc.) and the individual can get back to `functional' once `treated'. But in the crux of the battle against the illness they are not able to function properly: should they temporary be unlabeled ? (I think so, but what does it imply regarding responsibilities ? How can one be responsible for his healing if the very disease they have make them not seek relief ?).
I believe labels come and go according to circumstances.
Lack of capacity is narrowly defined. So, a person may be able to make decisions about who they have sex with, but not able to look after their finances.
Not the GP, but I imagine the more charitable interpretation is that s/he is referring to a level of psychological/emotional development, not to a specific fiscal arrangement. One can be an adult and as an adult arrange one's affairs in a way that increases one's dependence on someone else, but if one makes that decision from a studied, mature evaluation of the circumstances, knowing and accepting the risks thereof, it's not the same thing as making it as a child, or making it unknowingly. [Edited for grammar]
As a woman, I think so. At the minimum, you need to make your own money to be independent, and independence is necessary to be an adult. I can't imagine feeling grown up, and at the same time asking my husband for some money each time I need to buy something.
(Financial) dependance infantilizes a person. There is a reason why unemployment is depressing even if you have a roof over your head and food to eat.
I bet that too. He has a world-class career, made a fortune, had several wives and multiple children. He hit every "adulthood" milestone western society ever came up with.
For what it's worth I didn't downvote any of your other comments but I did this one, despite this being the most substantive one in this thread. It feels like you're trying to pick a fight rather than have a useful discussion in the other comments, and in this one pull out a bizarre tangent into the definition of a "man".
Maybe internally you and I and the other commenters all feel the same about equality but with different vocabulary, but the language and framing used here seems likely to have a divisive effect. Rather than letting all of these downvotes cause discouragement participating, hopefully they can help to converge on a useful, non-divisive approach to actually sharing information instead of sticking to what may come across as inflammatory.
This is an odd direction to take it. The entire thread of conversation has been premised around the unspoken law of 'you are an adult when you feel like an adult', and we debate under what conditions that feeling will truly settle in.
Since its self determined, someone can be quadriplegic, and feel like an adult; then they'd explain to us why they do.
It's not up to us to determine if they are.
Someone could be in the same situation and feel infantilized by the fact they can't feed themselves, despite being successful in every other aspect of their life. We could try to tell them they're still an adult, but in the end... we can't force the sensation of adulthood on them. No one can.
The person you are responding to was speaking about themselves, in their own feeling as a woman. Perhaps some women would feel utterly different, but that's no reason to take offense. I personally think the original posting of 'being an adult means you are the only person responsible for you' is western-culturally dependent.
In my culture, people will hound you about your behaviors till the end of time so long as you share a last name or a bloodline with them because as far as they are concerned family is responsible for everyone, always. Thus independence has nothing to do with adulthood. Adulthood, is rather the capacity to give more to the family than you take away from it.
I think that's actually a very good question. Intuitively I'd say no, people with clear medical issues and resulting dependency are adults.
But on the other hand, I'm much more inclined to consider that people with psychological issues and resulting dependencies are not always adults. It's purely a feeling, by the way. I can't quite justify it.
I think the crucial part is visibility and understanding. If we can understand the mechanism, or see the disability, it's easier to accept that it's not a choice, and that they do the best they can within their limits. They are as independent as they can be, and really, aren't we all quite dependent in the end? I mean, if society were to collapse I'd probably die pretty quickly as I have no clue how to survive in any kind of 'nature'.
But then, as a disability become less visible, or harder to understand, we have a tendency to not be so lenient.
So at some point on the spectrum we might have Lupus, which (afaik) is understood but not visible. We might sometimes get frustrated at the limitations of someone suffering from this, but we still see them as adults (http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christ...).
Then there's ME, which has for a long time been treated as a psychosomatic issue. It wasn't/isn't well understood and the symptoms appear somewhat randomly and seem to be just 'tiredness'. A family member of mine had this and sometimes I noticed it was difficult for us, the family members, to sympathize and not feel like she was a bit whiny and childish.
And then we have something like depression, personality disorders, or developmental disorders, which very often causes intense frustration, or anger in the surrounding people. I know a few people suffering from ADD, autism, and bipolar disorder, and they get very little sympathy.
In general, I disagree. In many, many relationships, while the husband earns the money, the women gets final say in what's spent where. While this isn't the rule, it's certainly not uncommon (and popular culture, IE sitcoms, movies, etc pretty much purely reinforce this).
You could say that the scenario where the husband holds tight to the purse strings and the woman only goes along with it because of fear or anxiety that the woman is forced to be infantilized. But I would guess this is sub 10% of marriages in the US.
On a separate note, I think a useful framework for looking at this is to think of the couple as one entity with two parts, rather than as two separate entities. If the entity is split, it's definitely true that the one that can't provide for itself is at a disadvantage, so it takes a lot of trust. But that's also why there are divorce settlements that favor women that gave up working at some point.
I'm speaking purely from a personal level. Maybe it's cultural. I have grown up in a country where women work, so I never met a housewife. It would really be hard for me to feel independent while asking my husband for the pocket money.
The few housewives I met later in life were quite infantilized compared to working women I know.
But do you feel like the money you earn is "yours" then?
I think maybe that's the disconnect. I don't feel the money I earn "belongs to me". Same for my wife. I don't set my own priorities and budgets. We discuss them.
We're definitely not perfect, and I've definitely bought things that irked her and vice versa. But the joint account means just that. Unless it comes in a birthday card or something, money goes in to a pool. I don't keep a running balance, negative or positive in my head for my contribution.
No, I'm cool with sharing my money, and having a concept of our money. I'm just not cool with being incapable of making my own money. Put it any way you want, but it makes you dependent.
I think it's not an accident that every person I know that is not making their own money is frustrated because of it. Again it might be just my cultural conditioning, or my personality, not sure.
Would it change the situation, if every time your husband receives a pay check, he gives you half or all of it? What about if both of you are independently wealthy and one of you decided to stay at home to take care of your children? What if the stay at home house wife has a profitable hobby which makes decent income?
If you are independently wealthy you have your own money, no? You don't depend on the other person.
But what you mentioned is interesting. Look at heirs of great fortunes. They either find something productive to do with their lives, or they stay basically children their whole lives and that often means trouble for them (not always though).
I think that an independent person is someone who could pick themselves back up if everything were taken away from them. Someone can be independently wealthy but be a dependent person.
My wife certainly has a more independent personality than I do. I put more faith in her ability to recover if I got hit by a bus than I put in my own ability, were the situation reversed. People like her make me believe that there's a difference between "dependent by circumstance" and "dependent by nature", and experience tells me that neither of those are static qualities. Circumstances shift, and someone may grow or regress according to their environment and personality.
Just a quick add (thanks for the great convo) - Psychologically, to me it is a matter of thinking that even if you don't bring money into the relationship you still have full and equal rights to it (family money is family money, source is forgotten). To me, it's weird (but understandable) that you don't think money he earns is your money too and vise versa. But I think both interpretations are equally valid.
I think that in a healthy relationship where one spouse stays home, there's no concept of asking for money. All resources are assumed to be shared, and discussions will of course happens about spending money, but not permission.
I agree that the scenario you're imagining sounds undesirable, but I don't think that's necessarily how one-spouse-stays-home must be.
This is how we do it. My wife would also baulk at the idea of 'asking' me for money, even though it's my job that brings money in for the fam. To me, it seems strange that a couple would consider some money 'his' and some 'hers' regardless of where it came from. I've seen hints of that type of spousal relationship here (including in GPs comment) and other places and it's very foreign to me.
Of course they can. It's not about whether you are taking care of yourself financially right now or not. In fact, being an adult has very little to do with how much money you make. So for a house wife, it may be the realization that they cannot rely on their husband to be the sole breadwinner forever. At any point they could be killed, leave for another woman, or lose the will to earn a living or even live.
My great-grandfather left his home at the age of 12 to work in a coal mine and send money home to his mother. I'd say he was as much an adult as any college grad today.
My wife's grandpa managed a dairy farm. He got sick once when my wife's dad was 10 years old. Her dad milked the cows so her grandpa could rest and get over his illness. He hasn't stopped milking cows twice a day for 50 years. I'd say he was an adult at 10.
My dad was taught to work like a man from an early age, but was also taught to drink to excess. I remember when he got his last DUI. I was about 11 years old. I'd say that was when he finished growing up.
The dividing line between childhood and adulthood for me is a total blur between the ages of 18 and 28.
I think you have a great defining moment here, but there is one other that is just as foundational in regards to solidifying ground upon which one can grow away from childhood - that in almost all cases, we're all lost and doing some rendition of our best.
As a child we generally assume everyone "above" us knows what they're talking about. Authority derives from behind the curtain that is defined by a hope that whomever is leading us knows what the hell they're doing. And suddenly, when we realize that they don't - that we're all lost - we can start forming our own vision of the world as we would prefer to see it.
That, along with ownership of the personal responsibility you mentioned, defines the difference between childhood and coming into ones own. I think the two are complimentary and I don't believe either revelation exists without the other.
while I agree that stage (and I feel I've only recently obtained it) is a milestone, I'm not sure it is the delineation of adulthood. I don't know what you call it, but it absolutely is significant. I think I liked things before I crossed that bridge.
It's hard to say. I know both were very important to me, but both also became apparent to me very young. That was still my favorite as it allowed me to stand beside my elders rather than below them. I could finally fit within their shoes and try to understand why they did or said what they had.
No doubt, it's different for us all. I've had gobs of insight at a young age for better or worse, but the moment at which I personally started truly feeling like an adult was when my net worth inched past zero and stayed there for longer than six months. This wasn't due to making more money, but rather overall managing life better.
As superficial as that may be - it was clear to me, at that point, that I was actually paying attention to the easy, banal maintenance work most of us know has to be done to ensure a stable life, and eventually, family. And I think that was my motivation - a hope for my own family.
I definitely relate to this. Thought not needing to hit "rock bottom" sometime after I graduated I understood that my parents economic situation was very fragile, that I was setting myself up for a life of mediocrity and that I couldn't depend on them much longer. I immigrated at the age of 19 and have lived on my own since then
For me it was when I had to put the presents in my first child's stocking. Not only was I responsible for him, I had also to supply the magic and there was nobody doing this for me.
That's when the buck really stops, forget the bills and all the rest.
Same here. I remember very distinctly the first Christmas spent with my own child and feeling like an adult, compared to spending Christmas with my parents.
By your definition my grandmother stayed a child until she died at 84. I guess that's accurate enough but... meh... almost nobody who is in their 80s who had 10 kids wouldn't be considered an adult.
She did absolutely nothing for herself at all. Ever. For her entire life.
Hmm... I've known a few people who are as you describe, and in conversations about these people they'd often be described as 'basically still a child'. So I think in this case the definition stands.
The moment my dad said his only worry for me was making sure I was able to learn and handle being responsible for myself and responsibilities I'd have for my life including others.. to realize I had already been doing it for a bit.
Beyond that, I think as an adult it's a critical moment to realize it's not about what you get from the world, but what you are able to give, and your ability to think about others as much as you think for your self is critical when you have to work and function with any combination of working in the world, relationships, family and kids.
I'm approaching 40. I've never been "aimless", and while I can definitely increase how often I take responsibility, I'm doing well. I own a house, am married, taking care of my mother, employed, socking money away in a 401k (probably not fast enough, but it's happening).
...and I've never felt like an adult. I can have the weird dichotomy of having friends young enough to have missed everything I relate to my childhood, friends that I consider "adult", and yet I still feel like I did when I graduated college.
I have talked with CEOs and VPs or just other coders that are younger than I, yet I "feel" like they are older, more experienced.
I have no idea when I'm really an adult, but I don't expect it will be soon.
I'm in a similar boat as your. My Mom put it the best a few years ago: "Son, I may be in my 60s, but my mind is always in my late 20s."
You do toggle between different ages, wearing different adult hats depending on situations and people dealt on hands. But everyone's baseline mind is in their late 20s.
At least, that's what I gather from talking to people. :)
I feel like I'm fundamentally the same person at 16 myself. Even though many years later I'm wiser, more self-confident, know more, have a more developed personality and less energy. The radical transformations that happen to your mind and personality from 12 to 15 didn't happen at 15 to 18. Probably something to do with puberty.
I was talking to a coworker about this. She is 26 and I said "you honestly don't change, like ever."
Granted, I skipped the part about changes that are surprising, but mentally, we are who we are and that feeling of youth never really left me (nearing 40).
I think that there is only two phases. The day you stop reinventing yourself and exploring possibilities, allow yourself to live in a rut, spend more time in front of a TV than out exploring the constantly changing world, and have nothing to show for the past year's effort but a beer belly, is the day you die. I wonder if that is what was meant by adulthood at one time in the past.
As for feeling "younger" than younger people, well, I've always been sort of an old soul, but I think most people would consider my somewhat childish because I don't think about or talk about my experiences too much. I try to live in the moment and don't feel like I should share some aged wisdom. Life is more interesting and insightful with laughter, IMO.
You haven't described what being an adult means to you. If I understood correctly, you are saying the "adult"hood is a feeling that you know when you have it ?
I've frequently thought this over the past few years, and I feel like the conclusion I have is different than others in this thread.
I don't becoming an adult is really about you, exactly. It's not about your independence, or your actions.
It's about when other people become dependent on you.
I think this is the way that it has long been thought of in cultures outside of the post-Enlightenment West. This was my strong opinion after reading Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, (Russia isn't western like the rest of Europe) and Aquinas, Augustine, and Aristotle. I think that this is in part what the Apostle Paul is saying in 1 Corinithians 13:11 ( http://www.esvbible.org/1+Corinthians+13%3A11/ ), where you'll note that he doesn't say the equivalent of stopping to be like a child meant I had become a man, but rather I became a man, so I stopped being like a child.
I think about soldiers I have met and know. They change when they get to NCO status. I think of the boys I have met from North Omaha, which is arguably one of the worst places in America for young African American males, and that there is a difference between the ones who are the oldest in their families and the ones who are the youngest, even if they are the same age. And I think of my friends, and how we've changed when we've had kids, or when someone started a business and got ( real, not just one of his buddies-while-still-in-high-school ) employees.
Adulthood isn't about you, it's about your relationship to others.
Duh, sorry, but the culture and history of Russia (and neighboring slavic countries) is an example of how to run away from all sorts of responsibilities.
Probably it sounds good in our classic books but in reality the only "other people become dependent on you" case is nepotism like in Middle Eastern or Central Asian cultures.
But at least people from these cultures care about their elders and far relatives. Russians do not.
russnewcomer never implied that Russia had a responsible culture. I think you misunderstood his post. For some reason you decided to use his comment as a soapbox to broadcast your own views. Your comment is a non-sequitur (look it up).
And by the way, fwiw as somebody with multiple citizenships, including American and Russian, I prefer the Russian attitude. People can have different opinions. ;)
In this case I just opposed to these statements because I thought he had some utopian views of life there:
> It's about when other people become dependent on you.
> I think this is the way that it has long been thought of in cultures outside of the post-Enlightenment West. This was my strong opinion after reading Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, (Russia isn't western like the rest of Europe)
Nothing in Russian culture is "long been thought" about responsibility. You could say it about Japanese or Korean cultures probably - people kill themselves there because of failed responsibilities.
I don't have any utopian view of life in Russia or anywhere. And I was not intending to make a statement about modern Russia or really Russian culture, more about my observations from reading classic Russian literature. I think modern Russia has, like America, a confluence of old and new philosophies that contend with each other, and produce different results different places in culture.
But in my thinking on this subject, at least, there is a difference between dependency and responsibility that I think maybe doesn't come across the best.
I've encountered many stereotypes on this topic from non-Russian russophiles in the last politically-intensive years - that's why I responded hotheadedly.
Well said. A mentor of mine once told that to be a child is to be dependent, to be an adolescent is to reach for independence, and then to be an adult is to recognize our interdependence.
I'm 30, married, have 4 kids (with one on the way), own a house, and have a good job. But I cannot grow a mustache or beard, except for a small patch under my chin; the best I can do is literally a neck beard. I'll never feel like an adult. Ever.
I can't even do that! The tiny little neckbeard doesn't connect to my mustache at all. It doesn't even come up onto my chin. It just makes me look like a weird dorky 19 year old who's trying to grow his first beard and probably trying to enroll in community college.
This is hilarious. But do you realize you're implying that women can't be adults?
The discussion sounds a lot like 'when do you become a man' than it does 'when do you become an adult.'
For instance, most women throughout history were financially dependent on their husband. They would not make independent decisions. They were not solely responsible.
Did that mean they weren't adults?
The 20-30% of women who still become stay at home moms... they can't grow a beard... they are dependent on their husband or parents for money...
Are you serious? Disregarding the fact that it was never stated what sex the poster was...
They said "I'll never feel like an adult". Emphasis on I'LL and FEEL. Not NOBODY, or EVERYONE, nor IS or BE. I'LL FEEL. Completely personal question, to a completely subjective answer -- yet you came here and contort their response in some misguided attempt to be upset with someone on the Internet so you can feel something.
I think you were downvoted for using a straw man fallacy. I wasn't saying adulthood was defined in terms of beards. Just that I don't feel like an adult because of my lack of beard. Man, I'd even settle for a great mustache. But nope, nothing.
... and I was making the observation that if a beard is the sign of an adult, then women can't be adults.
Are you sure you feel like an adult, or are you talking about feeling like a man?
This isn't a meaningless distinction, and it also doesn't need to be offensive. Alas, it seems if I want to have public philosophical discussions I should go back to 300 BC.
I never really liked this question. The article even states verbatim why I have this feeling. "Adulthood is a social construct."
So when we're saying "are you an adult?" I'd like to ask what are we REALLY getting at. An ability to handle X class of situations? An ability to make X levels of abstract reasoning about social processes? There are so many and so variable a set of objective and subjective markers that any sort of broad statement seems useless, at best, deceptive and detracting from the actual markers at worst.
I had a conversation with my father once, something along the lines of, "We really all just get better at pretending, don't we?"
I'm not sure what my "Central point" of this post is, (and it's far from my more rigorously argued ones) so take it as a collection of thoughts on how I've found the most "personal enlightenment" regarding adulthood, as a rather transparent contrived construct; realizing this was (perhaps ironically given my thesis on this) my internal moment of "I have reached adulthood".
For me, feeling like an adult means feeling more like myself. It's like there's a core being of who I am, independent of all other factors, which becomes more prominent over time. I suppose it's tangential to the current top post - "when it comes down to it, you are the only person who is responsible for you".
Adulthood is defined by extreme personal responsibility.
I didn't consider making a baby adulthood, or getting a $100k/year job to be adulthood. If anything, I was _less_ responsible for my own actions (ballooning to 360lbs), because I started focusing on the things I _had_ to do, and let my personal development stop due to not having time.
Oddly, I realized and _grasped_ the concept that I had to take responsibility for my actions at around 19. But thinking that I had to check these checkboxes off my "Steps to Adulthood" list, I put off everything else in order to achieve it. I didn't actually achieve adulthood from that path, I just had the trappings and appearance of adulthood. But I was still about 13 years old inside.
I didn't consider myself an adult until the second time I made a judge run out of the courtroom (I declared a de jure court mid-sentencing after serving him notice of that right). The actual reason is less than relevant, but it was the taking control of my potential, and using it responsibly to help someone else, that brought me to adulthood.
I remember 26 yo as a turning point for me and most friends around. Not a total change in personality, but we stopped acting like crazy hooligans. OTOH, almost doubling that age, I still feel a little less naive each year.
There is a mode of adulthood that is dangerous and worth mentioning, which is a kind of hard-hearted acceptance that the world isn't fair, life is full of suffering, and there's nothing you (or anyone) can do about except suck it up and keep going. There's a kind of grim determination to continue despite not wanting to. Maybe it's because you have people depending on you, or maybe it's because you're just very stubborn. To some extent, I associate this mode with the opening scene of "There Will Be Blood" when Daniel Day Lewis' character is injured and spares not a single moment on despair, or self-pity, and gets himself out of a miserable situation, against the odds.
In this mode, there is little time or urge for compassion, or play, or joy. You are a cog in a large machine that values you only and precisely according to your economic function, who's body participates in multiple overlapping patterns of decay, and that's it. Maybe, if you're religious, you can look forward to a happy afterlife (and indeed one can imagine the role of religion in such a person's life is to offer a reason to not act out on the rage that inevitably underlies such an existence).
Almost everyone on HN is lucky to not have to endure this (or at least, for any length of time). And indeed, startups cannot succeed with that grimness. You must maintain your sense of play and joy, I think, to be successful in this space, because this is the most playful and joyful part of the economy! We make stuff that makes people go "ooh" and "ahh", and how can you really do that if you're an adult?
Their model has 5 stages. Stage 1 is 'life sucks' and stage 2 is 'my life sucks'. What you describe fits between those stages. Their ideas about stages beyond that are pretty interesting.
One definition I was fond of and struck by hearing was that you're not an adult when you can take care of yourself but when you can take care of others. We could qualify that all sorts of ways but its short and pithy form makes it stick in the mind well.
Boom... Like being a parent or taking care of parents.
For me it was when I got married. At first it was like cool and then it dawned on me that as head of household, I was responsible for more than just ME!
Once my kids were born, a different type of adulthood settled in. The decisions that I had made earlier in my life about things like moving, finances, and doing stupid things on the weekends with my wife weren't as easy to make or not even possible.
And now as time has passed, I've had to deal with aging parents. I now talk with my mom and dad as an adult and not a child. Our discussions when dealing with serious topics related to health or family now weigh heavier on me. I now carry a sense of responsibility with me that I just can't shake.
For me the moment I entered adulthood was the moment I couldn't shake my responsibilities anymore. I also want to point out that I choose to be responsible. Could I decide tomorrow to be irresponsible? Hell yes, but I choose not to because I have people that depend on me.
One last thing, being an adult does not stop me from doing kid like things. I still play plenty of video games like my favorite Black OPS 3 (many hours have been thrown into that black hole of time) and watch cartoons like Bleach (soap opera for nerds).
Notions of adulthood vary from culture to culture.
In many cultures, after an arbitrary rite of passage, children are considered "adults".
I think, personally, the point at which one becomes an adult is acknowledging the bitter and harsh truth of reality. In some sense, it may be better to remain a child forever, ignorantly blissful.
I believe it's the moment when other people come to you for help, be it money, advice, work, etc. When you're a spigot instead of a bucket. I think that's about the simplest definition possible.
One possible marker of adulthood is achieving a goal after suffering a major setback. For instance, flunking out of college, then transferring elsewhere and obtaining a degree. Or along the same vein, seeing a difficult project through to the end, when everyone has bailed.
Lest I sound too self-congratulatory, one could say I am too dumb to know when to quit.
As someone who considers himself very recently an adult, the quick and dirty and only-half-joking rule of thumb among my peers is whether someone is paying for their own cell phone plan.
Adulthood, maturity, is fundamentally about responsibility. Are you a person who is always seeking the help of others or are you a person who is substantially self-reliant and who others go to for help? That's the dividing line for adulthood.
Notice that this has nothing to do with style, fashion, or entertainment choices. You can drink scotch, smoke cigars, wear suits every day, and drive a luxury automobile, that doesn't make you more mature. And you can chew bubblegum, watch cartoons, play videogames, wear jeans and hoodies, that doesn't make you less mature.
The day I got excited about ordering a new vacuum cleaner.
I can't say I definitively crossed the threshold of adulthood that day, but the kid in me grieved. He was no longer in control... of everything ;) There was now a "grown-up" in charge.
You become an adult at the point you have a significant (meaning, major life impact) responsibility to at least one other person.
That can come from (examples):
1. Becoming a parent (most people)
2. Becoming an employer (who's employees depend on you and the business for their livelyhood)
3. Other examples that you can come up with
At the point that your actions, decisions, the way you present yourself, how you spend money, etc have consequences for more than just you is the point where you really grow up.
When it's all about you, you don't really have responsibilities you just have stuff to do.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 232 ms ] threadEDIT; key sentence below:
> Over the course of his research on this, Jensen Arnett has zeroed in on what he calls “the Big Three” criteria for becoming an adult, the things people rank as what they most need to be a grown-up: taking responsibility for yourself, making independent decisions, and becoming financially independent.
Lot of adults are running away from their responsibilities even though they are financially independent.
Edit: sorry, had not seen the edit when replying.
Some people reach this point early on in their lives, and others very late. Some people only reach it after undergoing a difficult period and still others reach it with very little drama or pain. I didn't personally come to this realization until I hit my "rock bottom". People never stop feeling sorry for you, but eventually, everyone stops trying to help. When it clicked, though, it changed my life. I've never been the same since, and I believe that's because I made the transition from being a child to becoming an adult.
same thing happened here.
The reason I say that is I've know individuals who have taken the first mantra to mean that they hold no responsibilities to other people. That it is, in a reductio ad absurdum, that a driver has no responsibility to stay off the sidewalk and that the onus should lie entirely on the pedestrians to dodge her vehicle.
I couldn't disagree with this any more. I've spent years and years of my life trying to be responsible for other people, trying to make their lives the way I thought they 'should' be -- helping people find jobs, encouraging them to do x/y/z. I'd come into people's lives and it'd be like I walked into an old house: "Let's just fix this here, and that there, and pretty soon you'll be so much better than you were before."
What an utter waste of time for both parties. Turns out I don't know anything about what's best for other people, and hardly what's best for myself. My life has been much less stressful since accepting that. I'll gladly lend a hand to a friend who asks for it -- but the 'responsible for other people' phase of my life is over.
i've joked before that parenting 3+ young kids is really just figuring out how to ensure one doesn't get neglected any more or less than the others or that it's switching from man-to-man to zone defense. either way, you reach a point where the time/energy/money required to give your loved ones what they need no longer comes from "you" (your sleep/hobbies/friends), but has to be taken from what you can give your other loved ones as you are already maxed physically/mentally/financially. it's then not a matter of "doing everything you can" anymore, but trying to do the "right things" that you can, and balancing consequences of which are dropped and hoping you can mitigate in future. sometimes it works, sometimes it hurts.
friends will then joke "and that's why i'm never having kids" or "that's why we're only having one", but it's not "worse", just different.
One or two children will be all I have, I am never going to start a startup, band, or other such long shot waste of time. I only have so much to give, and I ultimately will always put myself first, because when I put myself first, the quality of what I have to give to the people I truly care about and who care about me goes way up. The people who fall short of that all have their own lives that I am not and never will be responsible for. I've learned this the hard way too many times.
Imagine leaving to travel one day, for a year, no contact with anyone. Then imagine who will be excited to see you versus who will be bitter and distant because you left. You don't need the latter.
I am of the view that you should be happy with what time you get with others, because it is a privilege to be thankful for. No one owes you their time, nor do you owe yours to others, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing.
I was livid. I fired off an angry text when he asked me where I was and he chose to argue rather than apologize. In these kinds of situations you have to decide when, why, and how, and whether to cut them off.
I decided that I would use the same rule for him as I do for my lady friends. Always meet somewhere I know and am comfortable with, never somewhere new. That way if they don't show up it's not a total loss. Also never drive anywhere but home, the coffee shop, or my bar right after work. The better and more flexible and more intelligent boundaries you put up, the more and better people you'll bring into your life.
But it takes fearlessness and guts.
Some are suggesting that responsibility for others is implied within a family relationship (spouses, children, elderly parents), but I disagree with this interpretation as it would exclude anyone without those relational ties from being recognized socially as an adult. I'm sure there are orphaned, spouse-less, childless people out there whom we would socially consider adults.
Being given options, or even being made aware that there are options, especially in the case of children, is a gift that can produce amazing outcomes...
How many of us have been given direction, even if unknowingly, by a single sentence uttered by someone trying to "help"? (e.g., "you're really good at organizing things, solving problems, etc...)
Individuals are often not very good at identifying their best, and most marketable, talents...sometimes others can offer perspective...
It's also easy to give a hand because you're stuck in your own life. (not implying that was your case, but the actual act is similar)
You should not live for other people and other people do not have to live for you. For me being an adult is more about that balance.
I don't like your previous comment because it can mislead people into doing something irresponsible even when it doesn't feel good because they think they should only be responsible for themselves and not others.
Example: What is a more desirable situation?
A persons taking responsibility for a child out of a deep feeling that it is good of a person feeling forced into taking care of a child because of cultural pressures? (Arguably) The child of person 2 is better off when someone is found that feels natural responsibility for him/her.
Luckily most parents feel strong responsibility for the well being of their offspring. For those that don't, we have adoption agencies and other methods to help. Generally our society believes it to be more moral that people can give their child away than to force them into a responsibility they don't want (or know they can't handle). So we already believe, even for our own children, that responsibility is yours to take, not something you have by default and needs to be forced upon you. Forced responsibility is not love, it is anti-love, it will lead to sick relationships.
So to come back to the original post: Being adults is about taking responsibility, not about complying to some culture enforce role model that is responsible for others. You can not be forced into taking responsibility (meaning you don't somehow have it) but if you don't take it, you'll end up nowhere (you'll be a homeless person or in jail.)
A certain statement like "You certainly are not responsible for other people.", is misleading and unhelpful because it suggests people who are tempted by relationships outside the home should go ahead and pursue them, even if it means feeling bad for being irresponsible towards your children and family.
Your point is you are being responsible because it makes you feel good, taking these feelings for granted. Yes, nature gives them to us to begin with, but they must also be nurtured. Between the good dog and the evil wolf in all our hearts, the one that wins is the one we feed.
For me that falls under taking responsibility for my own life. If I were to be constantly tempted it would be a signal something is wrong. I'd discuss this with my partner. Perhaps we should break up. The alternative is staying with him/her out of pity. Pity is not love, staying with someone out of pity is worse than leaving them imo. If my partner was constantly tempted but staying with me out of pity it would be the ultimate insult. I want my partner to be with me out of pure self-interest, because I'm the best choice, her favorite human being, her ultimate partner, the best she can get. I don't want to be a compromise.
I think that there is even a case to be made that leaving while you have children is better for them than keeping them in an unhappy marriage. You are certainly not giving a good show of what love is all about.
I do agree about the feeding, you certainly have the power to feed and deprive certain feelings.
Okay!
As a parent consider seeking out activities for your kids that will give them an opportunity to live that experience (ideally in a safe way) so that they will understand what is expected of them.
Now you know what stress is.
Depending on the person, it can be hard to sense how much it is part of your life, but at one point the adult around won't feel as good to support you, they also realize you are 'like them' and should be able to deal with it and they don't have to bear your cross. You also start to empathize a lot more with people and don't feel good whining or asking for help too much as you see that they faced and face the same issue. So the situation level out, or it should.
ps: btw, I really wish society would spend a little more time conveying this information. It has very large implications in you and your loved ones life. I also believe that previous eras and/or societies had a clearer path (rites of passage) whereas right now it feels like an existential free-market where you're too easily able to wander around for too long instead of swallowing the pill.
There comes a time when they are alone in front of the mirror and yet will be unable to act upon it because of circumstances outside their immediate control.
Maybe it's a bit far fetched and is an edge case though.
;).
Seriously though. Often the part of living with depression is keeping up appearances, so that you don't get labeled by friends and relatives as a childish adult. For some reason, many people tend to switch to a condescending attitude then, and this is very much not helping the depressed person.
It's like the debate about praising children for their innate abilities (let's say: intelligence) and behaviour (let's say: trying many times to solve a math problem even if they fail at first): the first approach put them in a fixed mindset while the second ease them into the idea that they can try, blunder and try again and that's what makes them getting better (not an innate ability).
In practice these were often people who suffered from some kind of disability, mental or physical, or were in some kind of minority (gay, ethnic minority, etc.). They had to swallow their pride, they had to stop pretending that they had all their shit together, and they had to learn to give others a break as well.
These friends showed empathy and understanding, while my 'normal' friends, at best, could only produce sympathy (which is still good, but not the same). And in some cases the response was pity, or worse, and thankfully very rarely, condescension.
One of the nice things I've been learning as I'm getting older and as I'm becoming less attached to 'status' and ego, is that I'm realizing how true it is that there's strength in weakness. When I get to know new people, I often force myself to be open about my particular weakness or struggles (without complaint generally), and almost every time this provides an opening for them to share theirs. Regularly, at the end of a long conversation, they'll tell me that they feel unburdened and that they've never or rarely told anyone about their struggles.
And for me, that makes it easier to deal with what I'm dealing with, because it feels like it's not pointless.
(btw, I noticed your username popping up quite often in relation to a comment that is, at the very least, thoughtful and interesting. I just wanted to mention that :))
I noticed something similar about my choice of friends - the people I consider the best as friends, or people in general, are usually those who come from a somewhat broken environment. Not broken enough to seriously damage them, but broken enough that it gave them extra capacity for showing empathy and understanding.
(Ok, with maybe one exception - I used to be friends with a girl who had absolutely perfect, loving family with both parents present, happy and caring. I actually cringe when I think about it, because a family like this seems just... impossible. But it is, and it shaped her to be an extremely positive, caring and empathetic person.)
There's an urban legend / unverified statistic that I hear in my country every now and then - not in media, but from people. It says that about half of the population is actually visiting psychologists, but people are mostly ashamed of telling anyone to avoid being labeled as crazy. My mother also likes to add that "back in communist times, we used to watch Western movies and laugh at Americans for having to spend money on shrinks". Guess what we're all doing right now.
What it teaches me is that everyone is broken in some way. We all have problems, the world is too complex to deal with. Opening up about it instead of trying to boost your ego by laughing at others can let us connect more strongly together, just in the way you described. We're all in this shit together, so why not help each other instead of keeping each other down?
> (btw, I noticed your username popping up quite often in relation to a comment that is, at the very least, thoughtful and interesting. I just wanted to mention that :))
Thanks for the kind words :). I try. I can say for sure that Hacker News has taught me a lot about not just writing insightful things, but thinking insightful thoughts. That's why I love hanging out here :).
I believe labels come and go according to circumstances.
Sounds about right.
(Financial) dependance infantilizes a person. There is a reason why unemployment is depressing even if you have a roof over your head and food to eat.
He had financial independence, status, and a career before he became paralysed.
This means he could pay for his own nursing, and that's exactly why people see him as an adult.
Here's the thing: what people are calling "adult" is nothing other than the traditional definition of "man"
A "man" is a person who is independent, powerful, free, makes his own decisions, pays his own way, has others depend on him, etc.
What's interesting is that you have clearly indicated that, despite being female, you feel like a man! Meanwhile there are many males who do not.
I think it's a very interesting discussion. Too bad my bringing up the housewife/paraplegic angle got me 18 downvotes and counting.
Maybe internally you and I and the other commenters all feel the same about equality but with different vocabulary, but the language and framing used here seems likely to have a divisive effect. Rather than letting all of these downvotes cause discouragement participating, hopefully they can help to converge on a useful, non-divisive approach to actually sharing information instead of sticking to what may come across as inflammatory.
What you're calling "bizarre" is some entry level philosophy of gender, bro.
Thanks again, you really gave me something interesting things to think about.
Since its self determined, someone can be quadriplegic, and feel like an adult; then they'd explain to us why they do.
It's not up to us to determine if they are.
Someone could be in the same situation and feel infantilized by the fact they can't feed themselves, despite being successful in every other aspect of their life. We could try to tell them they're still an adult, but in the end... we can't force the sensation of adulthood on them. No one can.
The person you are responding to was speaking about themselves, in their own feeling as a woman. Perhaps some women would feel utterly different, but that's no reason to take offense. I personally think the original posting of 'being an adult means you are the only person responsible for you' is western-culturally dependent.
In my culture, people will hound you about your behaviors till the end of time so long as you share a last name or a bloodline with them because as far as they are concerned family is responsible for everyone, always. Thus independence has nothing to do with adulthood. Adulthood, is rather the capacity to give more to the family than you take away from it.
But on the other hand, I'm much more inclined to consider that people with psychological issues and resulting dependencies are not always adults. It's purely a feeling, by the way. I can't quite justify it.
I think the crucial part is visibility and understanding. If we can understand the mechanism, or see the disability, it's easier to accept that it's not a choice, and that they do the best they can within their limits. They are as independent as they can be, and really, aren't we all quite dependent in the end? I mean, if society were to collapse I'd probably die pretty quickly as I have no clue how to survive in any kind of 'nature'.
But then, as a disability become less visible, or harder to understand, we have a tendency to not be so lenient.
So at some point on the spectrum we might have Lupus, which (afaik) is understood but not visible. We might sometimes get frustrated at the limitations of someone suffering from this, but we still see them as adults (http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christ...).
Then there's ME, which has for a long time been treated as a psychosomatic issue. It wasn't/isn't well understood and the symptoms appear somewhat randomly and seem to be just 'tiredness'. A family member of mine had this and sometimes I noticed it was difficult for us, the family members, to sympathize and not feel like she was a bit whiny and childish.
And then we have something like depression, personality disorders, or developmental disorders, which very often causes intense frustration, or anger in the surrounding people. I know a few people suffering from ADD, autism, and bipolar disorder, and they get very little sympathy.
You could say that the scenario where the husband holds tight to the purse strings and the woman only goes along with it because of fear or anxiety that the woman is forced to be infantilized. But I would guess this is sub 10% of marriages in the US.
On a separate note, I think a useful framework for looking at this is to think of the couple as one entity with two parts, rather than as two separate entities. If the entity is split, it's definitely true that the one that can't provide for itself is at a disadvantage, so it takes a lot of trust. But that's also why there are divorce settlements that favor women that gave up working at some point.
The few housewives I met later in life were quite infantilized compared to working women I know.
I think maybe that's the disconnect. I don't feel the money I earn "belongs to me". Same for my wife. I don't set my own priorities and budgets. We discuss them.
We're definitely not perfect, and I've definitely bought things that irked her and vice versa. But the joint account means just that. Unless it comes in a birthday card or something, money goes in to a pool. I don't keep a running balance, negative or positive in my head for my contribution.
I think it's not an accident that every person I know that is not making their own money is frustrated because of it. Again it might be just my cultural conditioning, or my personality, not sure.
It certainly avoids that situation in the article where the husband is resentful about an amount spent from joint finances.
Or stay at home house wives can never be adults?
But what you mentioned is interesting. Look at heirs of great fortunes. They either find something productive to do with their lives, or they stay basically children their whole lives and that often means trouble for them (not always though).
My wife certainly has a more independent personality than I do. I put more faith in her ability to recover if I got hit by a bus than I put in my own ability, were the situation reversed. People like her make me believe that there's a difference between "dependent by circumstance" and "dependent by nature", and experience tells me that neither of those are static qualities. Circumstances shift, and someone may grow or regress according to their environment and personality.
I agree that the scenario you're imagining sounds undesirable, but I don't think that's necessarily how one-spouse-stays-home must be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hitc8haEu_g
I don't think this definition fits extended family cultures like you'd see in other parts of the world very well.
My great-grandfather left his home at the age of 12 to work in a coal mine and send money home to his mother. I'd say he was as much an adult as any college grad today.
My wife's grandpa managed a dairy farm. He got sick once when my wife's dad was 10 years old. Her dad milked the cows so her grandpa could rest and get over his illness. He hasn't stopped milking cows twice a day for 50 years. I'd say he was an adult at 10.
My dad was taught to work like a man from an early age, but was also taught to drink to excess. I remember when he got his last DUI. I was about 11 years old. I'd say that was when he finished growing up.
The dividing line between childhood and adulthood for me is a total blur between the ages of 18 and 28.
Hmmm, I wonder if it's possible to come to this realization just by thinking about it, and not having to hit rock bottom.
HMMM
As a child we generally assume everyone "above" us knows what they're talking about. Authority derives from behind the curtain that is defined by a hope that whomever is leading us knows what the hell they're doing. And suddenly, when we realize that they don't - that we're all lost - we can start forming our own vision of the world as we would prefer to see it.
That, along with ownership of the personal responsibility you mentioned, defines the difference between childhood and coming into ones own. I think the two are complimentary and I don't believe either revelation exists without the other.
No doubt, it's different for us all. I've had gobs of insight at a young age for better or worse, but the moment at which I personally started truly feeling like an adult was when my net worth inched past zero and stayed there for longer than six months. This wasn't due to making more money, but rather overall managing life better.
As superficial as that may be - it was clear to me, at that point, that I was actually paying attention to the easy, banal maintenance work most of us know has to be done to ensure a stable life, and eventually, family. And I think that was my motivation - a hope for my own family.
That's when the buck really stops, forget the bills and all the rest.
She did absolutely nothing for herself at all. Ever. For her entire life.
Beyond that, I think as an adult it's a critical moment to realize it's not about what you get from the world, but what you are able to give, and your ability to think about others as much as you think for your self is critical when you have to work and function with any combination of working in the world, relationships, family and kids.
...and I've never felt like an adult. I can have the weird dichotomy of having friends young enough to have missed everything I relate to my childhood, friends that I consider "adult", and yet I still feel like I did when I graduated college.
I have talked with CEOs and VPs or just other coders that are younger than I, yet I "feel" like they are older, more experienced.
I have no idea when I'm really an adult, but I don't expect it will be soon.
You do toggle between different ages, wearing different adult hats depending on situations and people dealt on hands. But everyone's baseline mind is in their late 20s.
At least, that's what I gather from talking to people. :)
Granted, I skipped the part about changes that are surprising, but mentally, we are who we are and that feeling of youth never really left me (nearing 40).
I think that there is only two phases. The day you stop reinventing yourself and exploring possibilities, allow yourself to live in a rut, spend more time in front of a TV than out exploring the constantly changing world, and have nothing to show for the past year's effort but a beer belly, is the day you die. I wonder if that is what was meant by adulthood at one time in the past.
As for feeling "younger" than younger people, well, I've always been sort of an old soul, but I think most people would consider my somewhat childish because I don't think about or talk about my experiences too much. I try to live in the moment and don't feel like I should share some aged wisdom. Life is more interesting and insightful with laughter, IMO.
I look at my 90 grandmother and think 'damn she still sees herself as 19 too'
I don't becoming an adult is really about you, exactly. It's not about your independence, or your actions.
It's about when other people become dependent on you.
I think this is the way that it has long been thought of in cultures outside of the post-Enlightenment West. This was my strong opinion after reading Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, (Russia isn't western like the rest of Europe) and Aquinas, Augustine, and Aristotle. I think that this is in part what the Apostle Paul is saying in 1 Corinithians 13:11 ( http://www.esvbible.org/1+Corinthians+13%3A11/ ), where you'll note that he doesn't say the equivalent of stopping to be like a child meant I had become a man, but rather I became a man, so I stopped being like a child.
I think about soldiers I have met and know. They change when they get to NCO status. I think of the boys I have met from North Omaha, which is arguably one of the worst places in America for young African American males, and that there is a difference between the ones who are the oldest in their families and the ones who are the youngest, even if they are the same age. And I think of my friends, and how we've changed when we've had kids, or when someone started a business and got ( real, not just one of his buddies-while-still-in-high-school ) employees.
Adulthood isn't about you, it's about your relationship to others.
Love it!
Probably it sounds good in our classic books but in reality the only "other people become dependent on you" case is nepotism like in Middle Eastern or Central Asian cultures.
But at least people from these cultures care about their elders and far relatives. Russians do not.
Here's a perfect example of the "responsible" Russian culture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=438sGy9IE58
This video is not fake - I've experienced this kind of alienation (and even hostility) for over 20 years.
And by the way, fwiw as somebody with multiple citizenships, including American and Russian, I prefer the Russian attitude. People can have different opinions. ;)
In this case I just opposed to these statements because I thought he had some utopian views of life there:
> It's about when other people become dependent on you.
> I think this is the way that it has long been thought of in cultures outside of the post-Enlightenment West. This was my strong opinion after reading Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, (Russia isn't western like the rest of Europe)
Nothing in Russian culture is "long been thought" about responsibility. You could say it about Japanese or Korean cultures probably - people kill themselves there because of failed responsibilities.
But in my thinking on this subject, at least, there is a difference between dependency and responsibility that I think maybe doesn't come across the best.
I've encountered many stereotypes on this topic from non-Russian russophiles in the last politically-intensive years - that's why I responded hotheadedly.
The discussion sounds a lot like 'when do you become a man' than it does 'when do you become an adult.'
For instance, most women throughout history were financially dependent on their husband. They would not make independent decisions. They were not solely responsible.
Did that mean they weren't adults?
The 20-30% of women who still become stay at home moms... they can't grow a beard... they are dependent on their husband or parents for money...
They said "I'll never feel like an adult". Emphasis on I'LL and FEEL. Not NOBODY, or EVERYONE, nor IS or BE. I'LL FEEL. Completely personal question, to a completely subjective answer -- yet you came here and contort their response in some misguided attempt to be upset with someone on the Internet so you can feel something.
Come on.
You (and other posters) are the ones being all touchy. I've got 14 downvotes for pointing out the paraplegic/housewife angle.
HN is not too friendly toward basic philosophical inquiries!
Are you sure you feel like an adult, or are you talking about feeling like a man?
This isn't a meaningless distinction, and it also doesn't need to be offensive. Alas, it seems if I want to have public philosophical discussions I should go back to 300 BC.
I'm a guy. For some reason, in my mind, adulthood for guys is defined as having a really great beard.
And for some reason, I can't grow a beard. I get a tiny little patch under my chin, and that's about it.
Because of this, sometimes I feel like I'll never be an adult.
So when we're saying "are you an adult?" I'd like to ask what are we REALLY getting at. An ability to handle X class of situations? An ability to make X levels of abstract reasoning about social processes? There are so many and so variable a set of objective and subjective markers that any sort of broad statement seems useless, at best, deceptive and detracting from the actual markers at worst.
I had a conversation with my father once, something along the lines of, "We really all just get better at pretending, don't we?"
I'm not sure what my "Central point" of this post is, (and it's far from my more rigorously argued ones) so take it as a collection of thoughts on how I've found the most "personal enlightenment" regarding adulthood, as a rather transparent contrived construct; realizing this was (perhaps ironically given my thesis on this) my internal moment of "I have reached adulthood".
I didn't consider making a baby adulthood, or getting a $100k/year job to be adulthood. If anything, I was _less_ responsible for my own actions (ballooning to 360lbs), because I started focusing on the things I _had_ to do, and let my personal development stop due to not having time.
Oddly, I realized and _grasped_ the concept that I had to take responsibility for my actions at around 19. But thinking that I had to check these checkboxes off my "Steps to Adulthood" list, I put off everything else in order to achieve it. I didn't actually achieve adulthood from that path, I just had the trappings and appearance of adulthood. But I was still about 13 years old inside.
I didn't consider myself an adult until the second time I made a judge run out of the courtroom (I declared a de jure court mid-sentencing after serving him notice of that right). The actual reason is less than relevant, but it was the taking control of my potential, and using it responsibly to help someone else, that brought me to adulthood.
What does this mean? Google has no results for that phrase, using any verb tense.
[1] http://www.fmotl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1693
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemen_on_the_land
Looks like you're stuck in the google bubble. It was my first link on DuckDuckGo.
People aren't supposed to go pro se anymore. it's either derided or discredited. I and many others still do.
If you did a little sleuthing on me, you could find out exactly who I am, and what I do when I'm not running a website.
some people stumble on the truth, and keep on jogging. Good luck with that path.
There is a transition when people stop caring for you and you care for yourself but for no one else yet. We call this teens.
Call it what you want, it's not really age dependant. We have simply put words on psychological changes and tied them with age.
Some people become adults at 12 years old. Other at 40. I've met "adults" that are only tall children and children that are short adults.
In this mode, there is little time or urge for compassion, or play, or joy. You are a cog in a large machine that values you only and precisely according to your economic function, who's body participates in multiple overlapping patterns of decay, and that's it. Maybe, if you're religious, you can look forward to a happy afterlife (and indeed one can imagine the role of religion in such a person's life is to offer a reason to not act out on the rage that inevitably underlies such an existence).
Almost everyone on HN is lucky to not have to endure this (or at least, for any length of time). And indeed, startups cannot succeed with that grimness. You must maintain your sense of play and joy, I think, to be successful in this space, because this is the most playful and joyful part of the economy! We make stuff that makes people go "ooh" and "ahh", and how can you really do that if you're an adult?
Their model has 5 stages. Stage 1 is 'life sucks' and stage 2 is 'my life sucks'. What you describe fits between those stages. Their ideas about stages beyond that are pretty interesting.
For me it was when I got married. At first it was like cool and then it dawned on me that as head of household, I was responsible for more than just ME!
Once my kids were born, a different type of adulthood settled in. The decisions that I had made earlier in my life about things like moving, finances, and doing stupid things on the weekends with my wife weren't as easy to make or not even possible.
And now as time has passed, I've had to deal with aging parents. I now talk with my mom and dad as an adult and not a child. Our discussions when dealing with serious topics related to health or family now weigh heavier on me. I now carry a sense of responsibility with me that I just can't shake.
For me the moment I entered adulthood was the moment I couldn't shake my responsibilities anymore. I also want to point out that I choose to be responsible. Could I decide tomorrow to be irresponsible? Hell yes, but I choose not to because I have people that depend on me.
One last thing, being an adult does not stop me from doing kid like things. I still play plenty of video games like my favorite Black OPS 3 (many hours have been thrown into that black hole of time) and watch cartoons like Bleach (soap opera for nerds).
My two cents worth.
In many cultures, after an arbitrary rite of passage, children are considered "adults".
I think, personally, the point at which one becomes an adult is acknowledging the bitter and harsh truth of reality. In some sense, it may be better to remain a child forever, ignorantly blissful.
Notice that this has nothing to do with style, fashion, or entertainment choices. You can drink scotch, smoke cigars, wear suits every day, and drive a luxury automobile, that doesn't make you more mature. And you can chew bubblegum, watch cartoons, play videogames, wear jeans and hoodies, that doesn't make you less mature.
I can't say I definitively crossed the threshold of adulthood that day, but the kid in me grieved. He was no longer in control... of everything ;) There was now a "grown-up" in charge.
That can come from (examples):
1. Becoming a parent (most people) 2. Becoming an employer (who's employees depend on you and the business for their livelyhood) 3. Other examples that you can come up with
At the point that your actions, decisions, the way you present yourself, how you spend money, etc have consequences for more than just you is the point where you really grow up.
When it's all about you, you don't really have responsibilities you just have stuff to do.