Which point in your life did you feel you became an adult?

I am 20 and I do not feel like I am an adult by any means, but legally I am.

Hmm, i don’t remember when it was but somewhere when I started paying all my bills, picking all the groceries that I wanted, and doing what I wanted at my apartment without worrying about doing something wrong.

When I got my birthday badge that said I was.

I think when you transition from doing what you want to doing what’s right. My father is still a kid in my eyes – he sees nothing wrong with betraying a romantic partner if he can get away with it; he still eats sweet, greasy, salty food even though he’s half blind from diabetes, gets taken to the ER about 4 or 5 times per year, and has a day-to-day average blood pressure level that is described as “usually fatal within 3 to 6 months” – simply because he can’t grow the fuck up and eat right. Having the foresight to do what’s right even tho it’s not what you might want to do, and then actually doing it = adulthood in my eyes. I guess being old enough to vote has something to do with it too, sort of

@FutureMemory : You said it all in the first sentence…One day I finally heard the still, small voice ( in jail, 3 am) that said “I gotta stop this, and get real”..It took many years, and a lot of missed opportunities, to get to that point (the bottom). When I started the climb up, I was a whole new man. Its about inherently knowing whats right, and owning responsibility for your actions.

31 years old. I’ll let you know when it happens.

This sums it up nicely

I’m hoping for 65. By then I should have finished college and started working.

I’m still very much a child.
Paying bills, my own tuition, and having a job is starting to change that.

Well, I had my first job at 15 and started paying my bills when I was 17 but at 19 I got in super serious serious serious trouble….

Great question, especially around the holidays. No one ever prepares you for the fact that the “magic” of Christmas is not for the adults…

Really sets you up for unexpected disappointment.

When I started dating a woman who had a child. Suddenly, I am the male role model.

Probably just within the year, I’ve felt very adult and responsible. At 28, I finally earned an educational certificate, started getting my crap together, am seeing my little boy learn and grow brilliantly with my help and influence, and I feel content in my marriage and in my general place in the world. I still wouldn’t say I’m grown up; I still have my immaturities. But I know where I want to go and how I want to get there, and I’m satisfied if it doesn’t work exactly as planned.

Well, I’m 14 and I am constantly switching roles from having the mentality of a 6 year old kid to an adult. It really depends on the situation I guess.

Depends on the childhood you had. You can be 17 and if you had some problems with your parents or you colleagues, then you certainly become adult earlier, but if you didn’t have problems in your family you can be a child at even 40.

When I left home for basic training in the Army in 1986, that was my first time on my own and that was a point in my life where I really matured and learned self-discipline and grew up very fast in a short amount of time. It was something I needed and I’ll always be grateful for it.

Additionally, since life is a continual learning process, I’ll probably keep maturing all through my adult life up until the time I die.

a few weeks ago. im 26, soon 27, i no longer feel like a teenager and feel like a 30 year old.

When I realized that the weight of the world is entirely on my shoulders.

Hmmmmm, don’t know if I have realized that yet.

I’m 21, and sometimes I feel like an adult, and other I don’t. I agree with what many people have said, that I feel like adult when paying rent and bills and grocery shopping and cooking. However, my parents still pay for everything. I imagine I will experience some changes next year when I’m paying for everything on my own.

There have been specific events that made me feel grown up. For example getting from Boston to Dublin to Madrid to Seville on various forms of transportation without real adult help was one of them. I also felt like an adult when I lectured my housemates about storm windows and pipes freezing.

Well, now that I’m a self-described “sexy bubby,” I’d better start acting my age.

My old boss told me that you know you are grown up when you spend more on presents for your parents at Christmas, then they do on you.

Some time during my 30’s I began to feel like an adult. I began to feel more sure of myself, sure of what I wanted from life, and more able to define what makes me, me. Also, people under 25 began to look VERY young to me, so I got the feeling I was no longer young anymore.

Within a month of moving out of my parent’s house and into my own apartment. I was only 18 but had to grow up quickly. Paying bills, working full time, and trying to keep a roof over your head will usually send you into “adult mode” pretty fast.

@ItalianPrincess1217 Eh. I don’t know that I necessarily agree with that. I’ve had a full time job for 8 years, haven’t lived with my parents for 12, been paying my own bills/rent/insurrence/etc since college graduation 8 years ago. Still don’t feel particularly grown-up most of the time.

Personally, I theorize that it won’t really happen until I’m responsible for someone other than myself. If/When I get married and/or have a child. Until then, I’m just doing what I want when I want, within the constraints of financial requirements forcing me to actually go to work every morning. Doesn’t feel quite the same.

@MrItty I didn’t mean to make such a generalized statement. I don’t think everyone matures as soon as they live on their own. That’s just when I personally did. But it’s different for every individual.

It was about when I turned thirty and I realized I had a different perspective on life. In my mind, I called it “becoming a person,” but I suppose it could also be becoming an adult.

It was a sense of being able to handle problems—any problem that I faced—on my own. It was a sense of confidence in myself and my abilities—at least on a day-to-day living level. It was the realization that I would never again need any help from my parents, which is interesting, since it came about ten years after the time at which I realized my parents would not be there if I really needed them.

They had assisted me in between, but it wasn’t because I desperately need the help. Still, I think of them as fair weather parents. If I’m doing fine, they are around, but if not, they are nowhere to be seen.

Of course, when I had children, I began to see adulthood in a completely different light. It wasn’t so much that I now was responsible for someone else—although that was certainly true, but that I began to understand what it was like to care for a child. I felt like I was having experiences that tied me to the vast majority of humanity. We had all gone through this and it was something that united us.

When I became a parent, I felt prepared. All my life, I had been leery of children, but that was because I thought my parenting ideas would be considered inappropriate by others. I don’t believe in innocence. When I had my own child, I could now parent as I saw fit, and no one would be able to say otherwise. So I gained a new adult-like confidence.

I guess it was like two different adult stages—adult I and adult II. I think it’s about your relationship to the world, and the depth of your ability to handle what happens.

College. All four years of it were a growing experience that ended in an adult. I realized it a month ago. But during the course of those 4 years, I developed a personality, I developed rationalized opinions, I learned how to live on my own, I semi-learned how to juggle 2 jobs and school, and I learned how to handle social interaction. I’m still not great at social interaction, but I’ve learned to identify when a “friend” is causing me too much pain and what to do about it.

I still have my childhood love of batman, legos, and those silly things, but I am a person now and know how to stay alive. So, age 22.

EDIT: This may change over the next 10–20 years but for now I realize I’ve gone through a giant growth process and I feel like an adult, whereas I never did prior to last year.

Two years ago I became “single” for the first time in my adult life and it’s been one adjustment after another. I realized I’d been taken care of emotionally for a long, long time by different people and hadn’t ever had to face insecurity, isolation, uncertainty, or much of anything on my own. It’s not been all that exciting but I’m still hanging in there, nothing’s come crashing down on my head too badly and I’ve learned to face and feel out loneliness to where it doesn’t scare me much now.