h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wouldn't say it has anything to do with your first stop in a pub or buying your first beer, or even getting your license. I think those are all step to help you get to being an adult and a better person. I think it has more to do with a certain level of maturity and responsiblity. Taking responsibility for your action, understanding the world does not revolve around you. Accepting people for thier own opinion and beliefs. Being able to look at yourself and try to make yourself a better person.

When you realise that other people have feelings too, you're on the road to adulthood. Unfortunately, some people never grow up!!

I agree and that also you become an adult when a lot of crap happens all at once and you get through it without reaching for the bottle, gun, or knife or some combination. A drunk is a drunk and sooner or later a suicidal person becomes a corpse....

I personally think that you are an adult when you can be independant. Age or any of the factors mentioned seem irrelevant. If you can look after yourself, which nowadays includes being able to hold a job, having adequate social skills, being able to keep to a budget, etc. You must be able to live alone without needing help to cook, clean, wash clothes et al. When you feel that you can do all of these things, you are an adult. This is not to say that you need to go and live alone, without any help of any kind, but that if it came to it you must be able to stay in reasonable conditions.

I'm in agreement with the gist of each commentator. I think David Gerrold stated it quite clearly when he said "The defining condition of adulthood is responsibility." Responsibility for our actions, our judgement, and our decisions defines us as adults. As a society we are willing to accept juvenile behavior as long as the person isn't harming others or their property, and the person takes responsibility for the concequences of those actions.

Hear, Hear

All of these skills make you responsible for yourself without causing harm to others. But I believe that ultimate maturity comes when you can accept total responsibility for another human being, be it a child or aging parent or other person in need. That is when you realize what humanity is and what life is about.

Well what about all the severely disabled people out there that live in group homes...Just because they need help from "normal" adults to run their houses doesn't mean they aren't adults, right? They are just too disadvantaged to do bills and all that stuff that is so much hard for them...

I agree totaly, but HOW can you become more responsabil for yourself?
We are so full of conditions from society, religion end commerz...,how to get free from this? Love Jaladhi

Responsibility for your actions is the first thing that came to mind when I saw the forum title. And it seems this conversation has that theme. Witty Moniker says taking responsibility for another human being is "when you realize what humanity is and what life is about," the mark of adulthood. I think the key is humanity. When you wake up one morning and realize your needs, your love ones' needs, your state or any other association's needs, are linked to the needs of humanity, *that* is when you are an adult.

*disclaimer*

However, my definition only "works" in the North. Those in the South can have no use for my definition. How can they care about the needs of humanity when they wake each morning to the threat of civil war, famine and disease? I don't have an answer, except that definitions decided in the North, in the "first tier" states, never seem to work in the "second tier." Perhaps we should be asking them to update Webster's Dictionary...

Some of the indicators mentioned already if they had been the case would have been way out there. Drinking and sex for me didn't happen until I was in my twenties but as far as giving advise to others which I still do a lot of today I started doing that and being respected for it when I was only 16 or 17 and so had a level of maturity then that wsa suffivcient to listen, undersatnd and over advise based on my life experiences as they were at the time and have moved to where they are now. To my peers and those around me.

I live in the South - South Africa. Things are different here. The people up above said that adulthood is defined by being able to live alone - not realising what they said. Would they be able to live alone IN THE WILD? Would they know which plant species are edible and which are poisonous? Would they know where to find birds' nests and eggs? Would they know how to kill an animal? Would they know how to make a fire to cook it? Would they be able to make themselves clothes and find shelter? Would they know how to defend themselves against dangerous animals? Would they even know which animals are dangerous?

And what would they do if a war suddenly disrupted all the systems that they are dependent on? Will they be able to leave their homes and families and lead a precarious existence as guerilla bushfighters? Where will they find food and other supplies under such conditions? Will they be able to avoid detection and capture by enemies? Will they be able to survive torture when they are captured? Will they be ready for death when it becomes clear that they are NOT going to survive? If they survive, will they be able to recover and still function adequately afterwards?

I don't think there is any such thing as adulthood. There are lots of different things that, when put together, help a person function in that person's world. But in a different world those things will not allow that person to function. Modern Western society has a particular configuration at this point in time, in within this configuration some people survive better than others. But Western society might change, and then the needed qualities will be different. There is no single set of qualities that will be universally useful. I don't know about adulthood, but what I think is important is that people should be versatile and adaptable. I would stress imagination and creativity, sensitivity and perceptiveness, speed of reasoning, a good memory, as wide a general knowledge base as possible, an attitude of respect and a sense of responsibility towards other living creatures, and an overall optimistic outlook, as desirable qualities for young and old. Adulthood? What is it, and what can I do with it?

That was an excellent post. My definition of adulthood as I saw it was indeed in Western society, say you live in Dublin, have been gifted some job and an apartment, and must go on from there. I think that if you are capable of all I have mentioned, you are an adult according to society's view. But maturity is different, it's about being able make a good argument, with proper backups, it's being able to take the feelings of others into account, and it is about accepting when you are wrong without complaint, only mild regret, and generally, not even that.

Under the circumstances mentioned previously, if you survive you aren't an adult, you're a hero.

IMO being able to survive on your own only helps you to become an adult.

You can live on your own and still not be an adult. Think about Jeffery Damer Charles manson and Bundy to name only a few they all lived on thier own for many years and I don't see them as being adults because they live in a childish fantsies.

They go out and do what they want to whom they want with no regard for others. That IMO makes them childish because they are still very egotistical. A abay or a young child thinks the world revolves around them because they don't know better as they grow they learn the world is not all about them.

I another way of putting it this is also how I would gadge Adulthood and maturirty.


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