Welcome to growing adults

Many years ago I wrote a book called Growing Children and I loved the title for many reasons - mostly as it envisions movement, action and development - I like the "ing" form of words. Now I have started many blogs - all related - and all using the word growing - this one is about adults.

Q: When do we become adults?
A: Who knows?

Whenever I teach LifeSpan Development, I ask this question.

I also ask who decides?

Who gets to define the different "stages" one reads about... When you stop and think about it - you may realize that these labels change over time and the ages included in some of the stages also change.

I like to use the example of "adolescence." It used to be the "teen" years; then it was from puberty to adulthood [hmmm]; now the word is used to describe persons of many varied ages depending on what they are doing or how they are acting....

Part of this ages/stages issue is that we are living much longer than we used to. One of my other favorite other questions to classes is: "How old was Alexander the Great when he was out there conquering the world." He was 20 when he started his first war and he was dead at 32! So most of his life's work was done in his 20's..I am usually saying this to college students who in their 20's are in a classroom and still deciding what their life's work is to be.

So - to get back to the question - when DO we become adults? Is it when we finally decide what we want to be when we grow up? Or is it when we start a "real" job? Or when we take on family responsibilities?

Think about this and we'll continue next time... ciao