And that's because the cut-off is not biological, it's social. If you give people adult responsibilities they act like adults. Except people want to wait till they are already adults to do that, leading to a Catch-22.
You can't act like an adult till you are one, but you won't become one till you act like one.
So the age keeps getting later and later. In my opinion by 15 or 16 people should already be expected to act like adults. And don't tell me about the 15 year olds you know who act like babies - that's simply because that's how they are treated.
>that's simply because that's how they are treated.
Bingo! By forcing kids to go to school through 18 where they make basically NO choices that affect their lives, are taught things that more than half the time the teachers can't even tell them why they need to know them ("for college" isn't a real answer, either) -- all of this treats them like infants.
Even infants manage learn to speak and walk without being "taught" a thing. Forcing kids to go through a lock-step learning regimen just teaches them that their desires aren't important, and they end up rebelling.
If you look at kids from Sudbury schools [1], or kids who have been (competently) "Unschooled" [2], they typically seem to be mature for their age, polite, and reasonably well-spoken. By respecting the kids and giving them freedom at a young age, they act more mature.
See also Paul Graham's essay on "Nerds" [3], where he talks about (among other things) the completely artificial environment that is the broken schooling paradigm in the US, and in much of the world.
>In my opinion by 15 or 16 people should already be expected to act like adults.
If you treat them that way, for real, then they will. But that includes not forcing them into the stupidly artificial and even actively damaging [4].
Someday I want to fix this problem. If I end up involved in a start-up, fixing education -- REALLY fixing it, not just doing "more of the same" and calling that an improvement -- will be at the core.
[2] http://sandradodd.com/unschooling -- briefly, the kids are allowed to learn what they want. This is NOT just "neglect the kids;" it requires active parent involvement.
> And that's because the cut-off is not biological, it's social.
I disagree. There is a wealth of biological evidence to show that a human's brain doesn't finish maturing until (approx.) age 25. By that standard you could make the argument that 25 is when people reach adulthood.
Of course, what we're really talking about here is expectations of responsibility, so even though "by 15 or 16 people should already be expected to act like adults" these young people still have maturing to do.
It's not surprising that in our rich modern society the age of 'adulthood' has risen to 25, especially considering we live so much longer than we used to.
Why is the definition of adulthood "finish maturing"? If anything that should be middle age, i.e. in the middle of adulthood, not the start of it.
By your definition as soon as someone becomes an adult they start degrading in mental ability. The peak of mental ability should match the middle of the productive years.
But in any case the maturity of the brain is not just biologically controlled - it's environmentally controlled. The brain of someone treated like an adult will be more mature than that of someone teated like a child.
The brain responds to stimulus, it doesn't really have a pre-programmed makeup. It has basic abilities, but that ones that are expressed are the ones that it needs/uses.
All fair points, but I never defined adulthood, only disagreed with the parent which stated "the cut-off is not biological, it's social". Of course there are social factors as well as biological. I'm sure I'm not qualified to form such a definition, though if I tried it would have to include many factors.
I, for example, moved out of my parents' house at 18, but I wouldn't say I became an 'adult' until at least my early 30's. Even now I feel like a kid most of the time, in spite of my many responsibilities - even with a kid of my own!
I don't think we ever finish maturing, and I think we never stop learning, even though our 'peak' mental ability may come and go.
There is also a wealth of biological evidence to show that a human's brain and body start deteriorating significantly before age 25; you can pick and choose the evidence that supports the conclusion you want.
In practice, our supposedly rich modern society is becoming mentally unhealthy to a degree that increasingly outweighs the material gains of recent generations; mental illness is common, suicide has become a major cause of death among young people, birthrate has crashed below extinction level. We can fix what we are doing wrong - a large part of which is treating young people like prize animals in gilded cages - or our society can end up in Darwin's bit bucket. We can decide which of these options we prefer, but I don't see the universe giving us the option of "neither".
A valid objection, but is it really meaningful to talk about intelligence of toddlers in the same context as intelligence of other people? I mean, they're still figuring out that they have hands, and that they control them.
> by 15 or 16 people should already be expected to act like adults.
I think that's the age where an apprenticeship should begin. It's time to go back to the old ways and actually give people a real skill for when they do become adults.
And that's because the cut-off is not biological, it's social. If you give people adult responsibilities they act like adults. Except people want to wait till they are already adults to do that, leading to a Catch-22.
You can't act like an adult till you are one, but you won't become one till you act like one.
So the age keeps getting later and later. In my opinion by 15 or 16 people should already be expected to act like adults. And don't tell me about the 15 year olds you know who act like babies - that's simply because that's how they are treated.