To kick-off #adulting week here at Her Campus Durham, I am looking at when it actually is that we become fully fledged adults. For most, university marks an abrupt shift from being spoon-fed at sixth form to suddenly being told you must manage your time and study pretty much single-handedly. This, as well as keeping on top of food shops, washing, and maintaining some form of a social life can feel overwhelming, and, a lot like you’ve been shoved into adulthood. This is often without having any idea how to actually function as an adult, or without any desire to be one.
Is it fair to label every individual as an adult the second they turn 18 or move to university? Can we generalise adulthood to an age or moment in life?
Moving away from home seems a big step towards becoming an adult, and yet the college system in Durham means that most freshers aren’t living very independently at all. Being catered removes the responsibility of cooking and food shopping, and even residents of self-catered colleges have other people to clean their flats and take their bins out. Perhaps this isn’t much of a change from living at home. There is the potential to feel like we are being thrown into the deep end come second year though, and perhaps this is when adulthood should take over. (This is coming from a second year who doesn’t feel like an adult at all!)
But some people are forced to grow up faster than others for various reasons, whether that be the loss of a parent, having to be a carer to a family member, or other personal situations meaning they may have to live alone at a young age. In these cases, some teenagers may have to undertake an adult role. Yet there are others over the age of 18, like me, who struggle to even do their own ironing. Surely it isn’t fair to put young people who have completely different life experiences from one another into the same category of “adult”. A loss of any part of childhood is always deemed as unjust, unfortunate, or as having a lasting impact on an individual. Therefore, why is there a sudden push for adulthood past the age of 18, as though it is something everyone should be automatically ready to accept at this stage of life?
It’s difficult to define adulthood. Maybe it’s having a definite career path, getting married or having children. Yet, although these are perhaps stereotypical processes of adulthood, in reality many people have no desire at all for stability such as marriage or motherhood, but can still claim to be an adult. I have nothing in terms of a plan for the future, career-wise, and I can’t see myself being married and having children even within the next 10 years. I think it would be unfair to see this as immaturity, and I think one can be on a path to adulthood without even considering any of these factors. But at the same time I should only have to choose to accept adulthood once I have fully established who I want to be as an adult.
Perhaps no one ever really feels old, or their age. It is easy to seek role models and to look to people who seem fully together or are mature adults, without knowing whether this is truly how they perceive themselves. Adulthood cannot be predicted, and you have no awareness of how you will feel at a certain age until you have reached it. Not everyone you perceive as being an adult is mature, stable or wise, and everyone’s perceptions of being “grown-up” differ. Perhaps life experience is a more important measure of maturity than any biological factors, and maybe defining adulthood is just feeding an obsession with categorisation.
Essentially, being an adult should be up to individual feeling, and when you are ready to accept it yourself. No one should have to accept who they are as reflective of their age alone, and labels imposed by others shouldn’t affect how mature or independent you feel within yourself.
Image Credits:
https://unsplash.com/photos/pI0iZY5BURs
https://pixabay.com/en/laptop-coffee-arm-man-plant-1205256/
https://pixabay.com/en/pink-wine-champagne-celebration-1964458/
https://pixabay.com/en/sunflower-sun-summer-yellow-nature-1127174/