Adulthood? Smells more like Youth-hood

Mencius – “The great man is he whom does not lose his child’s heart.”

What is the criteria for Adulthood? At a closer glance, it ends up looking more like Criteria for Perpetual Youth!

So let's lay the groundwork. WHAT DOES make you an adult??!!! We may consider ourselves as much of an adult as we consider ourselves a teen or even a toddler. I think the same is true for the rest of the world and all the people in it -- we're as much adults as we are kids and teens.

WHAT DOES make us an adult? Maybe it has to do with degrees we've earned, vocabulary used, emotional experiences, writings published, hardships endured, travel experienced, finances managed, and technological comprehension. Let's see...

On being an adult...
Degrees, only adults can get a college degree, right? Yeah We've graduated college and gotten a degree, but some highly-accelerated students have completed college by the age of 12!

Okay...words. After all, Ga-ga-goo-ga is very different from the alternative articulation of an "adult vocabulary". Yeah we use an expanded and very advanced, large vocabulary, but, again, young teenagers can have large vocabularies.

Does it have to dow with emotional relationships? Intimacy? Maybe it's sex that makes you an adult? Yes, we've done some "adult emotional " things like had sex before and felt love before, but there are some 16 year-olds who (out of poor life choices) who are actually parents, so sex doesn't make you an adult, and we've had "first loves" in elementary school, so that's not a definitive criteria either!

Maybe it has to do with all those "adult" papers we've written. After all, a kid couldn't write the stuff we've written! Yes, we've written a lot. I've written 5 e-published books, but there are a lot of very young authors out there. The book thing gives a little more clout to being an adult, but there are again, young teens who have written and published books.

Hardships. It's gotta be hardships. Only adults can fathom true hardships. Many people think of hardships, and life experiences, as essentials for adulthood, and we've done those, too. I've had police called on me about 7 times. I've lived without a bed for years, sleeping in tents in the jungle. I've dealt with conflict and authority on boats, in classrooms, and in bureaucracies before. But, hey, a fervent and highly stalwart and impassioned toddler could have those experiences, so life experiences and hardships don't make you and adult, either....

Hhhhmmm...finances? Yes, we all have bank accounts. We have a bank account and pay rent, loans, and expenses; we've filed tax reports and have done "adult financial things", but it's just a highly-advanced form of a "budgeting milk money" where, instead of a piggy bank, we have an electronic checking "piggy bank" so financial literacy and money management doesn't make you an adult...Earning money is just an expansion on the lemonade stand you set up for $0.50 a glass when you were 9....

I've got it. It's technology! That's ONLY adult stuff! We are all very savvy with technology. I've learned a lot about technology, math, and computer science, and have made dozens of websites, but there are some computer prodigies out there who have done WAY more than that and have a MUCH greater understanding of technological and mathematical science than me, so technological and science-based proficiency doesn't make you an adult either...

Travel! Yes! That's it! Babies who can't even crawl don't travel! We've had our fair share if itinerancy. I've done a lot of travel to dozens and dozens of countries around the world, some of you have likely traveled much more, but some kid who has a REALLY itinerant family has done as much travel or more. After seeing and learning about the "lost boys" from Sudan, you can eliminate "traveling" as a prerequisite for adulthood because they had to travel thousands of miles just for survival....

Regardless of degrees, vocabulary, emotional experiences, writings, hardships, travel, finances, and technological comprehension, I find it comforting to know that we -- at 8 or 18 or 88 or 108 -- are ALL alive and still very much kids and teens.

Bottom-line: What do YOU think makes someone an adult or what are the qualities that perpetuate youth?

Einstein – “The purpose of education is to channel the childlike sense of exploration and the lack of fear of failure to an area of academia.”