Is 16 and adult or a child?

[CalleighDoodle]

Not a thread about a thread. Actually a thread about two threads so technically...

Ive read today very different responses to questions about people the same age. Similar issues (sexual relationships). different sexes.

How can a female at 16 be called an adult who should be allowed to do what she wants, despite that behaviour being very risky, yet a male at 16 is a child who shouldnt date one person 6/7 years older?

I know a number of late-teen women who married men at least 10 years older than them. Is that ok because they are a more adulty adult that a 16 year old woman, and much more of an adult of a 16 year old 'boy'?

Aibu here or is the sexism on a women's forum towards women really quite unbelievable?

I'd like to think that any parent would want to guide their DC if they were engaged in risky behaviour? Whether the DC was 6 or 26?

16 is a young adult. Totally weird to call someone who can get married, join the army, have an NI number, work, buy premium bonds, have a baby, leave home, and join a trade union a child. So not a child!

If your 16yo is not ready or equipped to do any of the above, that doesn't mean they're not perfectly entitled to if they wish.

Legally a child. Morally a child. Emotionally a child.
Sometimes physically and socially an adult. Sometimes not so much.

Can't get married or join the army without the permission of the parent.

A girl could probably have a baby at 12, doesn't make it a good idea does it.

Being legally allowed to have sex, join the army or marry does not make anyone an adult.

It just means that it is legally permissable to have sex as a child, marry as a child bride or join the army as a child soldier .

If they are living at home they are children (and subject to be treated as such)

GummyBunting-- a 16 year old can't do all of those things in England. Not without parental consent.

And having a baby shouldn't really come into it. I can google dozens of 10 year olds who have delivered healthy babies across the world, and who certainly wouldn't be classed as adults.

I think it really depends on the person. I was very mature at the age of 16, as were lots of people I know who were all responsible and sensible at that age. But I think we were the exceptions rather than the rule and there are a lot who aren't. I also know teens with children who are still very immature so being a parent isn't necessarily a guarentee of maturity.

I haven't read the thread about the 16yr old sharing pictures of herself but I would advise caution to her in that case as 16yr olds are legally still children and anyone found to be sharing nude pictures etc even of themselves can be charged with distributing child pornography

On the age of consent theme - many countries have a kind of sliding scale on ages of consent - so I think (but am not sure as I didn't grow up here) that here in Germany the age of consent is technically 14 but the 28 year old footballer would still have gone to jail because 14 yos can only consent to sex with other people roughly similar in age (could look up the exact age brackets - under 17 maybe)... The same for the 16-18 age range, it could technically still be punishable by law for a 28 year old (say) to have apparently consentual sex with them if the judge ruled that they had used the unequal power balance to persuade a 16/17 year old to consent to sex....

I think its a complicated age bracket, between 16 and 18, and not clearly child or adult - it will depend from case to case, from person to person, from situation to situation...

"I know a number of late-teen women who married men at least 10 years older than them. Is that ok because they are a more adulty adult that a 16 year old woman, and much more of an adult of a 16 year old 'boy'?"

I would do absolutely anything I could to stop a 16 year old of mine of either sex having a relationship with anyone 10 years older than them. Hell, 5 years older than them.......

Where does the sexism come in?

16 is a child , it makes me irrationally angry when people say otherwise. It makes me seriously doubt that their own dc are 16 or older x

Trick age legally. For instance locally treated in adult hospital and expected to sign own consent and not have a parent necessarily present at. If consultant chats even when significantly I'll ( friends dc need surgery for crohns).

Ss the "owner" of a 16yr old I'd say definitely a child -and she is very mature and articulate too.

I class them and classed my DDs as young adults, still needing guidance, but free to start to become their own person and in some cases that will include having completely different sex lives than their parents did, especially young women.

In the second instance, there are very few 17 year old young men that could sustain a relationship, unless bought up in a certain culture. Quite honestly, do you think that she's actually fell in love with him, to the extent that she couldn't see sense?

I was running my own home at 17, but in hindsight, I shouldn't have been, I should have been able to study and enjoy that time.

I think the same of the Mums I have met, living in Mum and Baby Units etc.

My DD met her BF at 17, he was 23, she was very mature and they started off dating, she wouldn't have considered it, if he'd had a child. At 19, she got pregnant, unlike a pp, I wasn't unhappy about that. Me and my eldest DD still see her as needing guidance, which she asks for, but we wouldn't try to tell her what to do.

Previous generations may have looked as though they had independence, because they worked etc, but the family and the Church, interfered, very often until the couple were 30+.

Young adult I would say.

The difficulty in the UK is that there is no status separating being a child and being an adult. So one day you're a child, the next an adult, with all that it entails. There's an interesting an effective solution to that in Germany: children (Kinder) are up to 14, then 14 to 18 are young people (Jugendliche), then adults at 18. Both children and young people are still minors (they can't sign contracts, for example), but young people do have more rights and responsibilities than children. It's a legal recognition than people from 14 to 18 are in a very different position from pre-teens, and I think it prepares them much better for adulthood.

The correct answer is it all depends on the person there are lots of very together 16 year olds who I would happily consider adults and my two SD's who frankly struggle to tie their own shoe laces or remember their address:-(

I didn't say doing one or all of the above would make you an adult, just that it feels weird to class them as a child.

They're certainly a step up from a child. A young adult at the least.

Definitely a child. I work as a secondary school teacher and have met hundreds of 16 year olds. Even the most mature ones are still children. The maturity is largely a front and underneath they are still very young. I'd say the same about 18 year olds as well. They aren't children in the way ten year olds are, but they aren't quite adults either. I would say adulthood begins properly about 22ish.

16 and 17 is a weird in between stage. Not a girl not yet a woman to quote Britney . They're neither. They're capable of working, getting a house at a push, having sex and deemed responsible enough to potentially win millions on the lottery. Yet 18 is the beginning of true adulthood. I personally don't think you're mature or responsible until you're at least 21 and even that's at a push for some, especially males.

I would weigh it on a case by case basis. When I was 16 I was living in a bedsit and working. I know 16 year olds now who are more sophisticated and street smart than others. Some are still children, some are young adults. It's not black and white.

Also from a services POV, a 16-18 year old is considered vulnerable, so would be housed, 'looked after'. The LA has a Duty of Care towards them.

The Children's Act was amended to include that age group.

The Rights of the Child thingy apply up to 18. Obviously some -6 year olds can be very mature, but the vast majority are children with the level of responsibility appropriate to being a child.
I think anyone ten years older than a teenager should not be dating the teenager, of either sex. Ten years at this age is a vast difference of life experience compared to say a 25 and a 35 year old.

Mind you I disagree that 18 isn't an adult - I remember going to the USA with my parents at age 20 after living (a long way) away from the parental home for two and a half years (only ever going back for 3 or 4 night visits a few times a year, not long university holidays) and feeling humiliatingly infantilized by the US system of defining a 20 year old woman as effectively a child! Maybe when my eldest gets closer to 18 I'll change my mind, but I hope not - I hope I'm raising my kids to be capable, independent, resourceful, strong young adults in a few years time, those are my aims almost above everything else (apart from happiness and health of course) but I guess time will tell!

I would say an adult - the age of legal capacity in Scotland is 16 meaning they can enter into any transaction they want.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1991/50/section/1

16, not 6 obviously