@MissLucyEyelesbarrow
I'm 44 and not sure about adulting still , so how an 18 year old is meant to cope is beyond me
Well that's kind of the point. We don't hit 26 and - Bing! - our frontal lobes are matured and that's adulthood achieved. We learn throughout our lives; our brains are incredibly plastic and continue to develop. A 44 year old is more cognitively mature than a 26 year old, who is more mature than an 18 year old. That doesn't mean that an 18 year old is not an adult.
Throughout history, adults under 26 have been the mainstay of much of society. They have raised families - a woman who had her first baby over 25 was considered an elderly primigravida, right into the late 20th century. They won WW2. Most great art was created by people under 30.
It is infantilising and disempowering to tell young adults they are not fully adult.
This. SO many people are different.
I know a 27 y.o. woman who has a good job with the civil service, (very flexible and well paid,) and she also has a wonderful youtube channel, with 300,000 subscribers, and has recently been to several events where she has met a number of famous people. She is buying a house with her boyfriend, and has a new car and is loving life. She went to uni, and has travelled abroad extensively, sometimes alone.
I also know a 22 y.o. who has a 3 y.o. and a 1 y.o. and who got married at 18, and had her first baby at 19. She and her husband have a home too, and she is the most natural mother who adores her kids, and looks after her family, cooks and bakes every day, looks after the home, and looks after her elderly nan (who lives 5 doors away,) doing shopping and housework for her. She has never left her town apart from a few Welsh day trips.
No way in HELL would the 27 y.o. have EVER have been able to cope with a baby at 19, and 2 babies by 22. OR looking after an elderly relative, OR never leaving her home town except for a few day trips to West and North Wales. If she was left with a baby to look after, she'd have a breakdown.
People are different. People mature at different levels. The 27 y.o. is very bright, uni educated, well travelled, and has a successful career, and a budding career in media and the arts, but would have a breakdown if she had to cope with a baby, because in some ways she is immature, and like a teenager.
But the young mum would not be able to cope with travelling around the world alone, and the stress of maintaining a youtube channel with 300,000 subscribers, and the hectic social life the 27 y.o has. Nor would she be able to do the civil service job the 27 y.o. does.