to think you lot need to make your mind up

[2shoes]

on one thread a 16yr old is called an adult and should know better.
in another a 24 yr old woman is called young and a "child"
confused of 2shoes kingdom here.

but it is different people making the comments is it not?

I don't think a 24 year old is a child.

I think that part of the fuck ups in society are due to our mad attitudes to age.

At 5 little girls are dressed as 'My 'lil hooker' and over sexualised. We are not prepared to let children be children.

Perversely, we then prevent older adolescents from actually being allowed to grow up, and endless stupid excuses are made for behavior that they really should have grown out of.

So our children are prevented from playing and are made to grow up too soon, but then their parents will not let them take responsibility for their actions. God forbid that a teacher corrects the behaviour of a hulking 6 foot 16 year old, because they are 'Only children'

Hear hear Martian. For the record, I was 6 months' pregnant at 24 (actually had the baby at 25, but still). 24 is most definitely not a child. It is adulthood practically at its most energetic.

A 24 year old is still quite young IMO, but certainly not a child.

A 16 year old is, but I think even a child should be told to behave properly, as long as it is done with decency and not menace.

(I had to tell a girl of around 16 to stop swearing in the queue in Primark on saturday.)

I'm 33 and I don't feel like a grown up. I should NOT be held responsible for my inability to do some bleeding washing today. It is my mother's fault. She should have brought me up proper.

it depends on the person

My brother is 42 and my 15 year old son is much more grown up than him.
I think some adults can maintain a child like attitude/mindset/maturity level into their twenties.

I have no prolem with aults still being lively , having fun, being excited about life in a child like way.

I just find the endless excuses made for people 'They are only X years old' rather annoying and people who expect allowances to be made for their poor, antisocilal behavior, on the grounds of their age, rather pathetic.

So great to go out and have a fun night out. Pathetic to vomit all over someone's door step and be excused because 'We were only having a larf'

imo an immature tw@t is more tw@t than immature

vomiting on someone's doorstep, getting so pissed you vandalise things and have no recollection of it later are just signs of being a tw@t, not being young.

I agree totally with Martianbishop.

I'm 24 now and expecting my first any day now. My mother's friends often ask if she's bothered that I'm so young to be married and expecting, but she points out that all of her generation were married and having children by 25. There are some people of 24 who are very immature, but there are 60 year olds who are also very immature.

When I was 16, I was certainly old enough to take responsibility for my actions.

I think there is some leeway with teenagers, as they are still developing (esp re: brain growth and all that) so could be said to be immature. But once you hit your 20s you are a grown-up. Sorry about that

Whose mind do I have to make up? Mine or the other Mumsnetters?

I have always held that you are grown up from the age of 18, and that therefore it is a parent's job to gradually release the reins, so that their offspring is prepared by the time they reach their 18th birthday. This is the way my parents did it, it's the way their parents did it, and already I am beginning to change the way I speak to my 11yo, to make room for the idea that I expect her to eventually be growing into more of a (responsible!) equal.

By the time I was 18 I was living away from home, looking after my own finances and responsible for my own future. I enjoyed it and was grateful to my parents because they let it happen naturally without my having to force a break.

sotty got caught up in rl. I did this thread after reading 2 threads on after the other where age was thought of so differently.
imo nowadays 16 is very much a child, a most 16yr olds are still in education. they just seem lots younger in behaviour than they were when I was 16(my db says this so it must be true)
but once you reach your late teens and 20 you must be grown up.
(it is kind of like the media where they will call some one in their 20's a girl.)