Comment on Does anyone feel like an actual adult?
pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe 7 months agoYou’re perfectly fine. Really right now you’re a young adult and your older peers are just calling you a kid because they’re at a different stage of life development than you and so don’t relate to you anymore, hence they treat anyone outside of their little clique with derision to enforce their unwarranted sense of superiority. In short, if they’re being mean about it, they’re ageist bigots; remind them they will never have the youthful beauty, potential and opportunities you have when they do it and watch them fume.
5too@lemmy.world 7 months ago
As a 41 year old, when I call someone in their early-mid 20s a kid, there’s no derision intended. Think about how you relate to someone who’s 12 or 16 when you’re 20 or so - they might be quite capable, even fun to hang out with; but their life experiences also give them a clearly different outlook. And, like as not, you feel a little more interest in making sure they’re getting along all right (at least I do!)
As you age, that doesn’t really change - but the “target age” where that comes into play follows you up! So at 26, you feel that way about people just coming into high school; at 30-35, about people getting out of college and starting their careers. My oldest kid is 6; and I feel this way now about most of the parents of my kids’ classmates!
It can turn into something condescending, depending on the person; but I think it’s usually more of a statement that “I remember being where you were.”