serious question - when did you become a man?

[Fuuma]

Maybe you're an adult when you internalize the fact that you're going to die someday? That would make most people children and adulthood fraught with peril.

 

[ysc]

I feel like I was pretty competent and had my stuff together during the final couple of years of school and during my gap year. During my sixth form I taught sailing, set up and ran a debating society, produced a play with no support from the teachers and was responsible for organising weekend activities for around fifty navy cadets, including safety etc. During my gap year I earned money and travelled all over the place dealing with a vast number of different people and situations.

Since then, at university, I have become considerably less disciplined, I certainly could support myself financially, although I am not likely to for a bit. I am far less responsible and apart from very recently I haven't organised anything or helped organise others, can barely organise myself at the moment. I swear university has made me more childlike.

I answered not yet because I seem to be devolving, it may be that when I graduate and have to deal with real stuff again in a couple of months time that changes.

 

[Jekyll]

I haven't, as you noted. Honestly...I don't think I'll be able to consider myself an "adult" until I'm at least in my mid-twenties. EDIT: If this is just about self-sufficiency, I'd like to think I'd be pretty much self-sufficient in two to three years. I tend to think adulthood is more about being "serious", "responsible" and "respectable." I don't know if I'll ever be those things. I read a book a few years ago (can't remember the name now) about how the age when people become adults is rising. I've read stuff that says that the ideas of "childhood" and "adolescence" are relatively recent concepts, beginning in the Industrial Revolution, IIRC. It may just be that due to technology we are undergoing another societal shift. The other thing to consider is that the average life span is increasing also. Offtopic, but...regarding the safety thing...I don't know. Most people disagree with me, but I find it difficult to believe that traveling across the country is that much more dangerous now than it was 70 years ago. I just think we're a lot more paranoid (or pussified) as a culture now. I could be wrong, but I think a lot of it has to do with the rise of mass media and the internet. For one thing, the media intentionally exaggerate dangers to drive up their ratings. But beyond that, I've done some reading that indicates that the part of our brains that assesses risks and makes us afraid isn't capable of differentiating between something scary that we see on tv news that happened in our neighborhood that's actually a threat, and something that happens on the other side of the country, or even in a completely fictional movie. And I'd like to think that I'm at least slightly more capable than your 7 year old.

Originally Posted by wmmk

FWIW, I'm 15.
Christ, you're tall for your age.

 

[robertorex]

I still feel more like a dumb kid than a man, and I'm 21.

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't really feel there's a necessary transition from childhood into some state of adulthood where by definition you know how the world works and how to get around. There's still so much I don't know and there's so much I will never know. I think as far as feeling small and dwarfed by the scope of everything there is in the world, I don't think I'll ever be able to escape that feeling. In some sense, we're all still kids, and we're all still learning new things all the time, and there's always someone who knows something better than we do. As much as we can choose our own paths, I don't like to presume that the world is divided into boys and men, children and adults, knows and know-nots. We shouldn't look up to people simply because they're "men" and we're "boys", and neither should we talk down to people because they're "boys" and we presume ourselves "men". Everyone has something to teach us.

What a ramble. I hope you guys get the idea.

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by gdl203

When I lived on my own half-way around the globe for a rather long period of time.

that sort of brings us to Vito's answer - and it ties in with my concept of self reliance.

I think about Connie (no offense meant) and figure he would die in a few minutes if somebody wasn't taking care of him. and that seems to be a marker of a boy. the more you can deal with your problems without having somebody take care of you, the more of an adult you are.

 

[Fuuma]

It's also interesting to consider that manhood, adulthood, independence and the attribution of these caracteristics are rather important topics for Globe and they aren't, for example, areas that I care that much about. I tend to flatten age distinctions and define the world in terms of other areas.

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

It's also interesting to consider that manhood, adulthood, independence and the attribution of these caracteristics are rather important topics for Globe and they aren't, for example, areas that I care that much about. I tend to flatten age distinctions and define the world in terms of other areas.

you're right. I guess it is a very "personal cultural" thing. both of my parents left home before they were 10, for different reasons but both related to the great depression. I was raised on those stories. in my family, it wasn't unreasonable that you should be able to work before you were in high school. and I take perverse pride in my own background in relation to that.

on top of that, I have kids to raise. if you asked me what the 5 most important questions in my life are right now, one of them would be how to make my kids tough, without subjecting them to the unpleasentries of my growing up. its something that I think about alot.

 

[gdl203]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

that sort of brings us to Vito's answer - and it ties in with my concept of self reliance.
I think that's only part of the answer for me (and maybe not the biggest part). The feeling of absolute freedom that comes with a sudden detachment from home and family is something that can be a little overwhelming, especially in a foreign land where you don't know anyone or even speak the language, but puts one squarely in charge and in control of oneself. This strange feeling that I was (a) working to pay for my room and food, and (b) that I could just do anything, anything I wanted - that's the combination that created a clear break in my mind. There will always be before and after that time in my mind.

 

[robertorex]

In american culture I feel that manhood is defined by independence, being able to break free and blaze your own trail, carry your own weight, etc... whereas in asian culture a lot of manhood is defined as being able to support dependents, endure hardship for the sake of a cause greater than yourself... concepts of masculinity are really very divergent. I'm actually writing a research paper related to this right now.

 

[Piobaire]

I put 16. My father had been dead seven years, and it was the year I bought our family a car, paid rent at home while finishing high school, and generally was the major bread winner for my mother and little sister.

Was I an adult? Looking back, I certainly lacked mature insights, however I lived up to more responsibility than many 30 year olds.

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

It's also interesting to consider that manhood, adulthood, independence and the attribution of these caracteristics are rather important topics for Globe and they aren't, for example, areas that I care that much about. I tend to flatten age distinctions and define the world in terms of other areas.

What characteristics do you feel define adulthood?

 

[JustinW]

I met many of the material benchmarks that others have listed at an early age. However, I don't think I started to think of myself as an adult until I was 19 or 20. Before that I sorta saw myself as a kid playing at being an independent grown-up.

 

[hopkins_student]

I became a man the first time I took off a piece of someone's skull and sucked a bloodclot out of their head.

 

[gdl203]

Originally Posted by hopkins_student

I became a man the first time I took off a piece of someone's skull and sucked a bloodclot out of their head.

 

[JustinW]

^