What Is an Adult?
How do you know when a person is an adult? Does the person's age tell you? Or is an adult a person who takes on responsibility for work and family? There are different ways to define an adult.
Age
One way to define an adult is by age, but countries have very different ideas about the legal age of an adult. In China, men can marry at age 22 and women at age 20. However, in Bolivia, the legal ages are 16 for men and 14 for women, with their parents' permission.
In Brazil, a 16-year-old can vote, but in most African nations, people get this right at age 21. The legal driving age in Ethiopia is 14, and in Russia it is 18. The legal age of an adult is different around the world.
Body
Another way to define an adult is by the person's body. An adult is a person who is grown and can have children. This is a physical definition of an adult. According to this definition, a 16-year-old is usually an adult.
Brain
Teenagers may have fully grown bodies, but they don't usually think like adults. Their bodies usually stop growing at about age 17, but one part of the brain continues to grow until a person is about 25. This part of the brain, the frontal lobe, helps a person to understand cause and effect. It also helps a person to use good judgment to make decisions, solve problems, plan, and organize. When this part of the brain is fully grown at age 25, a person thinks like an adult. This is a psychological definition of an adult.
Responsibilities
Another way of defining an adult is as a person who can take on important responsibilities like a job and a family. An adult respects others and understands that his or her own needs are not always the most important. This is the social definition of an adult. Some teenagers behave like adults, but most are not that responsible until they are over 20 years old.
What Is an Adult?
There is no one moment when a person becomes an adult. Teenagers don't usually act or think like adults, but they begin to learn about adult responsibility. With each new responsibility (driving, working, voting, and having a family), a person comes closer to being a full adult. Most people agree that by age 25 a person is a full adult.