# At what age did you consider yourself "grown up"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 22, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963 "2012-06-22T17:27:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/1 "2012-06-22T17:27:15Z")
Anonymous poll on the way. ---
**Author:** ![perfectparanoia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a5b964/32.png) [@perfectparanoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perfectparanoia)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/2 "2012-06-22T17:30:53Z")
Still working on it. I don’t ever plan to be grown up. ---
**Author:** ![DeepLiquid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deepliquid/32/14893_2.png) [@DeepLiquid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeepLiquid)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/3 "2012-06-22T17:31:07Z")
17 was the age I started living the life of a grown up, living in my own apartment, paying my own bills, no money from the parents. But I didn’t feel like a real grown up until I was 30. ---
**Author:** ![lost4life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@lost4life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lost4life)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/4 "2012-06-22T17:45:39Z")
I’ll let you know. My kids are more mature than I am. ---
**Author:** ![kmshrader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b782af/32.png) [@kmshrader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kmshrader)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/5 "2012-06-22T17:54:00Z")
> [@DeepLiquid](#): > > 17 was the age I started living the life of a grown up, living in my own apartment, paying my own bills, no money from the parents. Same here, though more growing up happened in the years after that. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/6 "2012-06-22T17:54:47Z")
1. Being out of grad school, working my first full-time job, living on my own, all combined to give me that “I must be a grown-up now” sense. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/7 "2012-06-22T17:55:09Z")
I _thought_ I was grown up by age 14. Geez did I still have a lot to learn. I guess that I felt the most grown up and responsible when my kids were born. I certainly felt a lot more pressure to succeed in life. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/8 "2012-06-22T18:46:25Z")
I have sailed right past “grown up” to “grown old”. I have never felt like a grown up, I have always felt that other people I met were doing grown up things and I was just hanging out. They were people I had to strive emulate. But then time passed and now I’m feeling old, all of the grown ups I’m seeing now are much younger than me and still have a lot of stuff to do in their futures. Me, not so much. On the other hand - I was married and financially independent and responsible at a young age. Everyone thought I was so mature. To me that was just “takin’ care of shit”, like bathing regularly or brushing your teeth - no big deal - inside I was still a kid. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/9 "2012-06-22T19:02:53Z")
I still don’t consider myself grown up, either, even though I’m 36. Sometimes I feel old - I find myself talking like my mother sometimes, it’s harder to get my ass down to a reasonable size, I get tired more quickly and I just discovered this week that, dammit, I DO need my glasses. However, I sometimes still feel completely clueless. I do stupid things when I should know better and feel like an idiot most of the time. I still marvel at people who seem so…confident and appear to know just what to do. They make me jealous. I wish I could be like them. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/10 "2012-06-22T19:06:02Z")
I was ready-and-then-some to be treated as a grownup and to participate with resonsibilities and so on at the age of 10. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/11 "2012-06-22T19:07:11Z")
I’m 50 years old and I still think in terms of “When I grow up I wanna…” ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/12 "2012-06-22T19:20:16Z")
I’m hoping to manage it by the time I drop dead aged 98. ---
**Author:** ![D-bear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@D-bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D-bear)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/13 "2012-06-22T19:30:15Z")
Peter Pan Syndrome is not that uncommon in the LGBT Community. No children here, so the only real responsibility my Husband and I have had in all the time we’ve been together has been of the purely selfish variety. Cancun or Costa Rica this time? Let’s do Costa Rica, We can hit Cancun in a month or two for a long weekend… (It’s nice to work for an airline…) ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/14 "2012-06-22T19:31:48Z")
> [@DeepLiquid](#): > > 17 was the age I started living the life of a grown up, living in my own apartment, paying my own bills, no money from the parents. But I didn’t feel like a real grown up until I was 30. I was 20 when I moved out, but yeah, pretty much. To be grown up, in my eyes, is really looking at the consequences of your actions - not just tomorrow or the next day, but years down the line., I don’t feel I did that until I was thirty at least. ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/15 "2012-06-22T19:34:00Z")
At first I thought I would feel grown up when I graduated college (22yo) or when I bought my first house (25yo), but it didn’t really happen until I had my son at 29. Even now, I’m not quite sure I’m a grown up. ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/16 "2012-06-22T19:35:46Z")
I was an independent adult at 18. As for grown up… nah. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/17 "2012-06-22T19:50:57Z")
One thing is clear: I sucked at picking the options! No two votes for anything but “Over 27” and even that is all over the map. Anybody want to use these results to come up with a better poll? ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/18 "2012-06-22T20:02:55Z")
I moved out and was totally independent at 22. So then. ---
**Author:** ![atlantic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@atlantic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/atlantic)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/19 "2012-06-22T20:16:49Z")
I thought I was grown up when I had my first child. I was 24. But I was wrong. I truly started feeling grown up last August (age 38) when my dad, already suffering from Parkinson’s, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Caring for a parent that has started acting like a child makes you feel grown up in an instant. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963/20 "2012-06-22T22:20:42Z")
> [@atlantic](#): > > I thought I was grown up when I had my first child. I was 24. But I was wrong. I truly started feeling grown up last August (age 38) when my dad, already suffering from Parkinson’s, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Caring for a parent that has started acting like a child makes you feel grown up in an instant. This is very similar to what I planned to post. When my mom went through an illness I felt very keenly “I have to actually by an adult here.” I was 40. I handle my affairs responsibly. I run a business, and my home but I feel a little like I’m pretending, that someday - when I grow up - it will all seem easier. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-you-consider-yourself-grown-up/625963.md?page=2)