# When do you stop being a kid?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [May 27, 2016, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820 "2016-05-27T15:47:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2016, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820/41 "2016-05-31T16:33:42Z")
You’re always someone’s child until you become someone’s parent.
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### Author:  [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2016, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820/42 "2016-06-01T22:41:46Z")
I voted other because I’m 76 and I don’t know the right answer.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820/43 "2016-06-01T22:47:01Z")
When you decide your childhood is over.
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### Author:  [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2016, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820/44 "2016-06-02T01:24:56Z")
When the kid next door wakes you up with his basketball and your first thought isn’t: “hey, let’s play some hoop!”
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### Author:  [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2016, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820/45 "2016-06-02T01:48:55Z")
I didn’t really feel like an adult until I had my own kid. Even marriage felt more than a bit like playing house. I may have been externally adult, but mentally felt like a college student.
Kids made it really real. I’ve never been particularly ambitious or focused. On my report cards you probably could have copy/pasted “Very bright and engaged, but not working up to potential” for every teacher in every subject through the end of college. Before my first son was a year old, I’d suddenly started being very serious about Getting Shit Done, which is finally beginning to dig me out of the rut I’d carved for myself.
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### Author:  [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2016, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820/46 "2016-06-04T01:21:38Z")
When you’re paying for your own insurance.
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### Author:  [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820/47 "2016-06-04T18:12:46Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#):
>
> I can and do refer to anyone under 65 as "kids ".
Just so you know, everybody under 65 is viewing you as a patronizing asshole. Good job on that, guess you probably don’t care since you are old and going to die soon anyway.
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### Author:  [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2016, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820/48 "2016-06-04T19:53:54Z")
When you take full responsibility for your life.
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### Author:  [@ziplock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ziplock)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2016, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820/49 "2016-06-04T22:16:58Z")
Somewhere between 24-27. Maybe.
Though real talk, I was watching some old videos and by the time I hit about 13-ish I went from overly enthusiastic about every-little-day-to-day-thing, to normal person. I don’t remember anything changing or happening at that time, I think I just casually went from “child” to “kid”.
EDIT: wait a minute. op, it took your friends until junior year to stop wanting to be called a kid??? I remember complaining with my friends in about 4th or 5th grade about being called a “kid” when we were “totes waaay more mature than a kid”, lol.
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### Author:  [@Taco\_the\_cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taco_the_cat)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820/50 "2016-06-06T19:31:08Z")
I voted for 18 because it felt like the most reasonable answer.
In hindsight, I felt like an adult when I got my first full-time job and became financially independent which wasn’t until I graduated college. That was also when I realized at the age of 22, I wasn’t college-aged anymore, and I never would be ever again.
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### Author:  [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2016, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-do-you-stop-being-a-kid/755820/51 "2016-06-06T20:06:14Z")
> [@Sleel](#):
>
> I didn’t really feel like an adult until I had my own kid. Even marriage felt more than a bit like playing house. I may have been externally adult, but mentally felt like a college student.
My thinking was similar: **I stopped being/feeling like a kid when I put others’ lives before mine.**
In my case, it was similar to yours, when I had kids of my own. But I can see a firstborn kid losing a parent and having to step in as a grown-up for their younger siblings. Or, really, any situation at any age when you have to realize you can’t just go mess around because you feel like it, that the well-being of others depends on you.
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