What It Means to Be an Adult Today

There is a family drama now likely playing in a home near you: It is the clash between the expectations of parents and the realities of their full-grown offspring in becoming, or trying to become, or feeling like, fully fledged adults. Conventional wisdom holds that mechanical barriers like the high cost and scarcity of housing are keeping the kids tethered to the nest while parents grow frustrated and angry at having to support them financially and emotionally (while harboring suspicions that they themselves could have done more to nurture independence). Somewhere in the last generation, the standard markers of adulthood—establishing a career, maintaining a relationship, buying a home, having children— got delayed.

In fact, these benchmarks of adulthood are not merely delayed, they seem to be losing their grip entirely. All are far less compulsory than they were just a few decades ago.

Perhaps the passage to adulthood is slowing as part of a much larger adjustment to time scale, specifically adaptation to a lengthening of human life expectancy and healthspan. In 1900, the average life expectancy was 32 years. By 2021, it was 76-plus, with increases at all ages, including for the very old.

To grasp what is going on, psychology’s widest lens may be most useful. Life history theory looks at personality factors in an evolutionary framework. Researchers have marshaled evidence that the life course speeds up in the face of adversity: For example, girls raised in harsh or unpredictable environments mature quickly, reaching puberty earlier and mating sooner than others. It is a fact that the children of immigrants, who not only have to master their own development between two worlds but also often carry extra burdens of financial support and social interface for their family, grow up faster, meeting the traditional milestones of adulthood on a speeded-up timetable.

In the absence of real adversity, with rising material security and a culture of general, if unevenly distributed, affluence, the life course may be stretching out for many of those coming of age today. Perhaps when environments are especially supportive, the rush to adulthood takes a breather.

A stretched-out life course leaves more room for exploration, for trial and error, for uncertainty. A prolonged stage of adulthood exploration serves as an adaptive response to the new complexities of life: Young adults face more information of uncertain validity streaming at them from multiple sources all the time, existential concerns such as global climate change, and insecurities over career stability and wealth accumulation. Too, there are more life-path opportunities and routes for self-actualization. Because it can now comfortably accommodate them, life offers an array of trajectories for adult development.

It should come as no surprise, then, given all the choices they now must make in the face of constant change, that those arriving at adulthood today are struggling with their identity—with consequences for their mental health. Of course, whatever else it is, adulthood involves more than making choices and settling on an identity.

What follows are three illuminating perspectives on the demands young adults now face. One is a research-driven report on emerging criteria of modern adulthood. One is the view from its newest members, Gen Z. And the last explains why very few of us, at any stage of adulthood, ever feel we’re fully there yet.

Feeling like an adult did not kick in until I was about 23, when I truly believed not only in the work I was doing but in the mission of the organization I had joined. That same year I entered a relationship, and we adopted a puppy. The larger scale of work and life responsibilities is where it felt real —Michael

When Do You Become a Grown-Up?

Adulthood today is a psychological state, more subjective than “spouse” or “parent”—and always in flux. Yet whether or not you feel like an adult may have a big impact on your well-being.

By Megan Wright, Ph.D.

Adulthood is the longest phase of life—and getting longer. Most of the world’s population are adults, as, it is likely, you are. But what, exactly, is an adult?

Legally, the age at which adulthood begins varies across the world from 15 to 21 years old. In most Western countries, the age of majority—the legal age at which one is considered an adult—is between 18 and 21. However, the age at which people can take on responsibilities like voting, driving, drinking alcohol, working, and marrying varies by country. There is no global agreed-upon age at which we become adults.

Another way that individuals can be considered adults is by reaching social milestones like marriage, parenthood, and having a stable career. But these milestones, once seemingly bedrock, are delayed or even forgone today as young people spend extended periods of time in education, financially dependent on parents, and struggling to afford home ownership. Young people today are also more likely to delay marriage and parenthood compared with previous generations.

These trends are well documented by demographic data. For example, the number of marriages in England and Wales halved between 1972 and 2020, and the average age at first marriage is now 35 in the U.K. (31.4 in the U.S.). The average age at which women have their first child has also risen from 24 in the 1960s to 31 in 2021. These patterns are not unique to the U.K. Less frequent and later marriage and childbirth have been documented in the U.S., Sweden, Japan, and Chile.

Today, young people are often told they can be anything they want. Yet they enter adulthood in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (often referred to as “VUCA”) environment. They carry the burden of choice but no longer have relevant markers of their march forward into adulthood on their highly variable paths.

To achieve both individual and societal well-being, it is essential to know how to measure this time of life. Adulthood is a key phase of psychological development, as our identities are formed through experiences, choices, and responsibilities. In turn, adults shape the world we and our progeny will inhabit—communities, countries, cultures—driving innovation, creating economies, running governments, and nurturing the next generation.

My research explores adult development—when people feel like adults, what defines adulthood today, and how people feel about adulthood. How young people feel about becoming a grown-up appears to be a major influence on their mental health and their willingness to embrace the vicissitudes of life.

When Do People Feel Like Adults?

In a survey of 722 U.K. residents ages 18 to 77 years, a team of researchers I led asked people when they first started to feel like an adult. The average age they chose was 25. Twenty-five is not consistent with the age of legal adulthood (18 or 21), but it does match the age at which the frontal lobes, an area of the brain responsible for reasoning, decision-making, and emotional control, reach full maturity.

When comparing by age, we found, not surprisingly, that older participants were more likely to feel like adults and younger participants were least likely to identify as adults. Interestingly, however, while older people felt more like adults on average, there were some participants in the older-adulthood group (60 years and above) who reported that they still didn’t feel like an adult all of the time. Adulthood, then, is not just a chronological age; it is a subjective mental state.

What Defines Adulthood Today?

In a separate meta-analysis my team conducted, synthesizing data from 30 years of research on markers of adulthood and encompassing 40 studies and more than 17,000 individuals, we found that marriage and parenthood—long the standard signifiers of adulthood—are seen as defining by fewer than 25 percent. In contrast, career was seen as a marker of adulthood by 57 percent of people, suggesting that career is considered more important for adult status than marriage and parenthood.

Notably, younger participants thought career was more important for adult status compared with older participants; marriage and parenthood were considered the most important by those ages 30 to 45—the same age bracket as the average age of marriage and parenthood. The finding suggests that people endorse most strongly those characteristics that they have control over—that is, people define adulthood using the markers that are most applicable to them.

Our survey showed that most people—80 percent—define adult status by psychological markers, such as “taking responsibility for the consequences of my actions,” “being able to look after myself,” and “making my own choices.” Only a small minority consider the traditional socio-demographic milestones of marriage, parenthood, and career necessary for adult status.

The findings show that adulthood is best defined by psychological markers, which are under the control of individuals—and under constant development. In 2025, adulthood is a dynamic and rewarding phase of life characterized not by static social labels like employee, spouse, or parent but by continuous psychological growth and change that are highly individualistic.

At 18, I was the only one in my Learning and Development class to answer yes to the question: “Do you think of yourself as an adult?” Eight years later, the journey of adulthood is ever-changing, making us wonder if we really are there yet. - Makaiyla

Who CARES?

The important psychological development of adulthood takes place in five distinct domains. Summed up in the acronym CARES, they are the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral roots of change in adulthood and form the basis of adults’ mental health and well-being:

• Cognitive Maturity—the confidence you have as an individual in your own knowledge and abilities.
• Sense of Aging—the realization that you are getting older and that life is finite. This awareness has something of a motivational effect, broadly influencing how you choose to spend your time.
• Self-Reliance—the ability to look after yourself and have control over your life. People highly value “taking responsibility for yourself, being able to stand on your own two feet and look after yourself” as a marker of adulthood.
• Eudaemonia—the capacity to know yourself and live in alignment with who you are. This involves realizing who you are, what you like, and what you want to prioritize as you age.
• Social Convoy—the network of relationships you have that understand and support you, which will change throughout adulthood.

Although my data single out these five independent and essential psychological aspects of adulthood, the CARES taxonomy is not exhaustive, and more facets of adult identity will likely emerge in ongoing research. Nevertheless, it is enough to shift the narrative from adulthood based on fixed social status as employee, spouse, or parent to adulthood as a subjective psychological state that is always in motion, a work in progress rather than an unattainable ideal.

How Do People Feel About Adulthood?

People’s attitudes towards adulthood are largely positive. Those over the age of 60 have the most positive attitudes, agreeing with such statements as “Adulthood is a desirable time of life” and “I enjoy being an adult.” Participants ages 18 to 29 have the most negative views, agreeing less often with statements like “I like being an adult.”

It’s not clear from the research whether these are age or generational effects. Older participants could feel more positive towards adulthood because positive attitudes increase with age.

Or the generation that is now 60-plus may have always felt more positively about adulthood, even when they were 18 to 29 years old. Only longitudinal research can shed light on change and stability in attitudes towards adulthood over time.

Adulthood and Well-Being

How we feel about adulthood, and our own adult status, is likely to affect mental health and well-being. Psychological adulthood markers, such as accepting responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions, may be more under individual control than traditional milestones like marriage or parenthood. Having a sense of control over one’s life is linked to well-being.

Well-being, in turn, predicts a variety of outcomes, including physical health, sensible financial choices, and academic and career success.

Feeling like an adult and people’s attitudes towards adulthood are changeable or malleable variables. It may turn out that boosting an individual’s identification as an adult or their attitude towards adulthood can be an accessible way to improve well-being, especially for emerging adults, who suffer high levels of uncertainty and stress and have the highest rate of depression of any age group.

Or well-being can be improved by adjusting the match between outdated expectations and current experiences of adulthood. An individual who expects adulthood to include marriage and parenthood as well as an established career but doesn’t experience all the milestones is likely to feel disappointed, perhaps even distressed.

The revised view of adulthood as a mix of cognitive, emotional, social, and motivational qualities that are in flux throughout life offers more than new pathways for improving the mental health of a large segment of the population. It explains why people are taking longer and more diverse paths to and through adulthood today.

Megan Wright, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of York, England.

Being an adult means serving as a role model for others while having no idea what comes next. It takes both humility and confidence to be an adult. —Theo

Winging It

With no guidebook for how to move through life, Gen Z finds inspiration, validation, and remuneration on social media.

By Sophie Riegel

As a kid, I often thought, When I’m an adult, I’ll know what I’m doing. When I’m an adult, I’ll have it all figured out. When I’m an adult, I’ll have all the answers.

I remember being 10 years old, walking down the streets of Boston with my mom while discussing how she would make an excellent grandma one day. I told her that I wanted her to live close by so that she could help me raise my future children.

“I’m flattered, Honey,” she said. “And by then I’ll actually know what I’m doing.”

“What do you mean you’ll know what you’re doing?” I responded.

“I don’t know how to parent. I’ve never done it before. I’m just making it up.”

My heart dropped as fear crept in. “You don’t know what you are doing? That’s so scary!”

My mom squeezed my hand and looked at me. “Sweetheart, no one knows what they are doing. We are all just making it up.”

As a 23-year-old member of Gen Z, I now know that being an adult isn’t marked by an age or accomplishment, it’s realizing that no one knows exactly what they’re doing.

I’ve also learned the hard way that being an adult is pulling a muscle in your back while putting your pants on.

Being an adult is having to fill out your own paperwork at the doctor’s.

Being an adult is being excited to have no plans over the weekend.

Being an adult is realizing how quickly produce goes bad.

Being an adult is having to choose what to eat for dinner every single night.

Being an adult is when nap time no longer feels like a punishment.

I could go on.

Being an adult brings the responsibility of living an exemplary life because you realize it’s no longer just about you but also about the people who look up to you. —Annetjie

While many of these things are universal across generations, being an adult as a Gen Zer is a unique experience.

For previous generations, the path to adulthood was much more straightforward: Go to school, get a job, get married, have a family.

For my generation, there is no typical path. There are, instead, an infinite number of paths that we can take, so we have more choices to make. For example, we often reject the idea that working in corporate America is the only way to live a successful life. Forty-two percent of Gen Z Americans say that they want to start their own business; 52 percent have more than one source of income. Social media has given us the ability to monetize online content.

And many Gen Zers are job hoppers, staying in one job briefly before moving on to another. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers ages 55 to 64 hold one job an average of 9.8 years, while workers ages 25 to 34 stay only 2.8 years—a testament not only to the popularity of job hopping but also to the lack of a typical or stable career path.

This isn’t to say that people of prior generations didn’t stray from the socially acceptable route. But for Gen Z, the socially acceptable path has become less and less common.

“Adulting,” as my generation calls it, is difficult. There’s no guidebook for how to move through life and grow up. People I’ve spoken to, whether 18 or 75, agree that they don’t feel like a “real adult,” whatever that means. We’re all just making it up.

As a generation, we are known for disrupting the status quo. We question everything, fight for what we believe in, break rules to make our own, and create paths instead of following what already exists. We can do this in part because of social media, the very thing that so many older adults see only as the source of all our problems.

Imagine 40 years ago that you wanted to make a living as a professional crocheter or comic creator. Unless someone in your community was also doing so, you would be alone and without guidance. Today, you go online, find thousands of other people doing exactly this, and you are able to reach out to them. You are part of a community that extends far beyond those who live nearby.

Having a community, no matter what it is built around, allows you to chase your passions with more support and knowledge than was previously available. That is why it is easier for Gen Z to stray from the conventional path and make adulthood look like whatever we want it to be.

No matter your generation, though, being an adult is hard. None of us has done this before. We all have to constantly adapt.

Every day, more people become part of the exclusive club of those who understand that all of us are winging it. For Gen Z especially, as much as being an adult means we are making it up, it also means making it our own.

Sophie Riegel is a speaker, coach, and author on intergenerational relationships.

I am the only one of five kids without a child of my own. Instead, I have my cat. Being an adult today is being a proud #petparent! —Rafael

Why You Still Don’t Feel Like a Real Adult

Adulthood doesn’t mean that you have everything figured out but that you keep going even though you don’t.

By Seth Gillihan, Ph.D.

When I was a kid, I saw my dad as the epitome of what it means to be an adult. He was big, fearless, and seemed to have all the answers. I’m 49 years old now, and while I wouldn’t say I feel like a child, I don’t exactly feel like a full-on adult, either. I don’t have the sense of power or self-possession I assumed came with adulthood.

It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what’s missing. But more than anything specific, there’s a general sense that I lack some essence of adultness.

Many of my friends and therapy clients have described a similar mismatch between their life stage and their sense of identity. Why do we often feel as if we’re waiting to become a real grown-up?

It’s easy to point to shifts in developmental norms as an explanation. Young adults are waiting longer to hit major milestones. The average age of first-time home buyers rose from 29 in 1981 to 36 in 2022.

However, delays in objective markers of adulthood can’t be the whole story. For many people, the feeling of not being fully adult persists long after they’ve checked all the boxes. Clearly identity as a mature adult must be about more than the typical trappings of adulthood.

The biggest reason you don’t feel like a real adult probably comes from the impressions you formed as a child. Your parents, teachers, and other grown-ups had an aura of mythic adulthood. They embodied the archetype of adults as having reached the endpoint of human development. They were big, had authority, and knew the answers to life’s important questions. They seemed to have things under control.

In contrast, your lived experience of adulthood doesn’t square with your expectations. You didn’t feel a fundamental shift in your identity when you became an adult. The world still looks largely the same. Your preferences, such as your taste in music, probably are similar to when you were a teenager. You know you don’t have the whole life thing figured out.

In reality, your childhood impressions were mostly an illusion. I know now that my dad was not the all-knowing, infallible person I saw him as. He struggled with self-doubt, depression, trauma, and the unavoidable stress and anxiety that come with being alive. He was a great dad to his five kids, but he was figuring it out as he went, just as every parent does.

Your own parents, doctors, teachers, coaches, and other adults most likely didn’t feel the way you thought they did. On the inside they were probably just as unsure as you are now, even if they seemed to be in charge and at ease.

Adulthood is not about reaching an endpoint. It doesn’t require that you have everything figured out but that you keep going even though you don’t. It’s about making the best choices you can and owning the consequences­­—without knowing for sure if you’re doing it right. It’s facing the pain and possibility that each day brings, even when you feel afraid. It means losing your peace of mind and rediscovering it again and again.

Being an adult means letting go of the myth that you’ll arrive at some final stage of knowingness and accepting that you will be growing your entire life. You will continually face new challenges, armed with the willingness to do things you’ve never done before—all the way up to the day when you take your final breath.

So maybe you actually do feel like an adult, but it’s not what you thought it would be. This is what adulthood feels like, with all the confusion, uncertainty, insecurities, and joy. You don’t have to keep waiting for the magical moment when you finally feel like the grown-ups of your youth. They were fallible humans doing their imperfect best, just like you.

Seth Gillihan, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in Ardmore, PA.

I am a bartender, and I care for my father, who is battling COPD. I joke that I’m a single mom to a 59-year-old. Career development has been shaped by my caregiving role, which has taught me that compassion, kindness, laughter, and love are essential for navigating adulthood. Caring for a parent who once took care of me shifts the emotional landscape dramatically. —Ashley

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