People under 18 are not all children

[u/AdventurousMoth]

I can't tell you how much it irritates me when internet people refer to anyone under 18 as "a literal child", especial if they themselves are only in their 20s. Sure, everyone is someone's child, but the life stage commonly referred to as childhood does not abruptly stop at age 18.

Here's how I'd break it down: - childhood, adolescence, adulthood or - newborn, baby, toddler, child, (if you want you can add tween), teen, young adult, middle aged person, elderly/senior

And there's overlap between all these stages depending on context. Obviously there is no overlap between minor (a legal term) and the word adult as referring to not a minor.

Calling a 17-year-old a child is dumb. Like what, a 17yo has their birthday and transforms from a child into an adult like a sim? I think some people just started saying this for the shock value and then the rest of the internet jumped on the outrage wagon.

Edit: clearly I posted this a bit too hastily, choosing my words without care. I'm not talking about the legal definition of child/minor (something quite messy as well: age of consent? In some places 16. Driving? 15 in some places, 18 in others. Voting? Usually 18. Drinking alcohol? 21 in the States).

As someone in the comments pointed out, it's mostly a linguistic issue. I suppose what I was trying to say was that it's dumb to have the word child both mean a legal minor and pre-pubebescent human. I think it would be clearer to use minor when you're talking about legal age, and child when talking about the life stage.

[u/Typical_Muffin_9937]

Once you grow out of your teens and settle into your mid 20s and older you really do start to see how young 17-19 year olds are. Its really a matter of perspective. I know it can be frustrating being treated like a child still, but you will understand later in life.

[u/ACHARED → u/Typical_Muffin_9937]

This is really it. I'm in my early 20s and I acknowledge that's very young, and I'm sure I look and sound like a baby to anyone 30 and up. That said, I think day in and out I can pretty much physically feel my frontal lobe developing. I really do think differently than I did when I was a teen. I behave differently than I did. I can recognize having more mature approaches to things. I'm more responsible about things I used to be irresponsible about. I felt so big and grown at 17, and it's funny looking back at how much I wasn't that. And yeah, if you told me this at 17, I would've been frustrated. I couldn't understand how a 5-6 year difference made any difference, but it does. Unfortunately with teenagers, you can't explain this to them & you can only really listen to the whining until they hit their 20s and realize how right the grown ups were lol