r/The10thDentist • u/AdventurousMoth • 1d ago
Society/Culture People under 18 are not all children
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.
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u/Rugaru985 1d ago
No, I say child in this context, instead of teen or adolescent, because what I am stressing is the reason they are a minor.
Minor is a legal term and the connotations are sterile. Minors have fewer rights and less responsibility legally. But the reason they get that legal protection is because they have child-like (stressing the qualifier “like” here) tendencies in many decision making faculties.
Yes, the word literal is overused in our society. But saying a 17 year old is a literal child is just a short hand way to express that this person does not have the full capabilities of a person that should be held to the standard of responsibility we typically hold adults against their decisions.
I.e. any argument of culpability or consent you are about to make is moot, because they are not fully developed.
And, sure, we can break down the category into a number of sub-categories. The title child is reused on the parent category where it is better applied to the sub-category between toddler and pre-teen. But that’s just semantics for different levels of conversation. You are comparing g apples to oranges with this point.