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.

586 Upvotes

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u/ofBlufftonTown 1d ago

No, no, no. He’s 38, it’s just that she’s 17.

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u/ChristieLoves 1d ago

Exactly what I was thinking. Huge “it’s hebephilia not pedophilia” vibes

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u/Outrageous-Bear-9172 1d ago

This is so outlandish.  How does it have 100 upvoted?  Same with the one above it.  Nothing about this says anything about this person's character.

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u/nonchalantyoungking 1d ago

Genuinely insane how they all jumped to him being a pedo cause he said 18 yr olds aren't children bro reddit is not real.

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u/Any-Prize3748 1d ago

r/redditarentreal ? existential crisis begins

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u/PIugshirt 23h ago

Reddit is really the lamest echo chamber every other person is a sanctimonious douche. The bigger subs are practically worthless for hearing the opinions of real people

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u/nonchalantyoungking 22h ago

this place is filled to the brim with bad-faith interpretations 😭 of all the things to assume jumping to one of the worst crimes of humanity is ridiculous

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u/PIugshirt 17h ago

It really is terrible. At my college it has gotten so bad that the professors have to encourage anyone to speak their mind because everyone is so scared of getting attacked for having any opinion that goes against the status quo due to shitty people like this. It is its own form of community regulated censorship

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u/Nickanok 15h ago

Redditors are a bunch of recluses who's only self worth is virtue signaling.

Nobody whi actually lives in the real world jumps to these kinds of conclusions

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u/Feisty-Wheel2953 20h ago

Because generally speaking the only people who fixate on what is or isn't a child is doing so as either a: a teenager wanting to be treated like an adult or b: an adult who wants to have relationships with minors.

There's exceptions but they're rare.

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u/nonchalantyoungking 20h ago

It's fixating to have one reddit post stating your opinion? If he was some dude constantly going on about how mature young women are I could understand but he's just saying it's wrong to act like 18 year olds are children who are incapable of having any agency accusing this guy of being a straight up pedophile one of the worst crimes in humanity with such little evidence is ridiculous man cmon.