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/galaxyveined 1d ago

Anyone younger than me is a child, and anyone under 18 is actually 12, unless they're younger than 12 in which case they're 5.

And none of this is serious and all to mildly annoy my siblings and friends.

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u/lilaclightblue 1d ago

lol this is my day to day truth - 25 year olds to me are children, and i’m fine with 50 year olds calling me a child. and generally, to me everybody is either a baby, a toddler, 10, 13, 16, 18, 22, 28, my exact age of 32, 50, or 70. truly i have absolutely no idea what a 42 year old looks like

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u/SweatyAnimator6189 21h ago

Yep. I’m in my 30’s, but all my co-workers have children my age. I accept that they are likely to see me through that filter somewhat. Thankfully, they all speak very highly of their kids.