If you ask people ‘what is adulthood?’, they initially look at
you as if you are asking a self evident question or have lost
the plot. However, when they do respond, you soon find out
people have pretty diverse ideas. The apparently simplest answer
is the chronological one – you’re an adult when you reach
eighteen years of age; but are you? You might be able to vote,
legally drink alcohol in a pub and marry without parental
consent, but at the tender age of ten you are ironically seen as
responsible for your actions in a criminal court. Also, adults
up until about the age of 24 receive less in social security
benefits and wages than those over that age. So younger adults
have all the responsibilities, but not all the rights, of all
adults – not very fair really, is it? For the Baby Boomer
generation (those now aged mid 40s to mid 60s), adulthood was
often characterized by living away from your family, having a
job and a corresponding pay packet, or a family of your own; or
for the elite few, going away to uni