I&#x27;ve frequently thought this over the past few years, and I feel like the conclusion I have is different than others in this thread.<p>I don&#x27;t becoming an adult is really about you, exactly.  It&#x27;s not about your independence, or your actions.<p>It&#x27;s about when other people become dependent on you.<p>I think this is the way that it has long been thought of in cultures outside of the post-Enlightenment West.  This was my strong opinion after reading Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, (Russia isn&#x27;t western like the rest of Europe) and Aquinas, Augustine, and Aristotle.   I think that this is in part what the Apostle Paul is saying in 1 Corinithians 13:11 ( <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.esvbible.org&#x2F;1+Corinthians+13%3A11&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.esvbible.org&#x2F;1+Corinthians+13%3A11&#x2F;</a> ), where you&#x27;ll note that he doesn&#x27;t say the equivalent of stopping to be like a child meant I had become a man, but rather I became a man, so I stopped being like a child.<p>I think about soldiers I have met and know.  They change when they get to NCO status.  I think of the boys I have met from North Omaha, which is arguably one of the worst places in America for young African American males, and that there is a difference between the ones who are the oldest in their families and the ones who are the youngest, even if they are the same age.  And I think of my friends, and how we&#x27;ve changed when we&#x27;ve had kids, or when someone started a business and got ( real, not just one of his buddies-while-still-in-high-school ) employees.<p>Adulthood isn&#x27;t about you, it&#x27;s about your relationship to others.