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35 responses total.

Generally I tend to think of myself as an adult, except that I often find
myself deealing with various older-than-me people and thinking of them as
adults and therefore somehow different than me.  I guess I'm still somewhere
inbetween, which leads up to a really shameless plug for the InBetween
conference. ;)

depends upon my mood at the time.

Would the statement: "I may be growing older, but I'm never growin up" put
light on my attitude towards the child/adult situation?

I thought I was a kid till I had kids.  Then I found out that being a kid
has a lot to do with being blissfully ignorant.

You give me some definitions of "feeling like an adult" and "feeling like
a child", and I will tell you which I feel like at the mopment you ask.
The answer is very likely to be "both". I'm not sure it is possible to
make it an either-or proposition: everyone, from birth to death, has
similar emotions.  The inputs and responses change, but those are not
necessarily based on how one is feeling.

I hardly ever really feel like a grown-up, though I sometimes act like one.
I know lots of people who seem grown up to me, many of them much younger than
I.  I don't know if I pity or admire them.  I have no burning desire to
change.

As Steve said, I generally feel like an adult, except when I am around certain
people - teachers I had in elementary and middle school, and people that I knew
as adults when I was in elementary and middle school.  I think that "feeling
like an adult" has a lot to do with how much responsibility someone is given. 
I worked for my parents for almost 3 years.  I started working there when I was
14, and I had very few responsibilities; I didn't even have a set schedule, I
just came in when I wanted to.  When I left there this September, I held a
management position.  Somewhere along the way I went from a child to an adult,
but I don't know where.  I think that it is something that you grow into -- I'm
sure that everybody remembers when they were 11 or 12 wanting to act and appear
as an adult sometimes, but not all the time...  I'm not sure that I want to be
an adult all the time even now, and I'm 17.  

well funny as may be i am here in the conference and curious as a
child.feeling adult but acting u!like a child .thids is the emotions i go thru
day in and day out i still cannot believe that i am an engineer and working.a
few years hence will have a child of my own , my reflection maybe.i only pray
that i am adult enough to handle it and pray that i remain a child aall my
life.even than i think that transactional analysis throws more light on this
topic.(adult ways ha!).

I began to realize in my first year of college, when I was 18, that I was
beginning to change from what I felt was a child into what I felt was an
adult.  I couldn't give a definition of either, but I started to pay closer
attention, andby the time I turned 19, I thought of myself as an adult.  THis
does not mean that I don't thin kI have more growth to do, heaven forbid. 
I just think that there was a line that I crossed somewhere in my 18th year.
A very broad line that took a long time to cross, it's true, but a line
nonetheless.

(Agora item 115 linked to InBetween item 43.)

the only time I feel like a child is when I am around my three
year old nephew.  He is already moremature and intelligent than I am.
He's even made me see the deep philosophoicalmeanings of
Barney videos!

I think, I'll start feeling like an adult, once I have a liscense. Then
I'll have to do things like remembering gas money, insurance, and stuff
like that. Until then, I still feel like a kid

I feel more like a child when I'm with younger folks (around 20 years old),
then people younger than that make me feel very much like an adult.  Older
folks make me feel like an adult in a different way, in that I get  or can
grab more respect than I could when I was younger.  Teachers especially I can
see that happen in.

re 11:
        Wow, I'm reminded of the rantings of a small child every time I see
one of Richard's responses.

I am an adult to be sure. Not too long ago, a nice young lady that I had been
talking to in a restraunt asked me if I was married. "Why do you ask?" 
"Oh," she said "You're really a neat guy. I was thinking maybe you could go
out with my mother."  The young lady was nineteen and I was totally surprised
by this never-be-for sure-to-experience again comment. I'm at a point were
I don't fit in with the twenty somethings and the forty somethings seem like
ordinary people. I'm thirty-five and just feel adult.

oooh, ouch!

#14...scg that was unnecessary and not relevant to this item...and you accuse
me of making personal attacks...sheesh   

I guess I don't feel like an adult partly because I'm not very interested in
a lot of grown-up things: earning money, keeping up with the joneses, getting
promoted, the kids, most forms of prestige, even the ardent pursuit of sex. 
There's a whole value system that I think of as "adult" that just seems to
operate on some different plane from where I am.  Adults drive the cars. 
They take control of situations and try to steer them toward goals.  It's
very clever of them to be able to do that, but more often that not, I live
life as a passenger, enjoying the view.  I don't keep my eye on the road very
much.  I'm just as likely to be twisted around in the seat, looking out the
back window.  Did you see those cows?  The goals most of the time seem kind of
silly to me.  Most of the time I'd rather stick my head out the window and
enjoy the breeze.  Maybe I'm not even the child.  Maybe I'm the dog.  Woof!

I think it would be hard for a kid, who hasn't yet actually been/become an
adult, to feel like an adult...  Whereas an adult has been both a kid and
an adult, and so should know the difference in feelings between them...
Of course, this presupposes there is actually some defining moment when a kid
becomes an adult...

Don't worry, though:  If your parents didn't have kids, you won't either! 
 ;-)

That line begins with "Did you know having children is hereditary?".

Re #18: Jan, your sign IS dog, by Chinese zodiac.

        Speaking of cows, they are part of the scenery I remember
        most about my recent trip to France (in May): snow-white
        cows in lush pastureland, occasionally also covered by
        patches of purple and yellow flowers. While watching this
        on my train ride from Paris to Montpellier, Debussy's
        ultra-beautiful "Reverie" repeatedly appeared in my
        head (played in flute). I thoroughly enjoyed the experience
        --- one of the major reasons why I love to be a train
        passenger.

        I also enjoyed watching documentaries about trains on PBS.
        The most impressive documentary was one about trains in India.

        I hate being a car passenger on the back row though, as it
        tends to make me road-sick. I'd rather drive.

  Jan summed up very nicely how I feel as well. 

  I don't need a lot to get by, I am usually happiest when I haven't got a
cent to my name. It does bother me a little that I don't have a job, but not
to the extent that I'm fervently seeking one. Same goes with a girlfriend,
although it would be nice to be in a relationship, it's not important that
I date.

I feel like a child when I am doing things that I have been doing since I was
a child, things like writing and singing and  figuring how much money I have
left and how much I can spend.

I feel like an adult when I am doing things that I didn't have to do until
I moved out on my own, like paying rent, paying bills, teaching, etc.

It just depends on what I'm doing.  I don't think I will ever completely stop
feeling like a child at least some of the time.

actually some people act more like kids once they get out of their teens.
when you are sixteen or eighteen you are obsessed with everything.  I
think I wasmuch more uptight about things then thanI am now.

Child versus adult does not apply too well with how I have thought of
myself. In many ways, I am pretty much the same being that I was in Ancient
Times, as far as how I think, what I think is cool, and what I think sucks,
goes. Changes that have taken place are mostly a continuous function, and
are mostly modifications necessary for dealing with new situations, new
technologies, new environments, etc.

One of the two biggest changes was the development of Sentience, which
occurred in the summer of the 11th Year. This was basically an awakening of
sorts, which is hard toi describe. I would venture to say that a good sign
of Sentience in a being is the first attempts, however misguided or futile,
and whether successful or not, to deliberately influence how the rest of
the universe treats him. That is, attempts to pre-empt future ill fortune.

The other major change occurred at the time of the Great Exodus, in the
15th Year, and was mostly an adoption of procedures and resolutions for
dealing with the rest of the world, to avoid some past mistakes. This was
not a matter of child/adult change, either.

You, too, eh?  I had an awakening of sentience in the 9th grade.  I don't know
why, but I always look at myself before then as someone com pletely different
from myself now.  It's a pretty sharp dividing line.  

When I turned 13, I expected this *big* change, because, well, I was a
teenager finally, but the changes didn't hit until I was 14, maybe because
I stared high school.  Then I started changing again at eighteen, but probably
because that's when I started teaching.  I'm still changing now.

And with regards to "acting like a teenager" sometimes what you feel when you
are a teenager is exactly what you feel as an adult later in life.  You
certainly aren't the same person anymore, but it sure brings back memories.

So when someone says they feel like a teenager again, it's not that they
really are feeling what they used to felt, but similiar enough feelings.  At
least that's what I think.  In some ways, you can never go back again.

Ahh, those teenage years.  I believe they are both the best and worst times
of your life.

<set rambling = off>

some changes are simply more difficult than others.  For me, going from
grade school to jr.high was a more difficult transition than going from
jr.high to high or high school to college.   I wouldnt want to be a teenager
again.  Besides I had terrible taste inmusic back then.  When I was 13, my
favorite band was KISS!  **shudder**

I'm the same person I've always been, just with more experience.

It is harder going from elementary to junior high school because you suddenly
have to do silly things like keep your stuff in your locker and change
classrooms and not have someone lead you to the lunchroom.

If I could take what I know now and go back to being a teenager, I may be
interested in redoing some things differently.  But to do it again from
scratch, I don't think so.  I'd make the same mistakes again.

For me the most difficult transition was from high school to college. I was
17 when I went from a town of less than 10,000 to Western Michigan University
in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The country --> city and the monoculture --->
international influences was an over load for me.

I admit having other people from my high school go to the same college helped
the adjustment.

I don't feel that there is too much difference for me between child and adult.
I've always enjoyed myself, and don't "feel" that I am either one.  I act as
the situation requires.  The "adults" in my life, for example friend's
parents, by various bosses, and others, would probably tell you that I've been
an "adult" for years.  The children in my life would tell you that I'm still
a child.  Others in similar situations to me would tell you different things
depending on the situation.  Janette would say that I'm silly.  It's all a
big hoax, as far as I'm concerned.  I'm me, not some strange thing known as
an "adult" or a "child". 

abchan, elaborate on that statement you made that the teenage years are the
best and worst times of your life.

Of course everyone is still the same person they've been since birth, but it
is interesting to look back on the things you used to do, the type of music
you used to listen to, and the thought patterns you used to have.  If you
don't agree with me on the thought patterns part, look at something you wrote
in the second or third grade.  And I may never know what I saw in Perry Como
as a child.

What I mean by the teenage years being the best and worst times of your life
is that it is more extreme than any other times, at least, that's what I've
felt.  There were times when I was much happier than I have ever been since
but there were also times that I was much more depressed than I've been since.
It is a time to remember and cherish for the good parts, but frankly, I'd
rather forget about some of the other parts.

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