adult

According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), adult is an adjective that comes from the Latin word adultus. The concept allows to qualify that or that which has reached its full development.

For example: "When you are an adult, you will make your own decisions: now you are a child and you must obey me because I am your father", "On the right, you can see an adult leopard.", "A century from our independence, we are an adult and mature country ".

Children need the presence of an adult for their development, at least within a frame normal social, where the activities and knowledge necessary for subsistence are in the hands of the elderly. In addition to learning to speak, read and write, they should be given examples of interpersonal relationships, essential for when the time comes to go out into the outside world and deal with other people.

For the biology, an organism reaches adulthood when can now reproduce. In the case of humans, the notion is also linked to various legal and cultural issues, transcending the aspect linked to physiology and reproductive capacity.

The first stage of human life is the childhood, then comes the adolescence and finally the individual becomes an adult, when his physical development has already been completed, at which time he can make greater use of his faculties. Adulthood, in turn, can be divided into various stages, such as early adulthood, the middle adulthood and the late adulthood or old age.

At the legal level, it is common for a person to be considered person is an adult from 18 or of the 21 years, according to the legal system. It is believed that, after a certain age, the subject already has the physical and psychological maturity necessary to make their own decisions consciously and assuming the consequences of their actions.

An adult should generally engage in some work or productive activity to obtain the resources that allow him to subsist and support his children. For this reason, early and middle adults constitute the active economic group of a society: Children and adolescents must attend school, while older adults are already retired.

It should be noted that this is not always the case, especially in the current era, characterized by having broken with many of the structures and precepts that were valid in the past. One of the points that is becoming less common is the paternityAlthough there are many traditionalist people, who believe in the basic family model, and are born prepared to marry and procreate, there are also those who choose to find their own path through professional and personal development, without the need for a partner.

On the other hand, adulthood is not something that can be defined in the same way for all cases, since it is not a concept necessarily linked to physical maturity or the age of an individual, as can be seen in many artists and free-spirited people who continue to enjoy life as if they were children. This does not mean that before the law they are adults, but from a social point of view they are closer to the childhood.

Becoming an adult seems a natural matter, but there are those who claim that it is possible to voluntarily refuse to take that step, and prefer to keep the inner child alive so as not to lose that intensity typical of the early years. While some people never question the mandate and they passively allow their environment to transform them into husbands, parents and grandparents, others discover in time that there are infinite possibilities.