Are traditional markers of adulthood still relevant?

It’s a question we are bound to ask a new acquaintance.

Inevitably, the conversation will be directed towards whether he or she looks younger or more mature than the age specified.

“You don’t look like you are in your late thirties.”

“Thank you!” he replied. “Perhaps it is because I don’t act like my age,” he added as an afterthought.

Have you noticed how we tend to automatically attribute one's age to adulthood?

But what does ‘acting our age’ even mean?

Most commonly, we are told to ‘act our age’ because the way we behave does not align with what is deemed as ‘normal’ compared to peers in our age group.

Like it or not, adulthood is very much socially defined.

Its definitions may vary between different communities and cultures, and evolve between different generations; but it still boils down to some vague comparison with what our ‘normal’ age-group peers are up to.

In the era that many of us grew up in, marriage, kids, a steady job and owning a house were the general markers of adulthood. Achieving these milestones would give you recognition that you did something with your life.

But from an intellectual perspective, some may argue that millennials have been exposed to so much more, in this age of digital information.

Their idea of adulthood is very much fragmented, perhaps because the transition to adulthood becomes more individually-defined, as a culture becomes more individualistic.

This new generation gauges adulthood internally, marked by when they individually reach a state of self-sufficiency.

Ask them, and some might say the true test is when one is able to practice emotional self-reliance.

Others may say behavioral self-control is the ultimate test of adulthood.

Not marriage. Not having your first kid. Not a steady job.

And definitely not just because you own a house. In fact, millennials value ephemeral experiences over tangible assets.

Many single professionals in their twenties and thirties are devoting their time and attention to personal growth, improvement and indulgence, living an extended adolescence before gearing themselves up, both mentally and emotionally, to sign up for more responsibilities.

So, for how much longer should we continue to hold on to these traditional markers as a measurement that one has lived a full life?