Adulthood Vs. Childhood Comparison

All stages of life are important as to what makes a person human. Everyone experiences the challenges of growing up and living in the real world. There are good times and hard times. We learn from everything we go through and continue to grow every day at all ages. Many traits in adulthood like responsibilities, wealth, and social status matter to most, but as a child, the only things that matter are what they can dream to achieve one day. Though our childhood is a small part of our life, it impacts adulthood in so many ways.

During childhood and adulthood, we make mistakes, learn lessons, and grow from them. There are many traits that are similar and different between childhood and adulthood like independence, identity, and thoughts.

Everyone talks about their childhood and how they grew to be themselves today. As a child, one feels they are independent when in reality, they are not. Children go to school but only because of their parents, they can make decisions only because it is too small to influence their life.

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There is not a responsibility serious enough that could shape themselves, or their lives later on because parents make sure they take care of it and protect them. As an adult, there is no avoiding independence. Adulthood is intimidating because there is not always someone to help you make decisions or direct you into the right path. Once one sees the real world and what it really entails, there is an understanding that one is truly on their own.

Parents are there to guide their child every step of the way until they cannot anymore. There are benefits to both ends, with childhood there is no worry about the future because children have their parents to back them up. As an adult, they can make a decision and not have to worry about what anyone else says. With that, there are unfavorable factors to both sides. As a child, if one wants to make a decision it goes through parents which could lead to frustration with each other and losing the little independence they felt they had. As an adult, a decision can be hard because there are few people that one can ask opinions from, and the decision could lead to serious consequences.

Identity is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. During adulthood, one finds what their true identity is. It may take someone longer than others to understand what identity means. As a child, there are no worries about finding a true identity because there is no need for it. Children live the day to day life growing up, learning new things, and doing what they want. They are seen in relation to their parents; however, adults are identified by many things like work and choice of friends. There is a social status that people go into no matter how hard one denies it. Adulthood is based on opinions of each other which lead to a certain happiness that a child does not experience. Children do not have the pressure of worrying what other people think because they do what makes them happy. They do not have to conform to society's rules to feel comfortable in the world like adults have to. A child has a free manor when it comes to actions and words. An irrational response from a child would be rejected as an adult. Children’s identity is not affected by how they respond to anything like adults. Anything an adult does affects how people see them especially if it is negative. Children live in a kind world whereas adults have to worry about how they respond and have a constant pressure to please others to be accepted.

Thoughts and dreams, everyone has them no matter how big or small. Children and adults have that in common, though it may be in different context. As a child, dreams are for becoming and astronaut or president whereas for an adult, dreams are for a car or lots of money. Thoughts start from the beginning. Children have opinions and change as they grow from their experiences, adults are the same exact way. The difference is that children can dream and believe in a fantasy as adults cannot and could be viewed poorly. Children can believe in something that is entirely not there like Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. Adults want their children to have that ability to dream about them and be excited just like they did when they were young. Adulthood gets to experience all of those feelings during the holidays by watching children feel the same way. There are no limits to a child’s thoughts, and dreams. As they reach adulthood they are faced with rejection and failures to which they learn from and unfortunately, find a realistic thought and dream with limits. As one grows into adulthood, those thoughts and dreams of becoming something incredible vanish.

Growing from childhood to adulthood is a huge journey that everyone endures. The similarities and differences are vast. In childhood and adulthood, there are responsibilities. The difference between them is that children’s responsibilities are much less serious. Some of the responsibilities could be cleaning their room, receiving good grades, and waking up on time. As an adult, the responsibilities have serious consequences if they are not accomplished like paying bills, going to work, making sure everyone is taken care of. What is learned as a child will be chosen to be remembered as an adult. As childhood thoughts and dreams dissipate into time, growing from that will then shape them and give them their identity for the rest of life. The many traits that dictate the similarities and differences between childhood and adulthood give us an understanding of how and who a person is today.