The Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegard once concluded that life is lived forward but understood backwards. He was a clever man. Because the truth is that throughout our lives we try to understand life and do as well as possible in it. You only have one. The problem with this, however, is that it is a trial-and-error system and constantly needs to be improved and readjusted.
Sure, there are a few guardrails that can provide guidance, a few laws, some social norms. The happy or botched lives of others who are a few years ahead of us. We are able to reflect and imagine, to weigh things up – to look into the future, to include all eventualities, but we still cannot. Every decision remains a risk.
In reality we are given 18 years and then we are supposed to have understood the game called life. After 18 years we are thrown out of the nest, are considered adults – at least in the eyes of the law – and, according to the idea, have reached the phase that we have been working towards throughout our entire childhood. So a process has become a state: adulthood. But are we really ready for the world at 18? Our brain would disagree.
There are people who are more mature at the age of twelve than others in their mid-30s. Likewise, there are people who, throughout their lives, cannot avoid the feeling that they are simulating adulthood more than actually being it.
Adulthood is a construct that has long been associated with certain indicators of supposed maturity: marriage, children, home ownership – and as quickly as possible. These days, fewer and fewer people are even comfortable with the idea of tying the knot or starting a family, and when they do, they wait until they’re in their 30s. But is this really a sign that they just don’t want to grow up, as is often said, or is it perhaps more a matter of common sense decisions?
Ultimately, the fact is that it is outrageous to take it for granted that certain external factors and maturity go hand in hand – they can, but they don’t have to. There has been a long-standing discussion in neuroscience about whether it would be wiser to understand adulthood as a process that takes place internally and reflects psychological development and not as something that one automatically achieves because one crosses a certain age threshold.
Peter Jones, a scientist at Cambridge, said in 2019 that thinking that such a transition point could be defined was becoming increasingly absurd – even if it was certainly practical for school, health and justice systems. “There’s not a childhood and then an adulthood. People are on a path, they’re on a trajectory,” Jones said. One thing is clear: every person has their own individual pace of development. However, after examining the brain, the researchers found that growing up is a gradual development that takes place over three decades. So we only reach mental maturity in our 30s anyway because only then can we access an “adult” brain.
Postponing certain life stages into the 30s could actually make scientific sense. Because at 18 we are generally sexually mature, can drive a car and are considered to be of age – but our brains are still nowhere near that advanced.
The different areas of the brain do not develop evenly. Some develop earlier in life than others, some take longer. There is evidence that learning difficult languages is easiest for us up to the age of ten. For the most part, we only learn other skills after we are officially considered adults.
Findings from neuroscience indicate that the nerve cells (gray matter) of the brain grow until the mid-20s, and so-called connecting cells (white matter) even until the 30s. According to scientists, the development phase up to the mid-20s seems to be particularly important for human maturation to be essential. The frontal cortex, which is an area of the brain that is, among other things, important for our ability to think and plan, but is also responsible for monitoring our own actions, is probably not fully developed until around 25.
And the time between 18 and 25 also seems to be important for our social behavior. As a result, areas of the brain are further developed that enable us to better assess and control ourselves and our behavior when dealing with others.
And even after the magical 30, the brain is still able to change. “Brain areas can take over functions from each other or work together,” reports “Spektrum”. However, at the age of 30 it slowly begins to shrink again.
Nobody has to wait until they are over 30 to start growing up. Nobody suddenly grows up in their 30s. Everyone has their own pace. Science just says that we most likely don’t reach full spiritual maturity until our 30s. But that doesn’t mean that every past wrong decision can be justified by the immaturity of the brain, which is still too young. Or every important life decision should be postponed until your 30s. Because one of the truths of reality is that other parts of the body don’t wait until the head is ready. Having children is part of it. After the age of 30, fertility in women decreases, and dramatically after the age of 35.
Source: Nature, PNAS, Wiley, Spektrum, Statista Children, Statista Children 2, Destatis Marriage, Destatis Marriage 2, BBC, Tagesschau
