LogFAQs > #977228266

FortuneCookie posted...

If teen years aren't the transition, what is?

Like I said, you don't go to bed one night with the mental maturity of a child and wake up the next morning as an adult. Should we consider 17 a child and 18 thru 23 to be transitional? If you're attracted to a 20-year-old, you're attracted to someone who is a half-step up from being a child?

If you're worried about semantics, I would argue "youth" is a good term for a teen. It's a reminder that they have a long way to go, and that they're not to be sexualized or pursued romantically by adult-adults, but it still doesn't infantilize them by placing them in the same category as a 7-year-old.

Or maybe, just maybe, they're still children, and people are smart enough to realize that word encompasses a large age group of varying levels of development, instead of getting hung up on the word itself.

Absolutely bizarre thing to get hung up on and insist on having the last word about, but this type of pedantry is par for the course for you.