When/Why did your parents start treating you like an adult?

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My parents never treated me like an adult.

I don't think they ever did. But then I didn't exactly act like an adult sometimes.

I vaguely remember in grade school taking some test that was supposed to indicate your "mental age", and therefore indirectly give a measure of your maturity level.

Mine came out to be several years older than my actual age, which is quite funny looking back on it. Of course, what it really measured was how well you can figure out those tests, and I was very good at that.

Another quick comment about parents ... no matter how much you cognitively understand that they aren't going to live forever, there's still no way you can be prepared for the day you lose them. Somehow, I think it's hardest in the case of the opposite gender parent ... I don't why. But when a man loses his mom, something changes in him forever. There's no experience in this life quite as shattering as losing your mother.

My dad started treating me like an adult once I had turned 18, got a job and started paying rent.

On the other hand my mother has never treated me like an adult. She still treats me like a kid, orders me around like a kid, nags me incessantly and likes to think she's in control of every facet of my life. On the plus side this also means I get my laundry, ironing and sandwiches taken care of .

In many ways, i think my mother never will. She admits this is overcompensation for not paying much attention to me in my childhood, and yet I'm in my 30's, have owned my own house for over 10 years, have a child of my own etc....it's no longer appropriate, and I have trouble adapting to how she is.

Seriously, it's like she can't cut the umbilical!

I don't know why I'm joking, at times she has been so suffocating i have genuinely considered just getting on a train or coach and disappearing. If I didn't have a child, i can't be sure I wouldn't have done this.
Admittedly, I find many people suffocating.

I guess this was something gradual.

From the moment I was given my first set of keys (must have been around 6 years old) and told I should take care of them because if I lost them I would not receive another one. Being given responsibilities according to one's age is a good way of not suddenly treating someone like an "adult".

Of course, mom still cooks my favorite food when I am on vacations and visit them. And she knows not to mess with the part of my comic book collection I left there. And they both keep my room as I leave it, even if I only visit them twice a year, it is still my room, LOL.

So, I guess they treat me as a mix of adult and child, which I think is the way it should be. I am very lucky with the parents I got.

My Mum died when I was a teenager. My Dad still thinks of me as a child, and I guess he'll never imagine me as a grown up. And I'm pushing forty.

When? 30's.
Why? Showed more indepence, predictions started coming true and made money.

Leaving home and coming back years later didn't help (3-5 year stints).
Having a decent job ($60k/y) didn't help.
Giving advice/suggestions didn't help.

But leave for a few more years and come back, combining the above -- yeah, that did it.

So I just turned 30, purchased a house, proposed to my girlfriend -- and my parents still treat me like I'm damaged goods. Granted I'm not diagnosed AS yet -- but they don't even want to bring that up. I think they don't want to believe that there might be a reason for all my behavior rather then their statement that "I was a difficult child". Sorry, kind of venting. So anyways I'm still waiting for them to treat me like an adult or for that matter show some interest in any of my hobbies or my job.

I am 26, married and a mother with another on the way and I am still not treated like an adult.
Closest they ever came was after I fought them to have a home birth which they disapproved of. got treated like an adult for a month or two after that but soon old patterns were back.
Doesn't matter. I love them, they love me. I'll be a grownup eventually in their eyes.

My Father always seemed to treat me like an adult when my Mother wasn't in hearing range. He understood me in a strange way and knew that I was responsible and sensible.

My Mother, well, all I can say about her is that it's hell raising some parents. Even as a child, I always felt like I was the adult in the relationship. She's a very dependent and needy person who will glom on to anyone in the vacinity and has a need to control people to bolster her self esteem. She can even make it seem like her failings are your fault.

I stayed at home too long and had to move to another continent to have my own life. After my Father died I reaslied that my Mother cared for me only as someone she could control and use to feed her ego.

She has no choice now but to treat me as an adult and to behave as an adult herself, if she doesn't, I calmly tell her that I don't appreciate her behaviour and hang up the phone. She spends a few days in a snit, but when she calls back she's a much nicer person... at least for a while.

My mother always says: "Hey Markus, you're an adult now! You have to take responsibility!"
And I'm like: "Where the hell did that came from?"

She's not treating me like an adult, over protective and slightly too sensitive. I always feel sort of sad for my mother, because I think she make dumb decisions. I'm not saying I'm that much superior or more worthy in any way, but I think some of you understands what I mean. I think that our differences in intelligence makes it even worse. I have a quicker way of analysing things and provide a correct judgment. She's good with linguistics but I can see connections she can't. I'm pretty stubborn and I know when I think I'm right, she sorts of mock me, and then I get sort of pissed. But she's a very kind and understanding lady, stubborn like me - yes, but often wrong.

my parents don't treat me like an adult.

mom always says, "If you're going to act like a child, we're going to treat you like a child". Unfortunately this means they're going to treat me like a child as long as I have a bedfull of stuffed toys and stuff.

For me, it was after I got a job the first time, as I showed them that I understood the importance of being on time, and doing what I was being paid to do, even offering to go in on my day off when I was sick and could have used that day to rest.

My parents never treated me as an adult. I had to escape from them when I was 16. They never understood what made me different and were determined to beat it out of me. They were some seriously messed-up people, but they're dead now, and I'm free at last.

My parents don't treat me like an adult, and most of the time that suits me fine. My Dad (Aspie in denial) and I get on much better when I actually act like a baby (not tantrums or anything just kinda dumb/naive and cutesy). Mum likes bossing us both about and then complaining about it, so it's lose-lose there. These days she'll ask me questions like she's interested in my thoughts/feelings on the subject, but it's basically all rhetorical. As long as they're happy to keep dealing with the Real World for me, I'm happy to let them because I really can't cope at all.

I am 24 this month. I live independantly with my partner/carer. My mother never has and probably never will treat me as an adult. This is one of the reasons I rarely speak to her.

(She refuses to admit I am ill but treats me like a goddamn five year old anyway.)