Chapter 6: Adolescence vs. Chapter 7: Aulthood

     Adolescence is a unique stage in life as well as adulthood. In this article I’m going to describe these two different stages of life adulthood and adolescence. Adolescence can be defined as the period between the normal onset of puberty and the beginning of adulthood. One of the processes that will mark this change and becoming an adolescent is the puberty. Puberty is a physical maturing that makes and individual capable of sexual reproduction. Adolescents simply do exist as concept in many parts of the world. However, puberty occurs in all humans. In America, adolescents are considered from the ages 12 to 19.

      An adolescent doesn't have the same experience as other adolescent, and with this they are 5 different characteristics as biological growth and development, that is as I mention before puberty.  Puberty is universal because is a biological rather than cultural in origin, the height and weight also changes in body proportions of an adolescent. The second characteristic is undefined status, because different adults treat adolescents are if they were adults or children’s. Different people have different attitudes about adolescents. The third characteristic is the increased decision making, is about adolescents making their own decision. The forth characteristic is the increase pressure, adolescents have pressure in school and in other social groups if they are accepted or not. And the last characteristic is the search of self this is how an adolescent think about themselves and it is mature enough to know what they want in life. Teenagers begin dating to meet new people and get involved in more profound romance relationships. This adds to the amount of pressure of the adolescent as well. Dating is usually more common in places where individuals can actually choose whom they want to marry, there are places in the middle east, for example, where dating is not a common thing since usually people tend to see their couple the day of their marriage.

      Major issues with changes in adolescence are drug use and sexual behavior. This is probably one of the most notable changes one undergoes during adolescence after the biological changes. When you are just a kid there are things, such as drugs and sexual relationships, which don’t even come to mind, but it is impressive to see how percentages of adolescents that do get influenced and engaged in these kind of activities, is increasing at a very high rate. Birth rates from unmarried women over 15 years have boomed from 8% in 1940 to over 40% in year 2000. This has led to a rapid increase in the amount of adolescent mothers, at least in the Us, this leads to an unhealthy child and mother, parents might not finish high school do to having the baby, parents have a smaller economical income, risk that the child might end up just as bad as the parents. Those are all the problems associated with early pregnancy, which has become a great deal in the past few years. Just as important and just as impressive is the rate of drug use on adolescents. 80% of all seniors in the US have taken alcohol before, over 60% have done cigarettes and 50% have already taken marijuana, that’s how big this issue is. These are all changes that adolescents might experience, and most actually do.

 The major issues that we experience as been an adolescent.

     Adulthood is the last stage of everyone’s life, and many people think that by adulthood you have already undergone all the changes that you had to do and therefore you don’t change during adulthood, well that is a lie. 

     The first big change for an adult is leaving home, because of college, getting an employment, the reason doesn't matter, and leaving home is the first big physical and psychological change of an adult.  This occurs usually in the “Novice stage” of adulthood, the first years, when you are bigger around the age of 23, there are two main tasks that you are expected to accomplish, begin to try getting a job in your career and to become a adult that has a socially structured life. Probably most of the changes occur during the age 30 transitions, when you are around this age; you begin to think about all your past decisions and is the period of life when people might decide to have a change in their life. The next part of adulthood is to successfully settle down, have accomplished a job, a home, a family. You might as well go to older people for advice during this age. The last stage of adulthood is realizing that your dreams might have been far beyond the accomplished and begins to have more dreams that are more realistic. These are the changes that men undergo throughout their adulthood, its different for women though.

     Women’s development through adulthood can be divided into three phases. Phase one is leaving the family, women’s adulthood begins when they leave their home, either because of their career or marriage. The next phase of women’s adulthood is how women have children; most women don’t work again after having their children. The last phase, phase three, in women adulthood development is once the children reach school age, women tend to return to their jobs, this would be the third and final stage of women adulthood.

           Adolescence and adulthood are very different from each other, even though in both stages of life the individual undergoes constant change, the ways in which the individual changes are very different. It is very important to undergo these changes, they are what prepare us for the future, changes we do in adulthood prepare us for those that we will live in our adulthood that is why this stage is so important. Probably right now the most concerning and most alarming issue would be the increasing rates of sexual and drug activities on adolescents, it is simply unexplained how rates have simply boomed and increased at such a high rate in the past few years.