What's with America's sudden infantilization of adults

Sorry, but do some Americans not know what an adult is? Every time someone argues that a person is an adult whether their age ends in “teen” or starts with 20 people lose their minds. And then the excuse is always, “Well, they can’t drink yet.” Are you all measuring adulthood based on alcohol? Not everybody drinks. Relax. A 19-year-old actress, almost 20, signs up for a show, reads the script, agrees to adult scenes with a 28-year-old actor, and suddenly people act like she had no agency or didn’t make that decision herself. She’s an adult. She chose the role.

The same thing happens with college students: if someone is 18, 19 and dating someone a few years older, people start screaming, “You like teenagers!” even when both people are adults and out of high school. It’s ridiculous. Americans also seem obsessed with age in general acting like life ends at 25, joking about turning 25 like it’s retirement, or creating weird rules around age in college sports that you don’t really see in many European systems. At some point, it just comes across as extreme ageism and moral panic over fully grown adults making their own choices.