Adultification Quotes

We need kids to remind us of how incredible this world is. People are increasingly losing their childhoods too soon, and that's a danger. There's a prophesy somewhere that at a certain point in history, children will be gray. It's weird to think about, but it's possible.

Children are being adultified because our economy is depending on them to make purchasing decisions. So they're essentially the victims of a marketing and capitalist machine gone awry.

Adult helplessness destroys children. Or it forces them to become tiny adults of their own.

There is often a good deal of the child left in people who have had to grow up too soon.

For a long time I felt like I was fighting my age, like I was constantly trying to prove to people that I was a savvy peer, and I felt them viewing me as a kid. I was a cocky kid, and I felt like I was an adult at, like, 9, you know? I think that's because my parents always treated me as an adult.

In life's rich beauty pageant we put children on a stage, said flash your soft white belly child, but just don't act your age.

Growing up, I was a kid pretending to be an adult.

Who would know but ten years ago that kids would be texting each other all the time, that that would be one of their main forms of communication. And so many times, these kids know more about the technology than their parents. And so many times, we're putting kids in very adult situations and expecting them to behave like they're 40 years old.

Though the Jazz Age continued it became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children's party taken over by the elders.

That's all life is, I guess. Just a bunch of riffs. Look at me: I'm wearing a tie. Why am I wearing a tie? It's because I saw an adult wear a tie and I thought, Oh, that's what people do. We're all just trying to be what an adult is.

There's slowly been a kind of shift in how we think about childhood. It's like childhood almost extends to 20 or 22 even after the end of college. When I was growing up, there was this expectation that you were on your own now.

I've always felt this, from when I was growing up to now with my son Riley. We don't let them be little. I was not a normal kid, but I had a sense of innocence far longer than we let kids.

David Sedaris wrote in one of his books that people like to make children into little grown-ups, which to him is about as funny as a dog in sunglasses.

It's very easy to turn a toy into an adult toy: Location, location, location.

Children who assume adult responsibilities feel old when they're young.