The day I turned 18.

I hated being a child so much. I desperately wanted to be an adult starting at about five years old. I was keenly aware that adults were treated differently than children. I was aware that adults spoke to me differently than they did to each other. The constant over cheerfulness and over reactions to almost anything I said. My family didn't use baby talk on me, so it became glaringly obvious when other people did it

At the time I didn't really have a word for it, but now I do. It always felt really demeaning when my mom and a friend would be having a rich, in depth vibrant discussion, and then they would turn to me, tilt their head and the voice would go up am octave and almost in a sing-song way ask me how school was going, which was my least favorite thing to talk about because I absolutely hated school.

And no matter the answer I gave, they'd chuckle like I was just SOOOO precocious. Try to interject an opinion on something adults are talking about? Over reaction on face and, "Isn't she just SO cute and clever!"

To this day, hearing or seeing people talk down to children or teenagers just makes me cringe so good damn much. I've seen it on Reddit too. I think the cringiest thing I saw was a 14 year old boy asking for advice and neatly half the responses started with "Hey buddy. It's tough being a kid!"

Like fucking really? Calling him buddy? He's a teenager, not a four year old. Speak to him like am adult, like am equal to build him up.

So with that back story, I started immediately. I corrected people by reminding them that I was an adult now. It was obnoxious of me looking back, but I was so fucking happy to be an adult that I immediately wanted to be treated like one. And I do my best to speak to both minors and adults like I wish I had been spoken to.