growing up
Leaving childhood behind
Growing up is the process of maturing from childhood to adulthood, encompassing physical development, emotional change, and the accumulation of life experience.
The phrase often carries nostalgic or reflective weight: Growing up, we spent summers at the lake.
It can also describe accepting adult responsibilities: It's time to stop making excuses and start growing up.
- teenageOf youth, 13-19
- boyhoodMale youth period
- birds and beesEuphemism for sex education
- pubertySexual development stage
- quarter-life crisisEarly adulthood identity struggle
girlhood · adolescence · peer pressure · first kiss · bildungsroman · maturation · generational conflict · rites of passage · formative years · youth · adulthood · identity formation · finding yourself · coming of age · childhood · loss of innocence · innocence lost · child protagonists
- childhoodchildhood, baby, child, kid, toys
- growthincrease, increasing, expansion, expand, expanding
- social developmentsocialization, social skills, friendship, social behavior, belonging
- childhood journalsdiary entries, secret thoughts, secrets, confessions, dreams
- coming-of-agecoming-of-age, bildungsroman, maturation, youth, young adult
- life stagesbaby, teenager, adult, childhood, adolescence
growing upregressing
Returning to earlier state
Peter Pan syndrome · arrested development · eternal youth · infantilization · second childhood
growing upchildishness
Immature conduct
immaturity · failure to launch · kidding around · playing around · goofing off
growing upshrinking
Decreasing in dimension
withering · diminishing · dwindling · atrophying · stunted growth
grow, growth, growing, grown, grew, grown-up, grower, overgrown, outgrowth