I don't think it's a moment. I don't think there's a line and before you cross it you are a child and after that you are an adult. I think its gradual. One day your mom says "you are getting to big for this" and soon she stops picking you up. You slowly change interst in toys until one day you realize nothing you would call a toy can you admit to enjoying least you be ridiculed. You gain responsibilities. You get a part time job so you can fund your teen adventures while you are still young enough to have them. You go to college, or at least become the age where people you are friends with are going to college. You drink way to much alcohol. You become old enough to buy said alcohol. You become to old to drink so much alcohol. I think growing up is a process. You grow and change and gain responsibilities and learn you enjoy different things. I think if you think there was a moment you lost your childhood, you might be doing it wrong.
This made me sad, because I can't pick up my daughter any more. But I totally agree with you, except on the last part. Sadly, knowing the moment your childhood ended often has nothing to do with "not doing it right" and way more to do with severe trauma.
That may be the case I suppose. Severe enough trauma is probably enough to make growing up less of a process and more of a "you're not a kid anymore " kind of experience.
I can tell you that even as a kid who grew up in a couple of dysfunctional households, learning to care care of my siblings when I was still in eay elementary because no one else was taking care of them, having forced sexual experiences my brain straight up repressed for years and dealt with by having nightmares, and being yelled at for crying because I "didn't have a good reason to cry" was difficult and lead me not to have a "normal childhood". However I still had a childhood and that didn't just end when I learned to change a diaper, it didn't end when I was raped, it didn't end when I was taken from a household full of neglect and placed into an emotionally abusive one.
Maybe this is because all of those things happened when I was young, and I continued to still be a child, albeit an abnormal one.
The closest you come to childhood fully ending is when you start looking around for a responsible person to take charge of the situation, and then have the sudden horrifying realization that that person is now supposed to be you
First time you realize your parents can't or won't help you.
Double points if the problem comes from your parents' behavior and there's no one else to help, you instantly become a very mature adult. (and then you have to go through all the process of finding back your childhood and try to be a teenager, all of this accelerated, so you can eventually become a functioning adult).
I can tell you that even as a kid who grew up in a couple of dysfunctional households, learning to care care of my siblings when I was still in eay elementary because no one else was taking care of them, having forced sexual experiences my brain straight up repressed for years and dealt with by having nightmares, and being yelled at for crying because I "didn't have a good reason to cry" was difficult and lead me not to have a "normal childhood". However I still had a childhood and that didn't just end when I learned to change a diaper, it didn't end when I was raped, it didn't end when I was taken from a household full of neglect and placed into an emotionally abusive one.
Maybe this is because all of those things happened when I was young, and I continued to still be a child, albeit an abnormal one.
Double points if the problem comes from your parents' behavior and there's no one else to help, you instantly become a very mature adult. (and then you have to go through all the process of finding back your childhood and try to be a teenager, all of this accelerated, so you can eventually become a functioning adult).