Once upon a time, 18- to 25-year-olds were considered adults. That’s a fairy tale now, say most parents of college students, and their kids agree in a new study that confirms “growing up” comes later.

• Only 16% of mothers and 19% of fathers say their children this age have reached adulthood.
• And their kids don’t dispute it: Just 16% consider themselves grown up in the online survey of 392 college students and their 590 parents.

The term “emerging adults” was coined by psychologist Jeffrey Arnett of Clark University about 10 years ago when he began to study this phase. “We have a new life stage we didn’t have a few decades ago,” says Arnett, author of Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties. More education with years off between degrees, later marriages, having fewer children, and more couples living together before marriage have delayed “settling down,” he says. “Emerging adults do things, such as travel and trying out different kinds of jobs, that they couldn’t have done as adolescents and won’t be able to do as adults.”