A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of the term; generally, the term is often used to refer to adults in approximately the age range of 18 to 35 or 39 years. However, the term young adult is very often misused informally or in literary sense to refer to children down to ages 12 or 13 due to the category of young adult literature targeting this demographic in the lower age limit. This broad extension of young adult to minors has been greatly disputed, as they are not considered adults by the law or in any other cultures outside of religion (such as the Bar or Bat Mitzvah in Judaism), and t