What Makes a Grown-Up

[Sam W]

This came up in a conversation on the boards today and it got me thinking: what makes someone a grown-up? When we talk about maturity, and "being an adult" what traits are we actually describing?

So, I want to hear from y'all. What, in your mind, makes someone a grown-up? Is it just a number? A certain set of experiences? Is the way you define it now maybe different from how you thought of it five or ten years ago?

For me, I still do a weird thing where I refer to people older than me as grown-ups, in spite of being in my twenties. I think it's because they have things that I associate with adulthood, like stable jobs, or kids, or houses. But, obviously, none of those things are exclusively for grown-ups, and I know from talking to many people older than me that their lives are not any more stable than mine. So I am trying to think of adulthood as being about actions, like providing support to my loved ones, or being more thoughtful and calmer than I was when I was younger. But, again, I've seen plenty of people who society would label "kids" show those traits (sometimes more so than the adults I know)
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[Atonement]

Maybe this doesn’t make a “grown up” per se, but I think that one of the biggest parts of growing up is the realization that the adults you look up to, even the ones that you’ve grown up trusting implicitly, can have bad judgment and make poor choices.

I think that looking at that person, whoever it is for you, on more of an even field and realizing gives you this huge insight that there’s no magic age where you’ll automatically know what to do or make the right choices, and that life is still a learning process no matter where you’re at.

[Johanna]

I turned 30 this year, I am married, and for the past three years I have held a 9-5ish office job that I am qualified for with my advanced degree. And yet, I am still expecting to find a letter in my mail any day that says "Haha, just kidding, you have to move back into your parents basement now". So, I don't really think that these outward trappings of adulthood actually make one an adult.

But there are situations where I definitely notice a difference, and that's situations where I take on responsibility that my parents used to take on. For example, we have a pet, and there are a lot of moments where I think, "shit, this is not what having a pet felt like when I was a kid". I never really realized how much my parents must have worried about finding quality food, or how to pay expensiv vet bills, or what to do with a pet when planning summer vacations, etc.

So, I think that you're an adult when, when you are confronted with things you did not have to deal with as a child, you take them on and find a way to deal with them productively. (Though I should say that I realize that this greatly depends on your background. I know plenty of people who have had to take on responsibility way earlier than I had to.)

[moonlight]

I remember my shock and awe last year when I realised that I was the very same age as my parents when they met. My parents met each other right after they moved out of their childhood homes and have been together ever since. So, growing up there were two kinds of stories about their lives: stories as children, before they met and stories together, as adults. So, naturally, I considered them grown ups from when they met. It was so startling to reach this magical time point (moving out of the home at about age 18) that I had always considered a hallmark of being a grown up, only to realize that I didn't feel like one.

I also remember being 15 or 16 and my younger cousins calling me a grown up in a context where they wanted one with them so they would feel safer. I didn't feel like a grown up then, but it was the first time that it occurred to me that I was on my way to becoming one.

And today, I was in a grade six class where students were reading books that I want to read. (Lord of the Rings and Divergent, I was really impressed).


So, from the above, in my personal life I've experienced a lot of different senses of being a grown up.



Being a grown up, I think, is something that doesn't happen to you, but does happen to other people. Because you are there for every moment of your own development and have such a subjective view of it, this esoteric and revered concept of grown up will never quite fit. But others, especially those older than you, can always be assigned this label, because we don't often see the things that would make them "not a grown up".

Being a grown up means...

taking responsibility for your own actions
paying for your groceries and doing your own cooking
solving problems without your parents
calling your parents because you miss them
not feeling like a teacher can tell you what to do
growing as a person and taking on new identities, philosophies and ideas
living on your own (although I live in a University apartment-style residence and that doesn't feel grown up)
making your own decisions
having children, or thinking seriously about having them
sometimes putting others before yourself
taking care of your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health


There's lots more than that list of things above that can make someone a grown up. And someone can do all (or none) of those things and decidedly not be one.

I think the biggest thing is that you are a grown up when somebody else calls you that.

(also, I think the whole idea of being a grown up plays into a false sense of "doneness" that I find permeates life. It is a though a Grown-up is a finished person, completely done growing and perfectly suited to their role in this world. This concept, I have found, comes up a lot. Finishing high school, getting my period, having my first kiss, being financially independant(ish- Shout out to the generous donor of my scholarship), and other mile stones on the road of life, felt more to me like finish lines. So, I got past them and it was almost like, wow, I'm still here, thinking the same way, being the same way and nothing is drastically different. I have recently started to practise buddhism and have come to truly appreciate the idea that I only exist here and now in the present moment. The past is gone, the future does not exist yet, only this moment is true. There are many things I want out of life, but I can't put these things off to the future indefinantly. At some point, I have to decide that now is the moment for [whatever]. I guess what I am saying is Carpe Diem.)

Oh, and finally, being a grown up is when you start having grown up conversations with people younger than you. It's when you get along with your professors on sophisticated level. It's when you can leave the house without having to ask permission or tell anyone where you are going. Heck, last year I took a trip to Niagara Falls and didn't even tell my parents until it came up in conversation a few weeks later. (I wasn't living at home at the time: it's not very considerate to leave on a trip and not tell the people you live with).

[moonlight]

New one from today: you are a grown up the day your mother asks you a question about something she has heard, wanting to know if it true and she seems to hold all of the trust in your ability to answer that you held on her's. (For reference it WAS a biology question and I AM a biology major whom, come to think of it, has attained almost the same level of formal education as my mother. But she wins the race on life experience by far)