Adulting

[lyda222]

Today, I woke up thinking about "adulting

Comments

[seawasp]

I'm married with four children and I don't really feel like an adult at all.

[lyda222]

I suspect you're in the majority of my friends. I'm Skyping with another friend about this, who, like you doesn't think she's achieved any kind of sustained "adulting" despite marriage, kids, etc. We're postulating that maybe some of this lack of feeling like adulthood has been achieved despite doing all the OFFICIAL THINGS that ought to make us feel as though we've crossed that threshold, is that adults are supposed to be people who have their houses in order. No one I know (including myself) feels that way most days

[seawasp]

I guess that's close for me. My father and mother never seemed to have to do that "keep seven balls in the air and always afraid one will drop" that I've been doing for years. They went to work, they paid their bills, they owned their house after X years, I never got the feeling that there was much strain in KEEPING everything going.

[offcntr]

I was already in grad school, had moved across the country and everything, but I was back in the midwest for a late summer visit. My dad and youngest brother had driven to Minneapolis to pick me up, brother driving, and they got in an accident. I remember calling the garage where they'd towed the car, calling the insurance company, thinking, "Isn't this something dad's are supposed to do?" Dad was too shook up by the experience, and, in retrospect, may never have been in an accident before. Having to parent a parent is kind of a defining adult moment.

A more fun one happened around the same time, when my former college professor asked my advice about what clay mixer he should get for Viterbo and I realized that somehow I'd transitioned without noticing from student to colleague.

[lyda222]

Both of those make a lot of sense to me. I mean, having to take care of the grown-up stuff FOR the grown-up? Definitely. I mean, I have one of those moment where I remember feeling like "wait, my parents aren't immutable and infallible??" It was a scary one, and I don't even remember how old I was when my dad slipped taking the garbage to the alley and broke his arm. That was a huge moment of separation for me, you know?

I like the second story a lot, though, because it's more like my laundry story... a sense of sudden, "Whoa, cool, I'm an adult now maybe?" :-) Plus, getting treated like a colleague? AWESOME.

[mle292]

Diane was born when I was 20. It was, therefore, time to start acting like an adult, even though I did not believe myself to be one. After a few years of faking it, it just sort of happened.

[lyda222]

Fake it until you make it, eh? :-)

Kids will certainly do that, although it's funny that I know a couple of people who still say that wasn't enough for them. I think it may depend on how you define "being adult." When you have kids you kind of just ARE, since you're suddenly in that role as a parent, but I get how, for some, being a parent only exacerbates that sense of "I AM MAKING ALL OF THIS UP PLZ SEND HELP," you know?

[mle292]

Oh, definitely yes. If I had parenting advice to give, it would be to realize that there will be times when you must just be honest with your kids and admit to them that you don't really know what you're doing. "Sorry, I see now that I did that parent thing wrong right there. I'm just guessing, like everyone else. I will know next time."

[offcntr]

Ursula Vernon had some interesting (and funny) thoughts on adulting at her Livejournal, Bark Like a Fish, Damnit! She got a payment from a movie option and was considering investing in some property.

[lyda222]

I'll have to check this out. I asked this same question over on Facebook and I got a flood of responses. Another person sent me an essay, one she'd written, about the death of her husband. It was hardcore adulting. But I had to ask the question in a lot shorter way, without much framework, and so I ended up wit a lot of fascinating, wide-raging answers. On of my friends, who is a veteran of the first Gulf War, said for him it was being evac'd in a helicopter and realizing his mom wouldn't be able to see him in the hospital.

[bibliofile]

I first felt like an adult when I had my own car. It's probably a very American thing. It wasn't owning a car, or buying one, or having insurance, it was having one of my own, to use as need to get where I needed to go.

[lyda222]

Driving is definitely a moment when I feel adult. Specifically, I feel really independent when I'm driving on the highway at night through (or past) the cityscape. Oh, also, getting a view like that from a taxi window will do it too. (Although in Minneapolis/St. Paul taxi rides are pretty uncommon, though I have very strong memory of taking a taxi to somewhere when I was still in college. To a show? I don't even remember where, it's completely eclipsed by that one view out of the window.)