I’ve been thinking a lot about what constitutes being given the title of “Adult”. As a 21-year old college student, I am in that awkward limbo between adolescence and adulthood. The past 3 years of college have been a steady process of bricklaying and intricate construction, supposedly leading up to that decisive moment when I bridge the gap into official adulthood. However, I have to question what it is that changes your title so definitively.
In a society that so strongly demands conflicting ideals, growing up becomes a tricky process of maintaining youthful freshness with the experience of a seasoned professional. First, I hear my professors refer to when students “grow up, leave school and get real jobs and families” as a true indicator of becoming an adult. Then I turn around and see a culture that reveres youth in athletics and beauty, in which I am being slammed with the message of “stay young for as long as possible.” It is a confusing journey and, frankly, I have no idea if I am doing everything (or anything) right.
I used to think I was classy and grown up because I would drink red wine and read the classics while everyone else was getting faded at the party down the street. Yes, I would party with my teammates and friends but I can’t recall a time when I wasn’t the responsible person who kept track of everyone else. My friends and I were the kids in class that were labeled as “intellectually mature” by the teachers and coaches in high school. But now, I feel that acting like a responsible person isn’t really a great indication of being an adult. There are plenty of adults out there who act like complete idiots yet still carry the title of “grown-up”. So really, what is it that makes you a full-fledged adult?
Maybe being an adult refers to being able to legally vote or drink? No… I’ve been voting for 3 years and legally drinking for several months and I don’t feel like a grown-up still. Is the official seal of adulthood given when you walk across the stage after graduating from college? What about when I have to walk across more stages after graduating from medical school and then doing my residency and all the other extensive education required for my desired profession? Do I have to get a “real job” and have a family before I can call myself fully grown? I have all these questions and it bothers me that there isn’t a clear cut answer.
After having all these conflicting questions frequently interrupting my thoughts, I’ve started to have a couple of realizations. Maturity is not necessarily a destination. It is a life-long process that accounts for all of your successes, failures, and subsequent life lessons that are taken away from those experiences. Adulthood isn’t about walking across a stage or cracking open a beer for the first time. It is an evolution of yourself from the womb to the casket. It is learning responsibility and becoming self-sufficient. It involves acquiring wisdom without losing sight of the new and relevant things. It is about discovering the difference between what you want and what you need to survive. For a lot of people, it includes realizing the needs of another person and putting them before yourself. And you know what? There are a lot of people out there who still haven’t figured out most of those things.
I am still learning, still evolving. I hope that I continue to do so in my education, my relationships, my sport, my profession, everything, until the day I die. Becoming stagnant in any one aspect results in a loss of knowledge and ability. It is comforting to know that there are so many others who are also continuing on their paths and maturing like I am. I don’t know when I will be comfortable with calling myself an adult. I do know that there will come a day when that metaphorical bridge I have been erecting for all these years will be complete. I can only hope that I’ll be ready to cross it when that day comes.
-DG
Sounds like you’ve done a lot of insightful pondering, as we call it in the South. My favorite sentence is this one “Maturity is not necessarily a destination.” I’m not sure there are any destinations. I always wanted a house in the country. I have one, but it’s not a destination because I’m living here. It’s not like I got here and stopped. All of life is like that to me, you never stop at a destination.
I like that you play soccer, not so much that it’s a soccer but that you’re on a team. You can learn things being on a team that you won’t learn any where else.
Of course, context matters. An “adult movie”, for instance, is not one that is old enough to vote (like “Casablanca”), nor even one aimed at mature people. On the contrary, most “adult” films are targeted at horny teenage boys who are anything but mature.
If I had to pick one thing that determines adulthood I would say it is making your own decisions. If that sounds vague then go with “Not getting money from your patents.” In college and after I noticed big differences in the decisions made by people whose parents gave them money and those who didn’t (or couldn’t). Sometimes people who received money could take advantage of more opportunities (like internships), but on the other hand they were beholden to what their parents wanted for them rather than choosing their own way.
At some you switch from asking your parents what they think to telling them what you’re doing.
My good Dani,
To my mind, becoming an adult means finally accepting responsibility for oneself completely and removing oneself as the responsibility, as the dependent, of another, in thought and deed. An adult, as best he is able, will no longer permit himself to be the ward of another, in thinking or in action, and, although life may sometimes force him against his will to temporarily become the ward of another physically or financially, he recognizes that condition as fundamentally and pathologically retrograde and chafes to escape it at every moment. By those same values, while an adult might at any given time become a casualty of circumstance he never allows himself to see himself as a victim of it, and so spends his time and effort avoiding such occasions, never bemoaning them.
The only real differentiation to this I might offer would be marriage, where such adulthood is pursued mutually and interdependently, which is the only way I, at least, imagine truly happy marriages endure long term. In marriage, one surrenders the more simple “I” of individual adulthood to the more complex, mutually interdependent “we” of joint, dialectical adulthood, where at any given moment each party is simultaneously the fully responsible ward of the other, ideally until death they do part.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria