ladysprite (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladysprite) wrote2007-06-10 10:22 am
ladysprite) wrote2007-06-10 10:22 am
Just Curious......
When does life stop feeling like pretending and practice, and start feeling like actually being a grownup?
I'm over 30 years old. Many of my friends have children - by the time my mom was my age she did, too. I'm married,, and I've been self-supporting for many years. My husband and I live together, and while our furniture still doesn't match, it's still a pretty nice place, and we're looking at buying a house really darn soon.
I have a job; I even have letters after my name. I've survived being self-employed, I pay my taxes and balance my budget and plan in advance. And still, deep inside, I feel like a kid playing house. My coworkers laugh at me when I call my lab coat my Doctor Costume, but that's really what it is - dressing up and playing a role. Planning meals and going to the grocery feels like a game, where the grownups let me play along and pretend to be running a family just like them.
Part of me wonders if this is from the delayed adulthood effect of graduate school - I had an extra several years of full-time student status, with classes and textbooks and ramen noodles, which pushed off any thoughts of growing up and settling down until I was in my late 20s. Part of me also wonders whether this has anything to do with deciding to be childfree. There's still a pretty strong bias in the world to think of the Standard Plan as 'grow up, get married, have kids,' and since I'm never planning on finishing that path, is my self-image going to be permanently stuck at not-quite-adult?
I'm not at all upset with this state of affairs - as long as meshing with the adult world feels like a game, life is fun. I just wonder, every once in a while, when the Responsible Adult switch is thrown, and what makes people eventually start self-identifying, both inside and out, as a grownup instead of a poser....
I'm over 30 years old. Many of my friends have children - by the time my mom was my age she did, too. I'm married,, and I've been self-supporting for many years. My husband and I live together, and while our furniture still doesn't match, it's still a pretty nice place, and we're looking at buying a house really darn soon.
I have a job; I even have letters after my name. I've survived being self-employed, I pay my taxes and balance my budget and plan in advance. And still, deep inside, I feel like a kid playing house. My coworkers laugh at me when I call my lab coat my Doctor Costume, but that's really what it is - dressing up and playing a role. Planning meals and going to the grocery feels like a game, where the grownups let me play along and pretend to be running a family just like them.
Part of me wonders if this is from the delayed adulthood effect of graduate school - I had an extra several years of full-time student status, with classes and textbooks and ramen noodles, which pushed off any thoughts of growing up and settling down until I was in my late 20s. Part of me also wonders whether this has anything to do with deciding to be childfree. There's still a pretty strong bias in the world to think of the Standard Plan as 'grow up, get married, have kids,' and since I'm never planning on finishing that path, is my self-image going to be permanently stuck at not-quite-adult?
I'm not at all upset with this state of affairs - as long as meshing with the adult world feels like a game, life is fun. I just wonder, every once in a while, when the Responsible Adult switch is thrown, and what makes people eventually start self-identifying, both inside and out, as a grownup instead of a poser....
no subject
Our culture doesn't have any formal Rite Of Passage, which makes it difficult to internalize the feeling of "having arrived" at adulthood. Basically, you have to decide for yourself when you've done it; I suspect that actually buying a house may be a strong trigger for you. Beyond that, I think Bill says it well.
FWIW, there are some assumptions made about adulthood that annoy the living shit out of me, such as the cutesy phrase "adult beverages" for booze. I have a hard time expressing how marginalizing it feels to be told, in effect, that because I choose not to drink alcohol, I'm not a REAL adult. Also, it makes me wonder whether this attitude will leak over into the way people who use the phrase will perceive me in other areas as well.
no subject
I've always taken that expression to mean "beverages only meant for adults," not "beverages all adults consume." It's the same kind of euphemism as "adult entertainment" - it's not that you're not an adult if you don't partake, it's that if you're not an adult, you shouldn't partake.