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....
Re: Mentoring
Piffle. I've taught other people how to play medieval boardgames, and how to contradance, and how to do basic kumihimo. I'm nowhere near an "expert" in any of those things, but I know how to do them and how to tell someone else what they need to learn. You've had a pamphlet published on Italian Renaissance dance, which makes you at least far more of an expert than most people! If I were looking for someone to teach me about that, and I lived in your area, I'd certainly come to you first.
Re: Mentoring
And.... there's a significant difference between showing a friend how to do something in a casual setting and 'taking on a mentoring relationship.' The latter implies setting yourself up as someone's superior and advisor, which I'm *extremely* leery of doing.
Though, to be honest, I still feel that you really ought to be an expert before taking on the task of teaching. Otherwise, how do you know that what you're teaching them isn't wrong?