Just Curious......

[ladysprite]

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....

Comments

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I don't know -- but I haven't gotten there yet, either.

Though, sometimes dating gabriel_le does make me realize I'm grown up.

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

You mean I have to grow up? ...

I suspect that you've already internalized all the hard choices you make, several years before anyone would have considered you an adult, so you haven't experienced any of the perspective shifts that come from making successively hard choices after leaving home. You've done that.

And who says that adults can't have fun??

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

For those who are childless, I suppose that you're an adult when you become an Evil Aunt/Uncle (whether in blood or fictive kinship).

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

For me it seemed to be when I started making serious medical decisions for myself. And when my parents died. But I do still have moments when I think my decisions are going to be second-guessed, if not by my own parents by others in their age bracket, and that's when I still, even now, feel like I'm playing at being an adult.

[arachne8x.livejournal.com]

I feel this way sometimes, especially if I'm behind financially or some such. I do think that going to graduate school can often make one feel like there must still be some carefree kid years left to experience. For me this was diminished by the fact that my PhD program often felt like a really hard job with long hours rather than school.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

It doesn't require children. I felt like an adult before my first child was born. I think that for me it was a matter of knowing I had nowhere to turn to for important decisions. I had to make them myself.

That said, I know you've been in that situation too. So I'm not sure why you feel that you're not a Real Adult(tm). You are.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I'm 44. I've only started feeling like a Real Adult in the last two or three years, and even now I'm not entirely sure.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

If I ever figure it out, I'll let you know.

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

When does life stop feeling like pretending and practice, and start feeling like actually being a grownup?

My grandfather (age 77, retired schoolteacher, retired U.S. Army lt. colonel, among rather a lot else) reports: Never. Everyone you see around you who seems confident, in control, and fully grown up is just faking it like you are.

[madamruppy.livejournal.com]

I turn 40 soon and I still don't feel that way. Made all the more so by my recent turn at being giddy and happy so much. One of my employees today told me that 40 is the new 20 - I laughed so hard. I guess that explains it.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

If you are fulfilling your adult responsibilities (supporting yourself, living within your means, having realistic goals and working to accomplish them, etc.), then you are a Responsible Adult, Q.E.D.

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.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

Everyone has a different face they put on for different roles. Having the luxury of being able to have roles in which you can relax, have fun, escape, etc., gives one the opportunity to see the "grownup" roles as just other faces. Turkle wrote about this years ago.

You're not really faking it, just putting on the right facade for the situation. Being able to laugh at one of them doesn't mean you treat it any less responsibly. (Parent is just one more role, of course.)

Mentoring

[pale-chartreuse.livejournal.com]

Have you tried "giving back" in the sense of being the senior person in a mentoring relationship? Regardless of your choices about parenting, passing on your knowledge and encouragement to the next generation can help you realize how far you have come. I've had some unofficial mentoring relationships and I have represented my profession at nursery schools, girl scout troops and high schools. I have found it very rewarding.

[knightofpholtus.livejournal.com]

"I don't want to Grow up I'm a Toys R Us Kid"

No really I am :)

Being a DM and Gaming and Larping every couple weeks, I sometime have to stop and think "how old am I".

I for one am very happy that I never felt the urge to "finish growing up" . I think that also makes you the great person you are :)

[corwyn-ap.livejournal.com]

The biggest difference (for you) between you and other people is that you are on the inside and they are on the outside. This difference dwarfs all other differences, and you (like everyone else) are not capable of evaluating yourself compared to others as a result.

p.s. From my perspective, you are doing fine.

p.p.s. OT: any reason my kitten should be stealing the sponges from the sink and worms from the ground, and carting them around?

[unclebooboo.livejournal.com]

Whether your believe it or not, you're clearly functioning as an adult already. You've got the basics down, but now you need to prepare yourself for some of the tough things that are coming (like the death of a parent, health problems, mid-life crisis, etc.) In my experience, many people become old and embittered through these experiences. For me, the toughest problems were really coming to terms with my own mortality and reaching a point in my career where I can't reasonably expect to accomplish more in the way of fame, fortune, or position.

My only advice is to focus on trying new things on a regular basis- don't get stuck in a rut. My goal for the second half of my life is to keep learning new things every year.

[mindways]

I have some wild guesses, but they're all made-up. ^_^

1. Never? Everyone's pretending. Some people are pretending so well that they've forgotten they're pretending, that's all.

2. Mu? There is no switch, merely self-image which includes some sort of connection between the notions of "self" and "responsible adult"; and that connection varies widely in both degree *and nature*.

3. Age fifty-seven?

4. About a tenth of a second after full realization of one's own mortality?

5. After some cumulative degree of other people one respects and looks up to repeatedly identifying/affirming one as responsible/an adult?

6. On at nine, off at fourteen, on at twentyish, off at twentytwoish, random numbers thereafter?

7. It's actually a prize you find in the bottom of a Cracker Jack box?

[flaviarassen.livejournal.com]

If you're decided to be Childfree, then the LARP community is the best pace for that. A sharp percentage of LARPers hate kids.

[jducoeur]

I can't say that I've entirely turned that corner; to a large degree, I hope I never do. That said, my Anni Horribili (the relatively short span of a couple of years, when I lost both cats and all of my grandparents) did sober me up quite a bit. I'm still working at making myself feel a little *less* grown-up and old from that...