Do you ever start feeling like an adult?

[Viki63]

. . … I have thought about dropping everything and going and hiking the Appalachian trail. Would that make me feel more like a man? But alas, I have bills to pay and can’t simply quit my job. Hopefully by the time I am seventy and need dentures I feel like an adult.

I hiked the Appalachian trail in my twenties. It didn’t make me feel like an adult especially, but it was a great setting to read The Lord of the Rings in.
By the time grandchildren start to come along, you start to get a clue that it’s time to be an adult.

But the older I get, the more I realize how little I know, It’s a learning process that expands the longer it goes on.
I need to hurry up and do all those things that I was going to do just before the end, because you never know when the end will show up. And I have realized that I will die with my To Do list uncompleted.

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[mommy_k]

It’s situational for me…

When I am with my children-I feel like an adult because I have to be the adult. Same with work or anything else that requires responsibility.

When I am with friends or doing something fun-I feel less adultlike. I am internally young for my age in that regard.

 

[3DOCTORS]

I’ve really enjoyed reading all the responses on this thread. EasterJoy in particular, you really have a lot of insight into these matters. And Allegra - wow, I wish I’d gotten more of that sort of competency and mastery in my own upbringing. My parents never set out to cause me harm deliberately, God bless them, but they were new parents and my mom had physical and emotional issues, and they married late and I was their precious only.

So I got overprotected - and discouraged many times from taking initiative. I also have ADD but back in the day it wasn’t defined and so my impulsivity would result in bad consequences for which I was then shamed and criticized. So I’d white-knuckle it trying to not make impulsive decisions till I felt so stymied then I’d make one just to “break out” of the feeling of being in a rut, or in hopes of obtaining something I desired. And then another train wreck of consequences, rinse and repeat the cycle.

There were also times when my mom would notice another kid who was responsible and had self-initiative and get on a toot about it - why couldn’t I, for example, be like neighbor kid Charles who by 3rd grade got himself up with an alarm clock and got ready for school without being dragged from bed and nagged etc.? Well, perhaps because I didn’t have an alarm clock, could that be it? (I did get one by 7th grade or so.) I love my parents despite these all-too-human foibles, and miss them terribly now that they are gone to the next life. But it sure did get confusing at times!

As for feeling like an adult in the adult world, my results have been very mixed. I made a hash of my finances, never had a career, never married (though I don’t entirely blame myself for this one - it was difficult to meet men, much less proceed toward any kind of steady dating, engagement, etc.). In the last 5 years or so I’ve gone through some major upheavals, and though I can still be that scared little girl, I’ve noticed it’s becoming less often and there does seem to be an inner strength growing - when I trust in God, that’s absolutely the key. I don’t have so many times of crying and feeling like a little girl; if I’m upset, I feel more like a woman who is upset, but who will dry her eyes and splash some cold water on her face and re-enter the fray and keep fighting. Putting on her big-girl panties!

 

[Sheeniac]

I felt like an adult at the age of 18. In hindsight, I wasn’t fully an adult, but I think I had all the “building blocks”. I had a tough childhood and had to deal with certain things earlier than one should have. In addition, I’m a serious person and an introvert.

At the age of 49, I don’t feel old, but I’ve been responsible for decades.

 

[misspriss]

I started feeling like an adult somewhere between the birth of my first child and the birth of my second.

When DS arrived, premature, was in the NICU, etc. We were just buying a house and stuff. I felt like I was a child trying to be an adult. Every time I visited him in the NICU I felt like a child still.

Before DD arrived, I feel like an adult. Not sure when it happened, it was gradual. I now own a house for a couple years, a car, have two kids…it happened. I think it really settled in when I became a SAHM.

 

[Anglewannabe]

You know how when you’re a kid adults always seem to know how to handle things? That’s what I’m waiting for.

First of all, ‘adults seem to know how to handle things’ is just a myth all kids believe. Adults don’t like to show kids their incompetence. Sometimes it is because of pride, other times it is because they want to protect the child so they don’t let on how clueless they are.

Because after all, if all adults knew how to handle things, we would be living in a perfect world. However the reality is, we live in a fallen world and by default, everyone has situations they don’t know how to handle.

To be honest, growing up is one of the biggest let downs. I think back to when I was a kid and how glamorous teenagers appeared to me. My teenage years were horrible. When I was a teenager, I looked at young adults and thought they were glamorous. Been there and that wasn’t all that glamorous either. As a young adult, I would see 30 year olds and think 'once established in a career now that is when you have it made. ha ha ha that is not true either.

Now I am 45 and I think ‘seniors have it made’ Living in a home is just like a living in a university residence. Party all the time with your peers and not only do you get your own room, you even get your own washroom

The moral of the story is, everyone hopes for a better future and often they equate it to being older. The reality is, if you can’t learn ho to be happy and confident in your decisions TODAY, you will not have it in the future

 

[Jelrak_TB]

First of all, ‘adults seem to know how to handle things’ is just a myth all kids believe. Adults don’t like to show kids their incompetence. Sometimes it is because of pride, other times it is because they want to protect the child so they don’t let on how clueless they are.

Because after all, if all adults knew how to handle things, we would be living in a perfect world. However the reality is, we live in a fallen world and by default, everyone has situations they don’t know how to handle.

To be honest, growing up is one of the biggest let downs. I think back to when I was a kid and how glamorous teenagers appeared to me. My teenage years were horrible. When I was a teenager, I looked at young adults and thought they were glamorous. Been there and that wasn’t all that glamorous either. As a young adult, I would see 30 year olds and think 'once established in a career now that is when you have it made. ha ha ha that is not true either.

Now I am 45 and I think ‘seniors have it made’ Living in a home is just like a living in a university residence. Party all the time with your peers and not only do you get your own room, you even get your own washroom

The moral of the story is, everyone hopes for a better future and often they equate it to being older. The reality is, if you can’t learn ho to be happy and confident in your decisions TODAY, you will not have it in the future

…and there you have it FTW…what more need be said…?