When Did You Become an Adult?

What do you want to be when you grow up?  We're all asked this when we're kids, and the answer to the 'what' part of this question often changes.  I've wanted to be an inventor, a businessman, a world traveler, a teacher, a preacher, a therapist, a director, a rock star, and a writer.  But I want to focus on the "when you grow up" part of the question, because I've heard several people much older than me say that they still don't know what they want to be when they grow up.  This dilemma begs the question, exactly when is it that we do grow up?  At what point do we become adults?  When did you go from being a girl to being a woman?  When did you stop being a boy and start being a man?  Has it happened yet?

There are the adolescent notions that you become a woman once you have your first period and that you become a man once you lose your virginity.  Thank God that our government does not use these benchmarks as a means for determining adulthood.  It'd be great if we could stop kids from thinking this way too, because it produces some harmful effects.  In the few years I've spent working with kids, I've noticed that they often wish they could hurry up and become adults already.  They try to act more mature than they are, they try things they are not yet ready for, and they despise anything they view as childish or silly.  Because of this, too many people prematurely terminate their childhoods, and that is a shame.  They stop developing their imaginations, they stop enjoying the simple beauties of the world, and (most devastatingly) they can become cynical and jaded at the worst possible point in their lives, the formative years in which we tackle the questions of who we are and what we believe in.  If during the most crucial stage of moral, intellectual, and emotional development you already feel corrupted, feel like you've lost faith or innocence or inspiration, what will the rest of your life be like?  How unpleasant and negative will things become if the foundation of your identity is twisted from the start? 

I think it best that we prolong childhood for as long as we can in ourselves and in our children.  Encourage playfulness, exploration, and wonder.  Don't allow too much responsibility to be taken on too soon.  Love interests, careers... these things can wait.  People have their entire adulthood to grapple with these things, and adulthood can last upwards of 80 years.  Childhood, however, is much more limited.    

From a legal standpoint, you're more or less an adult when you hit the age of 18.  You can purchase tobacco products and lottery tickets, sign your own medical forms, drive a car, see rated R movies, rent an apartment, and go to real prison if you mess up.  But I've met some very immature 18 year-olds.  Hell, I've met some very immature 25 year-olds.  And there are16 year-olds who have already learned to live on their own.  I consider myself an adult, and yet I still find that I view myself more like a child when interacting with an authoritative figure to whom I defer.  So the factors influencing adulthood must vary from person to person. 

Some might say that you become an adult when you start living on your own.  You have your own house, work full time, and pay your own bills.  Some people feel that they've reached adulthood once they do start that career they've been striving toward, once they've "arrived" at some goal they've had in mind.  Some feel like they're adults once the next generation is born, once they become parents, uncles, aunts, or teachers.  Some don't really feel like adults until the previous generation starts dying off and they no longer have that cushion of security, of being able to go to their own parents for help.

Responsibility is the major factor in all of these contingencies. 

I believe that the moment I became a man was when I started recognizing things that needed to be done and recognizing myself as the person who could do them, who should do them.  I don't know when this first happened; it was probably something that developed in stages.  Moving away and living on my own.  Learning to befriend the kind of people I respect and not just the people who are around. Leaving my apartment in the middle of the night to console a friend having a breakdown.  Declining dead end jobs and seeking jobs that scared the hell out of me but felt right.  Asking out the kind of people I love instead of settling for the kind of people I thought would say yes, and having the patience to wait for the first kind of person.  Remembering my nieces' birthdays.  Letting go of friendships no longer serving their function.  Maintaining the good friendships, even when it is inconvenient to do so.  Learning to cease fearing authority figures, learning to approach and engage with people I admire.  Learning to consider the source, listen when it's a source I respect, and ignore when it's not.  Taking family members to the hospital.  Being a mediator when the people I love forget that they love each other.  Waking up in the AM.  Taking the time to purchase fresh ingredients and cook a healthy meal.  Reading the Bible, however long it may take me.   Stopping at two drinks.  Making sure the guy passed out on the sidewalk is still alive.

And of course, I do try to keep the child in me alive.  I still love running through a downpour, climbing trees, playing with dogs, making immature jokes, and learning new things.  I think the best people are those who have found a comfortable balance between the pure uncorrupted delight of childhood and the ability to take responsibility for the things you have the ability to be responsible for.  That's really the major difference between immaturity and adulthood; you step up and do what's necessary because you are the one who can.

Although I am curious, dear readers.  If you would be so bold, please feel free to share the moments you first realized you had become a man or woman.  I would love to know, and it could be a valuable piece of introspection for you.  When did you become an adult?