8 ms·

Adulthood Is a Mirage

31 points by night-rider 3y ago

b33j0r 3y ago
I think the social concept of maturity comes from social hierarchy and advance, more than any story we tell ourselves about personal growth. Grandma wanted some cake at the end just as I do now, and always have ;) It’s a way to organize society with a common-sense-sounding multilevel marketing presentation of how you can become grandpa and have a sizable downline! Yet. You’re still gonna be you, and that’s the scam. You can always tell which kid wants to sit around and read, and which kid wants to be a politician, and which kid is going to be a heavy metal drummer. Sometimes a kid will never fit a mold, but they almost never flip personalities. If someone is surprised that Johnny ditches work in his 40’s, I find that the exterior world made the wrong conclusions about why he ditched class in his 8’s and teens. I think it’s just hard for us to accept that a lot of who we are is baked into our personalities from birth.
Raidion 3y ago
I think it all comes down to priorities. "Adults" are the ones that seem to have the best balance of those (for the location/culture) with the most experience living out those values (aka they learned it from their parents). Having money that's 75%+ percentile helps too. I've experienced this moving from more rural spots in the south to a NE suburban existence. Lawns and landscaping matters. There is etiquette around how/when to put out your trash cans and leaves. Etiquette for how the kids should play around in the neighborhood. I've had to figure those out on the fly, but the kids learn those rules without even realizing it. I think the most important thing about being an adult is making sure your kids are happy, healthy, and have opportunities to do well and be proud. You can't let them jump on every culture phenomenon, but you also have to let them be a part of the culture they're in. Unless you're doing the exact same thing as your parents did, it's going to take some figuring out, and that's totally ok. It's adult to figure things out.
Apocryphon 3y ago
I think there is something to the idea that in the U.S., each subsequent generation is more infantilized, whether by less economic control leading to stunted growth (delayed home ownership, marriage, etc.) or simply by an entire market trying to tickle their childhood nostalgia by creating consumer products and content that appeals to less-than-adult tastes. Or simply the further absence of multi-generational households, where at least new parents could readily receive knowledge and wisdom from experienced adults. But we should also remember there's nothing new under the sun. This passage - > A whole category of responses could be labeled “self-loathing goblin mode”: Parents who still act like teens, despite themselves, when they’re at home. Lying in bed with a hangover while the kids watch TV (which I’m pretty sure was a cornerstone of parenting through the mid-20th century at least and gave rise to an entire genre of television, Saturday-morning cartoons), letting the house get real messy, and serving “subnutritious meals,” as one parent put it. - reminds me of this passage by Dave Barry: https://www.wsj.com/articles/dave-barry-the-greatest-party-generation-1424965599 https://www.wsj.com/articles/dave-barry-the-greatest-party-g... archive: https://archive.is/Uyrys#selection-2693.0-2696.0 https://archive.is/Uyrys#selection-2693.0-2696.0 > My mom, like my dad, and millions of other members of the Greatest Generation, had to contend with real adversity: the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, hunger, poverty, disease, World War II, extremely low-fi 78 r.p.m. records and telephones that—incredible as it sounds today— could not even shoot video. [...] I do know this: Unlike the “Mad Men” characters, the grown-ups back then had fun. A lot of fun. And it didn’t stop just because they had kids. My parents had a large circle of friends, and just about every weekend, throughout my childhood, they had cocktail parties, which rotated from house to house. I loved it when the party was at our house. Dozens of cars filled our driveway and lined the narrow dirt road we lived on, and dozens of couples poured into the house—the men in suits and ties, the women in dresses and heels, everybody talking, shouting, laughing, eating hors d’oeuvres, smoking, heading to the lineup of bottles on the kitchen counter to pour another drink. [...] Above all, they did not worry about providing a perfect, risk-free environment for their children. They loved us, sure. But they didn’t feel obligated to spend every waking minute running interference between us and the world. They were parents, but they were not engaged 24/7 in what we now call “parenting,” this all-consuming job we have created, featuring many crucial child-rearing requirements that my parents’ generation was blissfully unaware of. [...] Whereas we modern parents, living in the era of Death by Handshake, rarely pause to celebrate the way our parents did because we’re too busy parenting. We never stop parenting. We are all over our kids’ lives—making sure they get whatever they want, removing obstacles from their path, solving their problems and—above all—worrying about what else will go wrong, so we can fix it for them. We’re in permanent trick-or-treat mode, always hovering 8 feet away from our children, always ready to pounce on the apple.
- psunavy03 3y ago
  > I think there is something to the idea that in the U.S., each subsequent generation is more infantilized, whether by less economic control leading to stunted growth (delayed home ownership, marriage, etc.) or simply by an entire market trying to tickle their childhood nostalgia by creating consumer products and content that appeals to less-than-adult tastes. "Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret, and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - C.S. Lewis
  - kelipso 3y ago
    Well of course a guy who enjoyed children's books in his 50s and probably got made fun of it for it constantly would say something like this.
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
      Doubt the Inklings with their literary sales and reputations were ever in fear of that.
    - psunavy03 3y ago
      Given his stature in Western literature, I doubt he cared.
  - sdwr 3y ago
    I remember feeling the same. As a child there's a sense that EVERYBODY knows better than you, open to reproach / correction from all angles. Part of being an adult is staking a claim to self-identity.
S_Bear 3y ago
Two Incomes, No Kids is really an easy-mode shortcut to life. My wife and I can fully devote ourselves to our hobbies and interests without shame or judgement. All of these parenting articles sound exhausting for the participants.
- kuahyeow 3y ago
  Even with kids, I simply do not care about any judgement. 99% of the time, no one on the proverbial soccer field honestly cares about your family setup - they are more worried about what's for dinner.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- voisin 3y ago
  Do you worry at all that (a) you are either missing out on something in the present (that there is something valuable in the exhausting struggle of parenthood), or (b) you might look back with regret in your later years?
  - eyelidlessness 3y ago
    Does this line of questioning ever work?
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      It’s not rhetoric. It’s a question.
    - voisin 3y ago
      It wasn’t meant to “work”. It was an honest question.
      - eyelidlessness 3y ago
        People without kids get these questions repeatedly, and they’ve surely asked themselves the same questions. If the answer is no, they probably don’t especially relate to the premise of the questions in the first place. If they do relate and their answer is yes, it can be painful to have those regrets highlighted. I’ll take your word on your intent. But so you might understand my reaction, it’s often the case that people ask these questions in full awareness of those possible answers—asking them as a form of social pressure to undermine the former option and/or to reinforce and exploit the latter.
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
> "Does Anyone Feel Like an Actual Adult?" I'm 41 years old and I'm still not convinced that I'm not just 3 kids stacked in a trench coat. Despite the fact that I have a respectable career, own a house, have a retirement account, etc, I still feel like I'm cosplaying as a responsible adult when I put on some nice clothes and go out to a fancy dinner. What am I doing here? This is for people that have their shit together. I don't have my shit together, do I? Maybe I do? I'm a child that tricked 5 people into thinking I know what I'm doing and gave me a job, then used that lie to swindle a bank into letting me borrow $300,000 to buy a house. I traveled to Italy last year. Are kids even allowed to board international flights on their own? Someone told me that this feeling is actually pretty common, but it usually goes away once your same-gendered parent dies, but my dad passed almost 5 years ago. Still often feel like I know nothing and am just pretending to know how to navigate life.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  I’m a couple years behind you and I feel the exact same. I suppose religious rituals have the goal of conferring life stages/adulthood, but I think that just proves how outdated religion is. I believe Judaism sets adulthood at 13 which is hard to believe was true even in the Bronze Age. My religion sets it in mid teenage years, but my parents sure didn’t treat me like an adult when I went through their ritual (and they were right). I suppose you could call me a manchild, but I never really got the appeal of growing up in America - work 40+ hours a week with a week or two off per year (and that’s if you’re lucky) for a few decades as you get old and then die. And that’s if you don’t get laid off. Got help you if you get laid off with dependents who need your employment for food, shelter, and health insurance. It’s pretty grim. If I was able to believe in a religion, I bet it would help. On a brighter note, I find it helps to think of things like play. Work is where I play with computers, the gym is where I mess around and enjoy myself. Framing is important.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    > I never really got the appeal of growing up in America - work 40+ hours a week with a week or two off per year (and that’s if you’re lucky) for a few decades as you get old and then die [...] if you don’t get laid off. America is not a country for salarymen. It is a country for entrepreneurs and business owners. Customers and employees are the human resources they exploit. You make your money however you can then you exfiltrate your earnings back to whatever country you came from, and retire early as a king.
johnea 3y ago
> Adulthood Is a Mirage for children... For adults, it's very very real...
snakeyjake 3y ago
I feel like an adult. Part of being an adult is realizing that any other adult who claims they've figured it out is lying.
MichaelRo 3y ago
> "Does Anyone Feel Like an Actual Adult?" Yes, I am an adult and have grown into a pretty cynical one, probably will continue to do so till I eventually transform into an old coot. Having a wife with Amber Heart (BPD / crazy b**h) syndrome which I haven't divorced (yet) solely for the sake of the kid doesn't help either.
- DougN7 3y ago
  I know a teen girl with BPD. Holy smokes! I mean this sincerely - you have my empathy. I’m sure I can’ begin to know what it’s like to live with that. I hope she fan find some medication or something that brings peace. BPD is not a small thing.
  - MichaelRo 3y ago
    I just launched a full-scale offensive attack against my wife's never ending skirmishes. I'm a nice guy but also compared to my wife, in intellectual, physical and first and foremost, expendable capital resources, I'm the Roman Empire versus Dacia. She crossed the Rubic^H^H^H^H^H Danube one time too many.
    - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
      I would give that relationship the Carthaginian solution.
mock-possum 3y ago
For me, adulthood is all about agency; Being an adult basically means you can do it yourself. You can take care of yourself, you can navigate life by yourself - not that you always get it right, more that you don’t need your parents to step in and get it for you.
mortify 3y ago
Being an adult is willingly taking responsibility, and in some ways liking it. Whatever it is, I'll handle it somehow. It might not be perfect, the plan may change, and it may even ultimately fail, but it's still mine and I'll deal with it. I might do it myself, hire an expert, or ask for help. That doesn't matter. The key is how we handle speedbumps and mistakes. A child throws up their hands, surrenders, and/or hands it over to someone else. Being an adult is less about knowing everything, but being able to see things through to the finish regardless of what comes your way.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  This reply resonates, thank you!
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
  Interesting definition, I like it. Makes me feel some relief when my children throw a tantrum, lol
- kuahyeow 3y ago
  Absolutely this, knowing what's _important_ at the end of the day. Must haves, nice to haves, not needed. We all only have limited lifespans.
whatindaheck 3y ago
As much as I feel like a child, I think the hallmark of being an “adult” is moderation. Give a kid unlimited access to a box of cookies - they’ll never eat dinner. Last night I snacked on a cookie before dinner. Sometimes I’ll stay out “past my bedtime”. Get into shenanigans. Go out with friends. Play hooky at work. I can behave like a kid while still taking responsibility. Maintaining a job. Paying bills. Building savings. Making ~relatively~ healthy choices and understanding I could do better. Anyways, I don’t want to be a “real” adult. Living life by the book sounds miserable. Cheating is fun and rewarding. But so is getting important “adult” stuff done. Why not both?
- jemmyw 3y ago
  > Give a kid unlimited access to a box of cookies - they’ll never eat dinner. Children do self regulate. I read some studies over the years about it but of course I can't find them now to link. However, anecdotally with my kids this seems more personality based than age related: two of my kids would not eat all the cookies, one would and so would I.
  - whatindaheck 3y ago
    Appreciate the insight! I don’t have much personal experience of kids personally. Just my (mis)behavior as a child.
- jwestbury 3y ago
  I'm not convinced "moderation" is the answer to "What makes an adult?" It excludes a whole bunch of neurodivergent adults. Is someone not an adult because they have ADHD?
nunez 3y ago
I'm starting to think that it's abnormal to know that you have your shit together and actually enjoy the rigamarole that comes with being an adult.
an_aparallel 3y ago
Isn't adulthood the socially acceptable murder of your "inner child"? In all seriousness - this article reads like someone who just plain old doesnt have their shit together. Nothing at all to do with adulthood? How hard is it to get a big enough bag to put your things in, a clean bottle, cook a good meal, blow your kids nose, and comb their hair before you leave the house. None of those things are hard or signal adulthood. I have the unique vantage point of my mum having worked as a cook in a childcare centre. She's noticed in her 25 years of holding that job - the steady descent of quality in parenting: The shirking of "raising" to grandparents. The complete ignorance of child raising basics (such as introduction to foods in a gradual manner) The insidious invasion of "choice" to children's lives. Why the fk are you asking your kid if they want nuggets or brocolli? Of course the kid's going to choose nuggets... The widespread seeming fatigue in parents (this i understand as it was common in the early 90s for there to be a single breadwinner, and with the cost of living increasing - this becomes increasingly impossible even if a family would love to have a parent stay at home) Parents on their phones instead of paying attention to their kids. I dont have kids - but - I have lived and worked amongst parents and have noticed a marked "drop" in the inner-strength of parents over time. My mum admitted she was "winging" it when raising kids - and im not sure if her being a mum to her own siblings as a child (lived in a large family as the oldest girl) had anything to do with it.
xyzelement 3y ago
I find that a lot of people seem to wait until they feel like "adults" to take on responsibility, and then end up passing up their life (or too much of their life) waiting. Out of all the things in my life that are "adult" (eg, being responsible for people at work, and wife/kids at home) happened before I was totally sure I was up for it. And it's only through diving into those challenges, and growing through that experience, do I feel like an adult now in retrospect. It takes a little confidence or good peer pressure to get into that. One "signal" I have of adulthood is that I value "their" experience over "my experience." EG - if I am super-tired at the end of the day and only am kinda enjoying playing with my kid, but then I recognize that he's having fun because I am there with him, and knowing that this is what matters 100%.
- johnchristopher 3y ago
  > I find that a lot of people seem to wait until they feel like "adults" to take on responsibility, and then end up passing up their life (or too much of their life) waiting. > Out of all the things in my life that are "adult" (eg, being responsible for people at work, and wife/kids at home) happened before I was totally sure I was up for it. And it's only through diving into those challenges, and growing through that experience, do I feel like an adult now in retrospect. > It takes a little confidence or good peer pressure to get into that. Hear, hear. I want to add that it's important to grow up in an environment where you are taught the world can be managed/tamed/apprehended/handled, not entirely but at least enough to make it out okay. If you don't have that, if you are raised to believe or to think the world is a nasty place that will beat you down and no one tells you can get back up and keep moving forward [0] then it's hard to become an adult on your own unless life throws you hard enough challenges (and I am talking life threatening stuff) that forces you to become an adult (and generally, in those situations, those challenges come way too soon and have life long consequences). I am rambling but it's coherent to me. Feeling like being and adult, being an adult and doing the adult thing when needed or when the opportunity comes your way are all different things. But I believe wanting to be an adult, that is to owning up to your mistakes and taking up responsibility (even and especially when it's not your fault) is a worthy goal. [0] sorry, not sorry ^^
  - 3y ago
barrysteve 3y ago
There's no coming of age moments and achievement milestones in life. We left behind a structured world where you are expected to do certain things by certain ages and you got social respect for it. Now we are free to do anything, knowing nobody outside your social circle will really understand what it is you did.

31 points by night-rider 3y ago

I think the social concept of maturity comes from social hierarchy and advance, more than any story we tell ourselves about personal growth. Grandma wanted some cake at the end just as I do now, and always have ;) It’s a way to organize society with a common-sense-sounding multilevel marketing presentation of how you can become grandpa and have a sizable downline! Yet. You’re still gonna be you, and that’s the scam. You can always tell which kid wants to sit around and read, and which kid wants to be a politician, and which kid is going to be a heavy metal drummer. Sometimes a kid will never fit a mold, but they almost never flip personalities. If someone is surprised that Johnny ditches work in his 40’s, I find that the exterior world made the wrong conclusions about why he ditched class in his 8’s and teens. I think it’s just hard for us to accept that a lot of who we are is baked into our personalities from birth.

Raidion 3y ago

I think it all comes down to priorities. "Adults" are the ones that seem to have the best balance of those (for the location/culture) with the most experience living out those values (aka they learned it from their parents). Having money that's 75%+ percentile helps too. I've experienced this moving from more rural spots in the south to a NE suburban existence. Lawns and landscaping matters. There is etiquette around how/when to put out your trash cans and leaves. Etiquette for how the kids should play around in the neighborhood. I've had to figure those out on the fly, but the kids learn those rules without even realizing it. I think the most important thing about being an adult is making sure your kids are happy, healthy, and have opportunities to do well and be proud. You can't let them jump on every culture phenomenon, but you also have to let them be a part of the culture they're in. Unless you're doing the exact same thing as your parents did, it's going to take some figuring out, and that's totally ok. It's adult to figure things out.

Apocryphon 3y ago

I think there is something to the idea that in the U.S., each subsequent generation is more infantilized, whether by less economic control leading to stunted growth (delayed home ownership, marriage, etc.) or simply by an entire market trying to tickle their childhood nostalgia by creating consumer products and content that appeals to less-than-adult tastes. Or simply the further absence of multi-generational households, where at least new parents could readily receive knowledge and wisdom from experienced adults. But we should also remember there's nothing new under the sun. This passage - > A whole category of responses could be labeled “self-loathing goblin mode”: Parents who still act like teens, despite themselves, when they’re at home. Lying in bed with a hangover while the kids watch TV (which I’m pretty sure was a cornerstone of parenting through the mid-20th century at least and gave rise to an entire genre of television, Saturday-morning cartoons), letting the house get real messy, and serving “subnutritious meals,” as one parent put it. - reminds me of this passage by Dave Barry: https://www.wsj.com/articles/dave-barry-the-greatest-party-generation-1424965599 https://www.wsj.com/articles/dave-barry-the-greatest-party-g... archive: https://archive.is/Uyrys#selection-2693.0-2696.0 https://archive.is/Uyrys#selection-2693.0-2696.0 > My mom, like my dad, and millions of other members of the Greatest Generation, had to contend with real adversity: the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, hunger, poverty, disease, World War II, extremely low-fi 78 r.p.m. records and telephones that—incredible as it sounds today— could not even shoot video. [...] I do know this: Unlike the “Mad Men” characters, the grown-ups back then had fun. A lot of fun. And it didn’t stop just because they had kids. My parents had a large circle of friends, and just about every weekend, throughout my childhood, they had cocktail parties, which rotated from house to house. I loved it when the party was at our house. Dozens of cars filled our driveway and lined the narrow dirt road we lived on, and dozens of couples poured into the house—the men in suits and ties, the women in dresses and heels, everybody talking, shouting, laughing, eating hors d’oeuvres, smoking, heading to the lineup of bottles on the kitchen counter to pour another drink. [...] Above all, they did not worry about providing a perfect, risk-free environment for their children. They loved us, sure. But they didn’t feel obligated to spend every waking minute running interference between us and the world. They were parents, but they were not engaged 24/7 in what we now call “parenting,” this all-consuming job we have created, featuring many crucial child-rearing requirements that my parents’ generation was blissfully unaware of. [...] Whereas we modern parents, living in the era of Death by Handshake, rarely pause to celebrate the way our parents did because we’re too busy parenting. We never stop parenting. We are all over our kids’ lives—making sure they get whatever they want, removing obstacles from their path, solving their problems and—above all—worrying about what else will go wrong, so we can fix it for them. We’re in permanent trick-or-treat mode, always hovering 8 feet away from our children, always ready to pounce on the apple.

psunavy03 3y ago
> I think there is something to the idea that in the U.S., each subsequent generation is more infantilized, whether by less economic control leading to stunted growth (delayed home ownership, marriage, etc.) or simply by an entire market trying to tickle their childhood nostalgia by creating consumer products and content that appeals to less-than-adult tastes. "Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret, and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - C.S. Lewis
- kelipso 3y ago
  Well of course a guy who enjoyed children's books in his 50s and probably got made fun of it for it constantly would say something like this.
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    Doubt the Inklings with their literary sales and reputations were ever in fear of that.
  - psunavy03 3y ago
    Given his stature in Western literature, I doubt he cared.
- sdwr 3y ago
  I remember feeling the same. As a child there's a sense that EVERYBODY knows better than you, open to reproach / correction from all angles. Part of being an adult is staking a claim to self-identity.

S_Bear 3y ago

Two Incomes, No Kids is really an easy-mode shortcut to life. My wife and I can fully devote ourselves to our hobbies and interests without shame or judgement. All of these parenting articles sound exhausting for the participants.

kuahyeow 3y ago
Even with kids, I simply do not care about any judgement. 99% of the time, no one on the proverbial soccer field honestly cares about your family setup - they are more worried about what's for dinner.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
voisin 3y ago
Do you worry at all that (a) you are either missing out on something in the present (that there is something valuable in the exhausting struggle of parenthood), or (b) you might look back with regret in your later years?
- eyelidlessness 3y ago
  Does this line of questioning ever work?
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    It’s not rhetoric. It’s a question.
  - voisin 3y ago
    It wasn’t meant to “work”. It was an honest question.
    - eyelidlessness 3y ago
      People without kids get these questions repeatedly, and they’ve surely asked themselves the same questions. If the answer is no, they probably don’t especially relate to the premise of the questions in the first place. If they do relate and their answer is yes, it can be painful to have those regrets highlighted. I’ll take your word on your intent. But so you might understand my reaction, it’s often the case that people ask these questions in full awareness of those possible answers—asking them as a form of social pressure to undermine the former option and/or to reinforce and exploit the latter.

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago

> "Does Anyone Feel Like an Actual Adult?" I'm 41 years old and I'm still not convinced that I'm not just 3 kids stacked in a trench coat. Despite the fact that I have a respectable career, own a house, have a retirement account, etc, I still feel like I'm cosplaying as a responsible adult when I put on some nice clothes and go out to a fancy dinner. What am I doing here? This is for people that have their shit together. I don't have my shit together, do I? Maybe I do? I'm a child that tricked 5 people into thinking I know what I'm doing and gave me a job, then used that lie to swindle a bank into letting me borrow $300,000 to buy a house. I traveled to Italy last year. Are kids even allowed to board international flights on their own? Someone told me that this feeling is actually pretty common, but it usually goes away once your same-gendered parent dies, but my dad passed almost 5 years ago. Still often feel like I know nothing and am just pretending to know how to navigate life.

hotpotamus 3y ago
I’m a couple years behind you and I feel the exact same. I suppose religious rituals have the goal of conferring life stages/adulthood, but I think that just proves how outdated religion is. I believe Judaism sets adulthood at 13 which is hard to believe was true even in the Bronze Age. My religion sets it in mid teenage years, but my parents sure didn’t treat me like an adult when I went through their ritual (and they were right). I suppose you could call me a manchild, but I never really got the appeal of growing up in America - work 40+ hours a week with a week or two off per year (and that’s if you’re lucky) for a few decades as you get old and then die. And that’s if you don’t get laid off. Got help you if you get laid off with dependents who need your employment for food, shelter, and health insurance. It’s pretty grim. If I was able to believe in a religion, I bet it would help. On a brighter note, I find it helps to think of things like play. Work is where I play with computers, the gym is where I mess around and enjoy myself. Framing is important.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  > I never really got the appeal of growing up in America - work 40+ hours a week with a week or two off per year (and that’s if you’re lucky) for a few decades as you get old and then die [...] if you don’t get laid off. America is not a country for salarymen. It is a country for entrepreneurs and business owners. Customers and employees are the human resources they exploit. You make your money however you can then you exfiltrate your earnings back to whatever country you came from, and retire early as a king.

johnea 3y ago

> Adulthood Is a Mirage for children... For adults, it's very very real...

snakeyjake 3y ago

I feel like an adult. Part of being an adult is realizing that any other adult who claims they've figured it out is lying.

MichaelRo 3y ago

> "Does Anyone Feel Like an Actual Adult?" Yes, I am an adult and have grown into a pretty cynical one, probably will continue to do so till I eventually transform into an old coot. Having a wife with Amber Heart (BPD / crazy b**h) syndrome which I haven't divorced (yet) solely for the sake of the kid doesn't help either.

DougN7 3y ago
I know a teen girl with BPD. Holy smokes! I mean this sincerely - you have my empathy. I’m sure I can’ begin to know what it’s like to live with that. I hope she fan find some medication or something that brings peace. BPD is not a small thing.
- MichaelRo 3y ago
  I just launched a full-scale offensive attack against my wife's never ending skirmishes. I'm a nice guy but also compared to my wife, in intellectual, physical and first and foremost, expendable capital resources, I'm the Roman Empire versus Dacia. She crossed the Rubic^H^H^H^H^H Danube one time too many.
  - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
    I would give that relationship the Carthaginian solution.

mock-possum 3y ago

For me, adulthood is all about agency; Being an adult basically means you can do it yourself. You can take care of yourself, you can navigate life by yourself - not that you always get it right, more that you don’t need your parents to step in and get it for you.

mortify 3y ago

Being an adult is willingly taking responsibility, and in some ways liking it. Whatever it is, I'll handle it somehow. It might not be perfect, the plan may change, and it may even ultimately fail, but it's still mine and I'll deal with it. I might do it myself, hire an expert, or ask for help. That doesn't matter. The key is how we handle speedbumps and mistakes. A child throws up their hands, surrenders, and/or hands it over to someone else. Being an adult is less about knowing everything, but being able to see things through to the finish regardless of what comes your way.

xyzelement 3y ago
This reply resonates, thank you!
Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
Interesting definition, I like it. Makes me feel some relief when my children throw a tantrum, lol
kuahyeow 3y ago
Absolutely this, knowing what's _important_ at the end of the day. Must haves, nice to haves, not needed. We all only have limited lifespans.

whatindaheck 3y ago

As much as I feel like a child, I think the hallmark of being an “adult” is moderation. Give a kid unlimited access to a box of cookies - they’ll never eat dinner. Last night I snacked on a cookie before dinner. Sometimes I’ll stay out “past my bedtime”. Get into shenanigans. Go out with friends. Play hooky at work. I can behave like a kid while still taking responsibility. Maintaining a job. Paying bills. Building savings. Making ~relatively~ healthy choices and understanding I could do better. Anyways, I don’t want to be a “real” adult. Living life by the book sounds miserable. Cheating is fun and rewarding. But so is getting important “adult” stuff done. Why not both?

jemmyw 3y ago
> Give a kid unlimited access to a box of cookies - they’ll never eat dinner. Children do self regulate. I read some studies over the years about it but of course I can't find them now to link. However, anecdotally with my kids this seems more personality based than age related: two of my kids would not eat all the cookies, one would and so would I.
- whatindaheck 3y ago
  Appreciate the insight! I don’t have much personal experience of kids personally. Just my (mis)behavior as a child.
jwestbury 3y ago
I'm not convinced "moderation" is the answer to "What makes an adult?" It excludes a whole bunch of neurodivergent adults. Is someone not an adult because they have ADHD?

nunez 3y ago

I'm starting to think that it's abnormal to know that you have your shit together and actually enjoy the rigamarole that comes with being an adult.

an_aparallel 3y ago

Isn't adulthood the socially acceptable murder of your "inner child"? In all seriousness - this article reads like someone who just plain old doesnt have their shit together. Nothing at all to do with adulthood? How hard is it to get a big enough bag to put your things in, a clean bottle, cook a good meal, blow your kids nose, and comb their hair before you leave the house. None of those things are hard or signal adulthood. I have the unique vantage point of my mum having worked as a cook in a childcare centre. She's noticed in her 25 years of holding that job - the steady descent of quality in parenting: The shirking of "raising" to grandparents. The complete ignorance of child raising basics (such as introduction to foods in a gradual manner) The insidious invasion of "choice" to children's lives. Why the fk are you asking your kid if they want nuggets or brocolli? Of course the kid's going to choose nuggets... The widespread seeming fatigue in parents (this i understand as it was common in the early 90s for there to be a single breadwinner, and with the cost of living increasing - this becomes increasingly impossible even if a family would love to have a parent stay at home) Parents on their phones instead of paying attention to their kids. I dont have kids - but - I have lived and worked amongst parents and have noticed a marked "drop" in the inner-strength of parents over time. My mum admitted she was "winging" it when raising kids - and im not sure if her being a mum to her own siblings as a child (lived in a large family as the oldest girl) had anything to do with it.

xyzelement 3y ago

I find that a lot of people seem to wait until they feel like "adults" to take on responsibility, and then end up passing up their life (or too much of their life) waiting. Out of all the things in my life that are "adult" (eg, being responsible for people at work, and wife/kids at home) happened before I was totally sure I was up for it. And it's only through diving into those challenges, and growing through that experience, do I feel like an adult now in retrospect. It takes a little confidence or good peer pressure to get into that. One "signal" I have of adulthood is that I value "their" experience over "my experience." EG - if I am super-tired at the end of the day and only am kinda enjoying playing with my kid, but then I recognize that he's having fun because I am there with him, and knowing that this is what matters 100%.

johnchristopher 3y ago
> I find that a lot of people seem to wait until they feel like "adults" to take on responsibility, and then end up passing up their life (or too much of their life) waiting. > Out of all the things in my life that are "adult" (eg, being responsible for people at work, and wife/kids at home) happened before I was totally sure I was up for it. And it's only through diving into those challenges, and growing through that experience, do I feel like an adult now in retrospect. > It takes a little confidence or good peer pressure to get into that. Hear, hear. I want to add that it's important to grow up in an environment where you are taught the world can be managed/tamed/apprehended/handled, not entirely but at least enough to make it out okay. If you don't have that, if you are raised to believe or to think the world is a nasty place that will beat you down and no one tells you can get back up and keep moving forward [0] then it's hard to become an adult on your own unless life throws you hard enough challenges (and I am talking life threatening stuff) that forces you to become an adult (and generally, in those situations, those challenges come way too soon and have life long consequences). I am rambling but it's coherent to me. Feeling like being and adult, being an adult and doing the adult thing when needed or when the opportunity comes your way are all different things. But I believe wanting to be an adult, that is to owning up to your mistakes and taking up responsibility (even and especially when it's not your fault) is a worthy goal. [0] sorry, not sorry ^^
- 3y ago

barrysteve 3y ago

There's no coming of age moments and achievement milestones in life. We left behind a structured world where you are expected to do certain things by certain ages and you got social respect for it. Now we are free to do anything, knowing nobody outside your social circle will really understand what it is you did.