Sunday, November 23, 2014

Adulthood - Why rush?


What does it mean to be "adult" today? I'm curious by this question. When my dad was growing up in the late 1970s/early 1980s, "adult" meant you were finished with your education and had settled into a job that, while maybe not sexy, paid the bills. You'd found your soulmate and were married. You probably owned a small "starter" home (renting was for college kids), and you had a child in the backseat on your way to the grocery store. You had put away all those childish things, and you were on your own, embracing the gray flannel suit or the blue collar, voting for the school board election, chipping in for the local fund-raiser, and paying taxes. Oh, and you were all of 25. 

Today if you tell young people that to be an adult you must be living on your own, earning your own way, have a wife and a kid and a house--you'll get a look of disbelief. "I'll never be an adult then" is usually their answer. Many people, of course, didn't take this short and direct path . There's exceptions to every rule (like my self). But, on average, that path was the norm: leave home, get an education or training, get a job, marry, buy a home, have kids--in that order: boom, boom, boom and DONE! 


Why am I writing about this? Because I'm 24, I work, I still live with my mother, finishing my degree and I realized that I have a feeling that I'm running out of time to do everything I want to do. By the age of 24 (my age), my mother was already pregnant with my sister, married .. I want all that, the husband, the house, the kids.. but there is so much more I want to do before reaching that part of my life. So I after a while I reach the conclusion that now a days to 'us' , adulthood is more subjective. It's more often a feeling, not a thing. Do you guys agree with me?


Let me know how you feel about 'Adulthood'  ;)