Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
For me there's no one definition of being an "adult". I'm constantly learning and changing, hopefully for the better. I don't drawn any kind of line between childhood and adulthood, it's just a process of maturity as one ages.
I'd say yes. My parents raised their kids to think for themselves and to take responsibility for themselves. They didn't exactly throw us out on the streets as small kids or neglect us, but they did teach us how to know our own minds, make more and more of our own decisions, weigh consequences, live with the fallout, to respect and treat others well. We were trusted, so were trustworthy.
If one of us made an honest unintentional mistake they would help cushion the blow, but how much depended on the situation. If one of us deliberately broke a rule or wronged someone else the consequences were swift; no nonsense...and we had to justify what we did face to face.
By the time we reached the age of majority we were all pretty independent. I happen to think they did a pretty good job raising decent adults. No one came home to live in the basement after becoming disillusioned. Good thing...they never owned a house that had one.
Last edited by Parnassia; 03-29-2021 at 04:30 PM..
I have posted before that I feel I “grew up” with the birth of my first born. I had become responsible for the welfare and, indeed, survival, of another human, whom I also loved like crazy.
But I also feel that it took a few years more to achieve what I would call maturity.
I'm not sure of being grownup even today, being retired. Always had a youthful outlook, slightly less mature than my peers except I didn't know that. Having children was the big reality check and perspectives changed yet my youth made relating to children easy. It still does.
People are quite different, some children seeming to be 40 when toddlers. One of my daughters is and also an original thinker. A scientist+lawyer which was my secret desire as a teen.
I never had much of a childhood being raised by two dysfunctional, abusive alcoholics. I was the oldest and most of the abuse tricked down to me, especially from my mother who looked at my younger brother like the treasured one.
I had a paper route when I was around 12 because if I wanted anything, I had to work for it. My father was frequently out of work, and my mother didn't get a job until we were in high school.
Holidays were a nightmare of drunk fights. I learned to dread Christmas at an early age. My only salvation living in that filthy hell was my dog, and he got out and ran away. The fence was flimsy and inadequate.
I was a very mature child. I had to be. I was working full time in my senior year. I bought my own car, and had to refinance it after I paid it off to make a mortgage payment. My drunk father was fired yet again from another job and they were behind.
I left when I was around 20. Being in that apartment on my own with the cockroaches was far better then living in that hell hole of a dilapidated house. Which I had to put back together after my mother died (My father checked out at 48 from drinking and smoking.)
I kept that house for decades and rented it out. It became an asset vs a reminder of the nightmare life lived there. We sold in 2018. I guess in a way it paid me back for the misery. I don't miss the house though.
Just because I didn't have a great childhood doesn't mean I'm not in touch with my inner child. She is very much alive and well. I think it's part of why I'm a kid magnet. Something was always missing in my childhood, and there's always been an effort to find that and heal it. Having lots of shorties around seems to fulfill that need. It makes my life so much richer as well
In some aspects, I grew up fast, but like many who can say the same, what I got out of it was not always healthy or helpful.
Unlike animalcrazy here, I did not start working paying jobs except for being expected to run a family owned business (my Grandparents' ice cream shop) by myself at 14 years old, for no real pay but the change I collected out of the soda machine out front which I was allowed to keep. I only did that for a summer, though.
Mostly it was a ridiculous level of caregiving, throughout my childhood, way beyond what any kid should have to do. Starting when I was a toddler I was helping my Great Grandma who was ancient and wheelchair bound, but that was a golden time, though. She taught me to read and how to care for her garden. What help I was needed for, I don't remember minding. She died when I was 5. By the time I was 9, my Mom was having frequent mental breakdowns and my Dad was away "on business trips" (cheating on her and partying) more than not. She had my little brother, just as their marriage was ending, and was too depressed to care for him properly, so I learned to care for an infant at 9. She had another when I was 13 and I had to provide a lot of care for him, too.
I got a lot of programming that no one really cares if you need something, handle it for yourself or learn to do without. Don't make a fuss. Shut up and get on with it. And of course I rolled right into a marriage and motherhood where that's exactly how things worked for me, for a long time.
As a young adult, though, the things I was not prepared to deal with and didn't know how to, left me very vulnerable. I did not know how to drive, I did not know how to even go about looking into going to college (but I got both things nailed by 24.) I was struggling with one awful menial job after another until I found temp work and a path into office jobs and eventually to my career. Now, as an adult, I realize that my parents were pretty hopeless in a lot of ways, and I think I'm far more together than they are.
There have always been times that I felt more mature and capable than others around me. Yet I also have the problem that the feeling, even fleetingly, that I'm not good enough or not capable fills me with existential terror and impostor syndrome feelings abound. In depressive times, I feel that anyone who cares about me only does so for what I can provide or do for them and they will take and take, and no one will give care to me, and if I just pushed everyone out of my life, I could at least use my resources to care for myself, rather than giving until I have nothing left. But then I think, it's my own fault, because I set it up that way. In fact when I encounter someone who wants to be giving to me, it often makes me uncomfortable. So I create a situation, and then sit in it feeling sorry for myself, what utter bullcrap that is! And I know, even at age 42, it's just my childhood stuff knocking around in my head.
OK I admit, I do feel like a "grown up" especially lately. I've become all interested in politics and tax code and the stock market. I sometimes listen to jazz. (But I will never eat my vegetables!) But I think I was questioning if I even belonged in adult spaces and roles, often professionally, well into my 30s. I think you just reach a point where, instead of feeling like you have no idea what you're doing and everyone else does, you realize that NO ONE really has any idea what they're doing, and everyone is just making it up as they go.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
