Or recall something that happened or that you acquired that indicated/symbolized being a grown-up. By “little kid,” I mean roughly under the age of 10.
Here are my two examplee:
My parents read a lot, and and we went to the library wherever we lived, usually weekly, and came home with piles of books. To me, the epitome of being a grown-up was needing to use a bookmark. Because it meant you were reading a grown-up book, one that couldn’t be finished in one sitting like a kids’ book. A bookmark– when you needed one of those, you were well on your way to adulthood.
Another time I’m thinking of… we lived in California in a typical 50s neighborhood, i.e., ticky-tacky houses on a grid. I was probably around six, too young to cross the street. But one day I walked all the way around the block. I remember stopping about halfway when I was well out of sight of my own house and thinking, “Nobody in the whole world knows exactly where I am right now.” I was giddy with the sense of independence.
When I was ~10-12 and my brother was ~8-10, our town had a Sizzler (budget steak house) right next to a McDonald’s. Going out to eat was rare, but every now and then our parents would go to Sizzler and let us walk over to McDonald’s for our dinner. I always felt so grown up going in there and ordering for both of us!
When I was 10 and my brother was 12, my mom started letting us stay home during the summers instead of going to my aunt’s for babysitting. I found out later that the neighbor was nominally in charge of us, but I felt very adult and responsible!
This isn’t a pretty story, and not exactly representative of the total state of our relationship, but on this day I felt more grown up than my father. I think I must have been 8 to 10 years old, I don’t remember exactly. It was Saturday lunch (I think) when the family was sitting in the breakfast nook, which had 2 upholstered benches and a table, and was only open on one end. My sister sat next to my mother, I sat next to my father, and the parents were on the outside. My parents were talking, as they did, to each other, and I guess my sister and I were talking to each other too. At one point, without warning, my father brought his arm across and knocked my head against the wall. I was, as you might guess, stunned for a moment. Then I quietly said (into the shocked silence) “May I be excused to go to the bathroom? My nose is bleeding.” So my father got up and let me out, and I tended to my very mild nosebleed. Then I came back, my father let me back into my corner of the table, and life went on.
I’ve never known what caused it, it was never discussed at any time, and I never asked about it later when I was an adult. I suspect I inadvertently uttered a forbidden word of some kind, but if I did I don’t know what word it was. I remember much later in life when my father made mild fun of me for being so circumspect (“such a prude”) in my speech. I almost told him off then, but I decided not to.
I remember, around age 9 or so, writing a letter to Newsweek with my opinions about some of their articles. Back then, Newsweek, a medical dictionary, and World Book was pretty much all I had for reading. Fortunately, I did not mail the op-ed letter.
Flying with my best friend across the country to stay with my Dad. I can’t remember how old I was, early teens I guess (we weren’t being looked after by anyone so can’t have been super young) I was very impressed with being called “sir” by the flight attendant.
I had just joined the Cub Scouts, so must have been 8 years old.
Saturday mornings were the best time of the week because…cartoons!.
A couple hours straight, just watching TV with no distractions. Just me and my little brother , alone in the family room, while mom and dad stayed in their bedroom, not bothering us.
But one Saturday morning, dad called me away from the TV, to come into the living room so he could talk to me about something important.
He showed me a knife!
It was the official cub scout pocket knife, (with a single blade that folded into the handle.)
Dad showed me how to handle the knife safely, and watched me practice opening and closing the blade, over and over and over again. We talked about whittling sticks and carving wood, like in my cub scout handbook.
And then he let me keep the knife and put it in a special place in my room!
Then I went back to watching cartoons, and little brother laughed at me for missing Mighty Mouse. But I knew that the laugh was on him, stupid kid. Because I had been doing real, mature, grownup stuff, not just watching childish cartoons.
I was maybe 12, and my father had forgotten his bagged lunch at home. I offered to take it to him, at his office.
Mom handed me Dad’s lunch, and subway fare, and I took the subway all by myself to Dad’s office. He got his lunch, and I got on the subway back home; again, all by myself.
Damn, did I feel grown-up! Riding the subway by myself, just like adults do!
My grandfather built a 240 lot mobile home park. Our whole family ended up being involved in it one way or another.
I worked there. Starting at 11 years old. Mostly I mowed grass, but I did all kinds of other stuff too. Repairing streets, building furniture (we also had a mobile home sales lot, furniture needed assembled).
It got to the point that one of the trucks the park owned became my work truck. Insurance agents today would have a heart attack seeing a 12 year old driving a pickup truck around. That made me feel very grown up.
When I was in 5th grade (so about 11) my elementary school decided to appoint me (and another girl) as office assistants, to start in the fall of our 6th grade year in September.
What this meant was that we handled the school secretary’s tasks while she was at lunch from 12 to 12:30. Answering phone calls, greeting visitors to the office and even taking care of other kids who got sick and came to the office, since the school nurse was only there a few days a week and at lunch at the same time.
This was in the early 1970s and seems insane to me now, but that’s how they handled that gap back then. And of course it made me feel grown up to be chosen. I didn’t feel so grown up after experiencing the job though - there’s lots of things that come a school secretary’s way I didn’t know how to handle (though to be fair I think there’s a lot of adults who wouldn’t either).
I don’t think I felt grownup at the time, but in retrospect, maybe I should have. My mother was severely agoraphobic and would not leave the house (except to walk around the corner to her mother’s house) and she would call Gimbel’s to order clothes from their newspaper ads. What she didn’t like, she would return. I’m not sure what she did earlier but starting when I was about 10, I was tasked to return them. So every couple months I would trundle over to the Spruce St. trolley in West Philly laden with her returns and get off at 8th and Walnut and go to Gimbel’s to return her stuff. I would also get a frozen custard at their basement stand. By the time I was 13, I was daily taking a bus, the Market el, the Broad St. Subway and walking three blocks to get to HS.
When I was in third grade the social studies textbook mentioned there being more countries in North America than just Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. The teacher was furiously trying to figure out what the others were. I spent lots of time looking at maps and globes, so I suggested they may have been talking about the Central American countries. Some teachers would have gotten mad during that era, but she thanked me. I also drove a tractor at ten, but I had a cousin who had driven one at five so that didn’t make me feel grown up.
France has two islands, St. Pierre and Miquelon, just off the coast of Newfoundland. But if you are counting islands, you might count the ones in the Caribbean, all of which–along with parts of South America–are in the northern hemisphere. Otherwise the statement was nonsense.
When I was a little girl, my Dad was an arts and theater critic for a mid-sized newspaper. He got some cool perks for this job. We had the first color tee vee on the block courtesy of the paper, and he was regularly comped tickets to all sorts of performances for review.
One day he asked if I would like to accompany my mother and him to see the ballet, Swan Lake. We kids had been listening to the thrilling Tchaikovsky score for awhile and I loved the music – which of course my Dad knew.
The night arrived at long last. I was maybe seven, dressed to kill in my little dark royal blue velvet frock with matching short jacket and frilly petticoat, lacy anklets with matching gloves (gloves!) and sparkly faux diamonds on wire twisted into my hair, which if I remember right was pulled up in two pony tails.
I knew to be on my perfect behavior or I’d never get asked again. What novelties: The sound of a live orchestra tuning for the performance, the quiet clatter of ballet slippers landing on a wooden stage, the air heavy with competing perfumes of fancy people. It was a magical, magnificent night!
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so grown up before or since.
When I was kindergarten-age, I would take Ponch (our family dog) out for walks around the block before I had to go to school at noon. It certainly didn’t seem like a big deal to me at the time, but I don’t think you’ll ever see any 6-year-olds walking their dogs alone anymore.
I was my mother and little brother shopping at some department store. I was just starting second grade and we hadn’t yet moved on to multiplication, but I’d read ahead in the workbook and sort of knew what it was.
We bought something that came in multiples, an number of glasses or napkins or something. After the cashier totaled the sale (This was of course not on a scanning register, but one where you had to enter the numbers), I said, “That’s not right.” The clerk sort of ignored me, but my mother said, “If he says it’s not right you should check.” She had made a mistake and I felt very grownup catching an grownup in a mistake.
