I was in my mid-twenties, and thought I was too “grown up” to go to a toy store anymore.
Then I “grew up” a little more, and went right back in!
I was in my late thirties when I began to feel grown up. My self image in this respect might have been delayed somewhat because for most of my life I looked younger than my age, and this led people to treat me like someone younger. Having a kid changed that, though. Suddenly you have this huge responsibility, and someone’s life is depending on you and your actions, and your kid looks up to you as a model of adulthood. Somewhere around that time, as others have mentioned, I expected to be treated as an adult, by everyone.
There are various milestones, naturally, each with its own little shock of amazement.
Because I was prematurely verbally facile and usually smarter than people older than I was, I often got respect that was undeserved, so I had less of the 'wow, people are beginning to respect me, I must be an adult," sense that others have mentioned.
Maybe my problem was that I knew I could never be an adult if that meant I had to be like my parents (who appeared to never have experienced strong feelings about anything, who always acted like “grown-ups”, and were stoics who never cried, screamed, ran, danced, did anything harebrained, etc.). It took me a long time to realize that wasn’t the only measure of adulthood.
Even though in recent years I have begun to feel old, more and more often, I’ve never felt grown up. I am still a mess, I scream, run, weep, dance, am harebrained, passionate, lazy, sentimental, and all the other things my parents never let themselves be. Oh well.
I’m 68, and still in many ways feel like a child. Especially when I’m working on my art, which is also the most adult thing I do. I hope I never resolve that contradiction.
Except when it’s a duplicator (with or without an ethicator).
I actually had a realisation about this the other day when someone asked me a question about an issue only tangentially related to my work, and not only could I answer it but I could provide a very complete and rich answer (it would even be right). People are asking me this stuff - I must be really grown up!
I still do lots of things (play board games, read graphic novels) that many people view as childish … but I justify this as keeping in touch with the inner child.
This. Always.
Whenever I meet somebody that I knew in my pre-20 years, I’m always disappointed that they don’t think anything is funny anymore. They take their lives way too seriously. I guess they are grown up.
I’m an expert in my field on a conference steering committee with about 20 other experts. Most of us aren’t grown up (and we’re getting on in actual age). The ones who are tend to leave. We had the conference at Disneyland for a couple of year and all had an excellent time being taken on the rides by Disney people.
My last kid just got married but we haven’t had kids at home for a while. When you are a kid you don’t think about money much because mom and dad have seemingly infinite amounts. Now I have as much as I need so I’m back there. Getting up to go to work is a pain, but so was getting up to go to school, and when I retire I’ll regress to perpetual summer vacation.
I am 57. I am an adult but have not “grown up.”
I have a wife, a mortgage, two teenage children, a V.P. title, and I drink responsibly. And I can still laugh at silly jokes, yell out loud when my team scores, and play the occasional video game.
Don’t overthink it.
I’m 42, it’s 8:40 pm, and I’m typing this while eating a bowl of Count Chocula.
The adult bit comes from my use of almond milk instead of the whole milk I would have used in my youth.
I remember 35 years ago listening to Joni Mitchell’s “Waiting for a Car on the Hill,” and thinking how wonderful it would be if a girl would feel that way about me. Of course, eventually one did, and of course, I eventually blew it.
After a few things like that you get to be grown up.
One measure of maturity: you play extreme sports, but in a way that you don’t nearly kill yourself.
I’m close to retirement age…When I go skiing, I zoom down the run as fast as I possibly can, and when I fly up high in the air after jumping over a mogul I let out a yell and and whoop it up with excitement just like when I was 20.
But now I do it only on the ski runs labelled in green (“easy”,i.e. slope is mild enough for beginners) … and my “jumps” take me barely 6 inches off the ground for a few yards.
Oh, and I still talk to my cat is lovely widdle snookems baby-talk …But now that I’m a real grown-up who acts maturely, I first make sure that nobody else is within earshot. 