What does it mean to be an adult?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In Lobsang’s thread, he polls on the strangeness of adults playing computer games. I mentioned how my parents think I and my husband are immature and should grow up for spending our spare time on computer games, XBox, and roleplaying games.

What does it mean to you to be an adult?

I guess I’ll go first. To me, being an adult means taking responsibility for your actions and knowing the consequences of choosing certain actions, fulfilling your obligations (going to work, paying your bills, raising your children properly and giving them the attention they deserve, and doing what you said you’d do), and living by your moral code.

If you do all that you’re an adult whether you spend your spare time doing gardening, playing with Barbie dolls, playing computer games, or doing somersaults in your living room.

2

I agree, and would add that there is an element of emotional maturity as well (which basically, for me, can be boiled down to "Do Unto Others . . . ").

I will admit that the collection of “adult accoutrements” (i.e., a “real” couch instead of a futon, matching dishes, a plentiful supply of Kleenex and Q-Tips) was once extremely important to me in making me feel like I’d finally reached adulthood.

Now I’m certain that you can get there without the Q-Tips. :wink:

I’m also one of those people who has no desire to be younger; I have a sweet but domineering mother, and so am quite glad to have reached an age (and a level of adulthood) where she no longer has any tangible authority (namely, purse strings) over me.

(Although she still tries . . . SkipMagic and I are about to be in the market for a house. Mom wants us to get a move on, already, so she’ll have someplace to come spend the night. But I digress. I was telling her about a BEE-YOO-tiful house I found online, and she asked where it was located. I told her, and she declared, “If it’s that close to the inner city, you’re not buying it”. And the truth is, we’re NOT buying it, because (a) someone else is buying it (I drove by and saw a “Contract Pending” sign in the yard), (b) it’s a little out of our price range, and (c) I’m not afraid to live near the inner city, but this particular house is pretty much right at a major intersection, and I don’t want that, even if (a) and (b) weren’t true. But I gotta wonder, how old do I have to be before these little “declarations” on the part of my mother stop making me want to run right out and do the exact opposite of what she’s telling me I’m going to do? I think there’s a little maturity issue I need to address . . . )

I’d NEVAH want to be 16 again, I can tell you that!

I am also, however, a person who believes that as an adult, you are absolutely entitled to make choices that other people may find questionable based on prescribed age-appropriate behavior. For example, I like to shop for clothes in teeny-bopper stores. I like the styles, and for the most part they’re cheaper than “adult” clothes, because they’re being purchased with the allowances of 13-year-old girls across the nation.

Now if only I could figure out how said 13-year-old girls manage to sit down in these pants without showing three inches of butt-crack . . .
:eek:

3

I like your definition, DeadlyAccurate. An adult is someone who does what needs to be done, even if it’s unpleasant, time-consuming or costly. I hate the bumper sticker that says “If it’s not fun, why do it?” It’s not fun to take the dog to the vet, but it has to be done.

An adult is also someone who will look out for the smaller, sicker, and weaker people in their care. It really hit me that I was an adult when my grandfather was dying. I would take him meals, rub his feet, and keep him company in the nursing home. It wasn’t fun; it was sad and hard, but it needed to be done.

4

When you are an adult, you clean up your own messes, be they physical, emotional, career-based, or whatever.

5

I looked it up in the dictionary and I prefer some of your answers over what it says, which is mostly mature and of age. :wink:

6

Agreed. On the other hand, there are too many people that think that if it is fun, it must be inappropriate. They spend their weekends working on their house and their yard, but they don’t genuinely enjoy it. So their life flies by in a haze of nothing but work, work, and more work. So what if the living room doesn’t get vacuumed every day/week? It’s not necessary like taking the dog to the vet is (well, unless you have severe allergies or asthma or something). At least some of the time spend that time you would be vacuuming doing something just plain fun.

And I know at least one guy who is well into adulthood, still lives with his parents, doesn’t pay any bills except for an expensive auto payment he wouldn’t be able to afford if he had to make rent and utilities and food, and who planned to avoid paying child support if a girlfriend turned out to be pregnant (thankfully she was not). That is a person “of age” but not an adult.

7

I keep joking that "when I grow up I’m going to … " but the truth is, I am grown up. I maintain my own household, I take good care of myself and my cat, and I use my spare time and cash to benefit both myself and those I love.

The real trick to adulthood, IMHO, is to maintain a childlike quality without being childish.

How? I’ll get back to you on that, when I grow up. :wink:

8

Have a job and pay your bills…and act however you want in your spare time, that includes X-Box.

9

Being an adult means you stop looking forward to mail.

10

I agree with the OP.

One of the jobs I currently work in really taught me what it means to be an adult. Kind of ironic, since all my coworkers are still teenagers and definitely act their age (hmm, maybe that isn’t so ironic :smack: )

My job showed me what being an adult is like because I learned early on that you can’t get by in life by doing the bare minimum. At my job, I come in early and stay late. I don’t take for granted that I work very short shifts there (3 to 4 hours) so if I have to stick around for another five minutes to wrap something up, its not a big deal for me in the grand scheme of things. And more often than not, the five additional minutes of my time usually save someone else 20,30, or 60 minutes by having one more body present to help get things done on time. Most of my other co-workers are clawing at the bit to get out of there the second they are off the clock. Its about thinking in the long-term, building up relationships, not getting hung up by insignificant things and having the self-awareness to realize when you can make decisions. Its about being assertive about the things that count (without being stubborn) and knowing to pick your battles about the things that aren’t so important.

11

I couldn’t live without my Game Cube. My nephew, who’s about three times younger than I am, can’t live without his GameBoy. The difference between us is that I understand that there are priorities that come before my game time. I also understand that I can save my game, turn the power off now, and come back to it later. The world will not end, my system will not be eaten by monsters, nothing bad will happen. It is possible to stop playing. Hopefully you understand the same. :slight_smile:

I think being an adult means having the ability to compromise, as well as sacrifice, while understanding boundaries enough to prevent oneself from being taken advantage of (hopefully). I think it means having the willingness to put others before oneself, whether that be kids, clients, friends, etc. By this definition, and by burundi’s example above about his grandfather, I believe I was an adult before I was old enough to vote. Because of this, I think being an adult has little to do with physical age. It means a whole bunch of other things (such as responsibility for one’s actions, mentioned already) but, most importantly, in the case of our OP’s parents, I think being an adult means being able to tell when to just MYOB.

Not to be rude or anything, Deadly. Advice, parenting tips, recipes, etc. are all great things that your parents can give, but I think calling anybody immature because of how they choose to spend their free time is kind of crossing the line. Unless you enjoy egging houses or something. :slight_smile:

12

It’s all about eating ice cream for breakfast and staying up until 5:00am in the morning to me.

What? I’ve only been on my own for a month and a half at this point. Forget this responsibility***** stuff!

*The real answer, of course. I hate bills but I pay 'em on time anyway. This adult stuff isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. :frowning:

13

(Aside to burundi)

You quite took my breath away with that one. That is how I spent my final hours with my Dad – ribbing his feet in the nursing home. Thanks for mentioning it.

Being an adult means not allowing friends, relatives and acquaintances to control your life and not attempting to control theirs. (DeadlyAccurate, maybe your parents need reminding of this part of adulthood.)

It means taking responsibility and it also means cutting yourself some slack.

It’s learning to find your sense of humor about yourself.

It’s doing the things that make you happy in your spare time and encouraging others you live with to do the same.

14

You actually start worrying about things because you can’t/won’t/refuse to rely on your parents to take care of the problems in your life.

15

My sister said she knew she was a “grown up” when she started getting brown envelopes in the post.

I’ve got a tax return to fill in, guess I am an adult dammit. It sneaks up on you :frowning: + :slight_smile:

I’d define being (becoming) adult as taking responsibility for yourself. Some people never get there.

16

Being an adult means being able to eat cookies and candy for every meal … but not following through.

When I first went off to college I told my little brother about the cafeteria and the big trays of cookies. I told him you could eat cookies for every meal, and no one could stop you. He was really looking forward to college when he heard that!

17

My grandfather was a wonderful man.
He was an officer in the trenches during WWI, survived internment in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during WWII, lost everything after the communists booted our family out of China and, in his early 50’s, had to completely rebuild his life in a foreign country and begin again.
He gave me a copy of Kipling’s “If” when I turned 21 as a way of defining what it means to be an adult.
http://www.swarthmore.edu/~apreset1/docs/if.html

18

This is similar to how I think about it. Adulthood, to me, means meeting one’s obligations without somebody telling you to.

You pay the bills, take out the trash, go to work, make doctor’s appointments for yourself, flea-dip the cat, mow the lawn, toss skanky leftovers out of the fridge, get some exercise, and everything else one is supposed to do, by motivating yourself to do it, as opposed to waiting until the nagging from parents (and, later, spouse, boss, opposing lawyer, creditor, or whoever) forces you to get off your ass.

No, a lot of it isn’t fun. Yes, it’s easy to procrastinate, and take the short-term pleasure in building up a few more units of Modern Armor so you can completely and decisively overwhelm every freakin’ Musketman in every French city in a single continent-crushing turn and thereby eliminate all of those ass-clanking settlers marching cheerfully across your border every time you refuse to grant Napoleon right of passage… Which isn’t to say you can’t do that. You just have to recognize you really ought to balance your checkbook and load and run the dishwasher before you sit at the computer.

Of course, none of this is to suggest that I’m perfect at it, either. :frowning: But the goal, at least, is clear.

Heh.

19

This is close to my definition. The best thing about being an adult is being able to eat dessert first.

All this stuff about “being responsible” has to do with being a good adult. When you are single you don’t need to be a good adult. If official looking mail didn’t say “To avoid arrest” on the outside, I didn’t even bother opening it. Of course, I was never able to stay up until 5 am. Don’t you people ever have to sleep?

Responsible only kicked in when I had kids.

20

When you are an adult you can take constructive criticism and not try to retaliate by gathering your friends or co-workers around you and intimidating them into agreeing with you that this person is a total jerk. You may even try to learn something about yourself.

Having children can turn people into adults. It’s the first time in their lives that they would die to save another person, no questions asked.

Your promises can absolutely be relied upon.

Instead of always reacting to life, you initiate. You are no longer bouncing around inside the box. (this is usually a problem adult children have with parents).

You are in the position of loaning money rather than borrowing it.

You do things you don’t like, even hate, because someone you love wants to.

At some point, you realize you are going to die and there is nothing you can do about it, and you have come to terms with that.