Grown ups

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend in which he said that despite being thirty years old and having a job and generally being what might be called in our culture an “adult,” he doesn’t feel like a grown up at all.  Me, either, I said.  That’s funny, he responded, because I always thought that having a kid kinda automatically made one an adult. 

At the time, I said this wasn’t really true.  I even felt a little defensive.  Adult?  Me?  Horsefeathers! 

Except when I really think about it, I realize that I am possibly kind of maybe a little adult-ish and I just don’t want to admit it.

Why don’t I want to admit it?

Let’s do a little free association to get to the bottom of this, shall we?  Alright, Peggy, when I say “adult,” what words spring to mind?

Stability.

Responsibility.

Monotony.

The Dress Barn.

Can you see the common thread here? That’s right: none of these things are cool.  And when I consolidate these words into an image of what adult life looks like, it gets even worse.  Here’s how I picture the typical routine of the average American adult: Wake up way too early, brew the coffee I will drink while watching The Today Show on NBC, head off to work wearing a snappy turtle neck and trousers with a pleated tummy panel, endure a minimum of eight hours of mindless drudgery behind a desk stacked with pictures from last year’s family vacation at Sandals Resort Bahamas, go home, make dinner, watch TV, go to bed.  Wake up and repeat, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

So do you see why I might be a little reluctant to become an adult?

And I know I’m not the only person who feels this way.  For many people in and around my age (arguably, for every generation since at least the 1960s), adulthood represents a trap of sorts.  Adulthood means being ensnared within “the system,” becoming a cog in the machine, a brick in the wall.  It represents the end of individuality, of possibility, of hope. 

Of course, the alternative to adulthood is a sort of perpetual adolescence wherein we remain uncommitted to anybody or anything, wafting from one thing to the next without attachment or restraint.  Untouched and untouching.  Apart from the whole rather than a part of the whole.  It’s alluring, but unsustainable.  Eventually, we all have to choose something because at some point even not choosing becomes a choice. 

So I guess my son was my choice.  He is my commitment, my attachment.  For him, I will be a cog in the machine and a brick in the wall.  And you know what?  It’s really not that bad.