grown-up work
My parents didn't teach me how to be an adult, at least in any formal way. It was just the standard method of child rearing: if you want a car, you'll need to get a job so you can buy it, and then you'll need to keep the job so you can afford the gas and insurance; if you want clothes, you'll need to have that same job.
It's a time-honored practice, and lots of parents still use it. And for the most part, it's just fine. But what it can't do is get a young adult really ready for adulthood. I'm only just now, at the age of 53, starting to figure some of these things out. As I reflect back, it was only after I had kids of my own for awhile (like five years?) that I started to really grow up. I don't know if I ever would have made the move into real maturity without the responsibility of children who required of me something I didn't have, or know how to give, up to that point in my life.
I'm deeply involved with about 20 young adults, most of whom are college students who are serious about their studies and life. None are losers; they're winners. But there's no surplus of the maturity that I associate with being a responsible grown up who's ready to handle the challenges of marriage, children, and/or a career.
A few of my 20-something friends are starting to do the work necessary to make the leap into full-fledged adulthood, but not all of them. It's hard work, and the most difficult is the "getting ready" part. Wrapping your head around the task that needs to be done. Here and there, a young man or two, a young lady or two or three face themselves and the world, and begin the hard work of growing up, and putting away childish things.
Others aren't. They aren't ready, or they don't know how, or they're in rebellion (still). Some of them flee to their parents who still have their room waiting for them. It's a safe place where Peter Pan reigns; high school challenges, hopes and dreams still claim their attention and energy, even if they seem like college experiences. These young people are postponing the demands of adulthood. They are waiting to be thrust into the high responsibility situation before they'll tackle that growing up work--like I did. And some of them might not, even then.
I take my hat off to those young adults who are walking forward into life with the torn piece of map they got from their parents, willing to spend their energy working out their salvation with fear and trembling, finding their path in a dark and hostile world. You know who you are. Keep on with that grown-up work.
It's a time-honored practice, and lots of parents still use it. And for the most part, it's just fine. But what it can't do is get a young adult really ready for adulthood. I'm only just now, at the age of 53, starting to figure some of these things out. As I reflect back, it was only after I had kids of my own for awhile (like five years?) that I started to really grow up. I don't know if I ever would have made the move into real maturity without the responsibility of children who required of me something I didn't have, or know how to give, up to that point in my life.
I'm deeply involved with about 20 young adults, most of whom are college students who are serious about their studies and life. None are losers; they're winners. But there's no surplus of the maturity that I associate with being a responsible grown up who's ready to handle the challenges of marriage, children, and/or a career.
A few of my 20-something friends are starting to do the work necessary to make the leap into full-fledged adulthood, but not all of them. It's hard work, and the most difficult is the "getting ready" part. Wrapping your head around the task that needs to be done. Here and there, a young man or two, a young lady or two or three face themselves and the world, and begin the hard work of growing up, and putting away childish things.
Others aren't. They aren't ready, or they don't know how, or they're in rebellion (still). Some of them flee to their parents who still have their room waiting for them. It's a safe place where Peter Pan reigns; high school challenges, hopes and dreams still claim their attention and energy, even if they seem like college experiences. These young people are postponing the demands of adulthood. They are waiting to be thrust into the high responsibility situation before they'll tackle that growing up work--like I did. And some of them might not, even then.
I take my hat off to those young adults who are walking forward into life with the torn piece of map they got from their parents, willing to spend their energy working out their salvation with fear and trembling, finding their path in a dark and hostile world. You know who you are. Keep on with that grown-up work.
Comments
-andrew (a twenty-something)