When Did You First Realize You Were an Adult?

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Clarissa

July 19, 2012

I found a great question on a blog I follow:

When did you first realize you were an adult? And what were some of the major growing pains in becoming an adult?

I feel kind of embarrassed. . . OK, hugely embarrassed to answer this question. But I can’t conceal this shameful truth from my readers. My answer is in May. Of 2012.

N. and I were staying at the Millenium hotel in St. Louis (you can see the hotel in the photo) to celebrate N.’s birthday. In the afternoon, he was at work and I went shopping to my favorite stores. Then I had lunch at an Indian buffet and walked over to the hotel for a Skype session with my analyst. I also kept publishing posts about all of this. As I was walking, I suddenly stopped in the middle of the street.

“Oh, shit,” I thought. “I have a job, a husband, a blog, and an analyst. I’m an adult! When did that happen?”

The Millenium hotel has this revolving restaurant on the top floor which is where N. and I went later in the day. Of course, I shared my discovery with him.

“Have you realized that you and I are adults?” I announced happily. “We can do anything we want!”

We giggled for an hour, thinking of all the things we could do as adults. (Eat only ice-cream for a week! Sleep all day long on Sunday! Spend money any way we wanted!)

I think the graduate studies delay one’s adulthood a lot. The grad school lifestyle makes it extremely hard to feel grown up and responsible for one’s own life. Grad students are too dependent and their lives are too scripted for that.

What about you? When did you first realize you were an adult?

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31 responses to “When Did You First Realize You Were an Adult?”

musteryou

July 19, 2012

I never had any concept of not being an adult. I mean, I never felt — or contemplated — that being a child had any special privileges. Although I sensed that there were some restrictions, these never bothered me, except at times when I suddenly became irritated by a sense of arbitrariness in what I could or couldn’t do. I soon forgot those sensations of annoyance.

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Sarah

July 19, 2012

I spent many years wondering when I would feel like an adult, I must say. I finally felt it when I got divorced and could behave EXACTLY how I liked with NO ONE to tell me anything (which probably tells you a lot about my marriage…).

I had to deal with everything by myself, be responsible for everything myself too and be a single mother most of the time. It was feeling the independence coupled with responsibility that struck me that being an adult was that, plus being able to watch tele all day if I wanted, eat crisps for dinner or any other disreputable piece of behaviour (when the kids were with their dad).

So around 2007.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  Congratulations on such a great divorce!
  
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zinemin

July 19, 2012

Congratulations. I’m 33 and I have not realized yet that I am an adult. 🙂
I totally agree that the academic path delays the growing up enormously. It is hard to feel grown up if your still the underling in a very hierarchical system. I guess it is because being a postdoc is kind of similar to being an apprentice or a student. It is still not yet a ‘real job’, I am still training for a job I might not even get in the end, I am still being tested. Maybe this explains the huge number of immature people in my field.

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Z

July 19, 2012

In early 30s, assistant professor, realizing I was living in a city nobody else I knew, let alone the family, had ever been to and that was very foreign, and I had gotten to know it; that I was established in a real job where again, I had arrived as a full fledged adult and nobody was there who had known me earlier in life; that I had a car I had bought new with money I had made; that I had a grownup flat with real, not makeshift furniture; that I had a pet of my own and I was on the way to the vet with it for its checkup, which meant, I had envisioned myself as enough of a permanent person to take on this responsibility … i.e. I had a full fledged independent self sufficient life.

I grew down later because my analyst thought it was inappropriate to be so autonomous and self sufficient as a woman, and I got caught in this morass. And I have found professordom to be more infantilizing than graduate school — people are more enmeshed, there is more micro-management, less maturity is assumed, and those further up in the hierarchy are more punitive and authoritarian … i.e. it is such a scripted, military type structure that it does not foster adult behavior the way the more collegial, and less hierarchical place I went to graduate school was.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  I went to both my grad schools in such rigidly hierarchical places that anything is a relief compared to that. In both my grad schools it was so crucial who your parents were that it was hard to feel like an adult. Almost nobody was even trying to be self -supporting.
  
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musteryou

July 19, 2012

Grad students in Australia can live an entirely free-form life, where nothing is scripted. They don’t even need to come in to the university. They are monitored vaguely but not very much.

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1. Z
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  I think it is different in the sciences, because your funding comes from working in a lab and if the professor whose lab it was lost their grant, etc., then… and also, in science, your dissertation was really a piece of someone else’s larger project, etc.
  
  I think it is different in smaller departments, where things can get all too cozy (English in the English speaking world is always a large department, and I like large departments). And a lot of Spanish departments are very enmeshed and have infighting, which puts the students in an odd position, very odd.
  
  We had a lot of freedom, though, partly because we were in the rigorous yet relaxing California and times were better.
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    July 19, 2012
    
    I do think the majority of people are insane. I was very lucky to have the situation I had. This was the last remnants of feudalism. Après moi, le déluge
    
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Titfortat

July 19, 2012

To answer that question I first need you to define adult. 😉

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Pen

July 19, 2012

I get so giddy over my work sometimes, I feel like a little kid. While I’ve had moments where I realize I can pretty much do whatever I want, I never really associated those thoughts with adulthood.

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Z

July 19, 2012

Is that how most people would distinguish adulthood from non adulthood — being able to do what you want vs. not?

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1. Pen
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  I’m not even sure what adulthood means anymore. It’s not like there was this magical moment when I turned eighteen. I felt the same. And now, I have more responsibilities, more work–but I feel like a little kid when I think about quantum physics, or while I learn Python and C, or when I read for hours and hours after work. There’s a kind of wonder to it all that I never associated with the seriousness of adulthood.
  
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  1. Z
    
    July 20, 2012
    
    I believe I have been thinking in recent years that adulthood meant responsibilities and putting up with poor behavior gracefully … these added to “being the adult.”
    
    But more seriously I would have said autonomy, independence, and I think now also, self-acceptance of some sort.
    
    Feeling like a kid — well yes, one can be a very very youthful adult! 🙂
    
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2. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  That is something I’d like to find out!
  
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David Bellamy

July 19, 2012

In a strong sense, I thought I was an adult at 14 years of age. There have been adjustments over time (learning to drive, getting a Private Pilot license, getting an Amateur Radio license, the birth of my first daughter, and others) but the most pervasive change came in 1958 when I turned 14.

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Culture club

July 19, 2012

As Titfortat says, define adult.

Under my definition I became an adult only rather recently, when I finally dealt with some personal issues that I had never gotten around to rehashing before. In the end it was completely anticlimactic since I was more than ready to go over them long ago.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  It’s when you realize that the world is yours and there is no more need to wait for your turn because your turn is now.
  
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  1. Pen
    
    July 19, 2012
    
    Under your definition, I realized I was an adult in sixth grade when I decided to learn saxophone. Since turning eighteen, it was a few days ago, when I decided I want to be a theoretical physicist. Or maybe it was when I decided to do a chem minor. Either way, they were all points in my life when I decided I wanted to do something and then went ahead and did it.
    
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  2. Z
    
    July 19, 2012
    
    Aha, then I have only just attained adulthood.
    
    I was thinking it might be, when you become non dependent, free, not beholden to anyone.
    
    I always wanted to be an adult when I was a child because as an adult, I would have autonomy and respect and voice.
    
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E (The Third Glance)

July 19, 2012

Adult? What is this “adult” thing? I think I have been an adult since I was about 8, but at the same time, I’m definitely not a grown up. At the tender age of 22, I’m most certainly not a grown up (why should I be?) but I’m not a child either. I like to think I’ve got the best of both worlds – I am able to (mostly) sort out all my “adult” responsibilities, while at the same time, remain incredibly carefree and fun-loving, taking a childlike joy in just existing. I think I have it right. 🙂 For me anyway 😉

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Leah Jane

July 19, 2012

Last week, actually. I was just hired for my new job, and I was signing my paperwork to become a due-paying member of United Steelworkers (my union) and I realized: “Holy crap, I have an actual job now, not a part-time job or a work-study job, where I’m a member of a union, get a full salary, and will be receiving benefits and MSP coverage!”
Being an actual adult, having my one year anniversary in Victoria, getting hired, and moving into a new place are all things I’m going to celebrate simultaneously come my first pay day. 🙂

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  A new job! And a union! This is so great. Congratulations!!!!!
  
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  1. Leah Jane
    
    July 19, 2012
    
    Thanks! It feels great. I wish that I was able to celebrate with you by going to the release of LUSH’s new product line on Saturday. 🙂
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      July 19, 2012
      
      I had no idea a new product line was coming out! You need to blog about it.
      
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Lear

July 19, 2012

I’ve had financial freedom since a long time ago. Have lived in my own apartment for many years, have been able to decide what to do with my time, and my money for a long time (that is, within the constraints of XXI century society). However, what I have not fully reached is the point where I absolutely don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of me.
In spite of what I’ve consciously said I still tried to live up to the expectations of so many people. It’s only recently that I’ve been giving that up. It’s only recently that I’m trying to live only to meet my own expectations. It’s only now, that I’m realizing what a real adult is, and not what I thought it was.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  I agree completely that the freedom not to allow the opinions of others to dictate one’s existence is a crucial mark of adulthood. And it’s very hard to reach.
  
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Hattie

July 19, 2012

Adults are pretty boring, so don’t become too much of an adult. Doing what you want is something else. I do what I want a lot, but I don’t mistake that for adult behavior. It’s mostly childish behavior!

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Anonymous

July 19, 2012

I’m still nowhere near feeling like a full fledged adult, since I’m a university student and still dependent in many ways on my mom, and still very much growing into my identity, but I do get regular pangs of feeling like an adult when I talk to my close friend (who also happens to be my ex-boyfriend) and we have disagreements or discussions over very, very sensitive topics and remain totally calm and supportive while still confidently asserting our own opinions. Realizing how much more rational I am than I used to be makes me feel very adult!

Whereas I also realize how adult I am when I talk to a very immature friend who flies into a fit of bullshit and rage when he doesn’t get his way, has little capacity to understand others have different desires in life than him, and realize how very far he has to go to adulthood and how much more mature I am comparatively. It feels great!

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Lindsay

July 19, 2012

I’m very literal-minded, and don’t think of adulthood as much more than its legal definition. So, I realized I was an adult when I turned eighteen.

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Elizabeth

December 15, 2012

The mundane things!. Some of the strongest feelings of adulthood I’ve had are the ones that come when I discover some new chore that I’d never imagined before. Cleaning the vent on the air conditioner, cleaning the shower head, fixing the vacuum belt…thing I’d never realized needed to be done but which actually fill the lives of adults. The first time I painted the walls of my apartment and nobody came by to tell me that was against some rules.Being sick and then realizing that nobody else was going to clean it up – and still being sick while I clean it up (cruel, cruel). Buying my own Christmas tree. I always find myself thinking something like “HA! ME, buying a Christmas tree! Who knew that this day would ACTUALLY come?” Then I laugh at myself and carry on pretending I’m an adult.

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