What is your definition of "grown up" or "being an adult?"

[bertha katzenengel]

1. I have beanie babies on my desk at work. I like cute animals. I feel about eleven years old. I make stupid jokes and like to have fun with little things. Very small things amuse me. I like the feel of several dimes in my palm.

Grown up?

2. I work, pay a mortgage, support my families, pay taxes, vote, give to people in need.

Grown up?

Does the first cancel out the second? Or vice versa? Or can I call both of them "me," with no embarrassment about the first?

Your thoughts?

Your definitions?

[Writer]

1. An adult is someone who knows effectively how to face challenges, not the good times.

Facing and coping with challenges are when adulthood is most needed.

[skygazer]

2. My definition

Being an adult has more to do with taking responsibility for your life, handling your own financial affairs, direction, etc. than it does in how you act or whether you like beanie babies.

I've considered myself an adult since I was 15 and independent. :shrug:

[AlCzervik]

3. for me it was 2 things.

1. omg i'm somebody's mother
and
2. if i don't have the cash to buy it than i really don't need it.

[MedleyMisty]

4. Both are fine

An adult, to me, is someone who is responsible for their moral and ethical decisions and for their own emotions. Like, let's say you're scared and upset about something. If you deal with it inside yourself instead of taking it out on your kids or pets or some disadvantaged Other, then grats, you're an adult.

Also if you can make your own decisions instead of just buying what everyone else buys and hating the group that everyone else hates and supporting the violence and death and war that everyone else supports, you're an adult - also if you rely on yourself and your own reasoning as opposed to accepting the beliefs and mores and stereotypes and social roles and expectations imposed by external authorities. And the biggest thing is feeling empathy and compassion for others and helping the less fortunate out.

Very few humans make it to adulthood. I think most of them are stuck at around two or three years old psychologically - stuff is only bad if it hurts me, I am the center of the universe, I must lick the boots of authorities, I can have no real self but instead must be a shell acting out a role, etc. Maybe some make it all the way to five years old.

It's tough - on one hand I'm watching the destruction of the world and knowing that the future is going to suck ass because of the actions of these people and I feel this total rage and disgust, and on the other hand I do feel a little pity because most of them had sucky childhoods and were abused and psychologically stunted by their parents. Undergroundpanther linked this on here before and it really explains humanity.

http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/05_history.html

And as for the first part - I think the most mature people are the most childlike.

[DarkTirade]

5. Something I refuse to do for quite some time.

[1gobluedem]

6. The first time I felt like a grown up

was when I went to the drive-up window at the bank to do my own banking. I'd gone with my mother for years and it seemed like such an adult thing to do.

I do the grown-up stuff like work, pay bills, pay taxes, don't drink and drive, stuff like that. But most of the time I feel like I'm about seventeen.

I still love dolls and have two CP Kids who are my family mascots and who have tons and tons of clothes and toys of their own.

[unsavedtrash]

7. I'm an adult but if anyone tries to take the stuffed animals I sleep with every night, we will fight

Like the others have said, it's all about responsibility. I take care of me and mine, and try to spread the little extra as I can.
Inside, yeah I'm a big ole kid and I hope it never changes.

[LaraMN]

8. Wearing comfortable pants.

:P

I kid, I kid.

I won't even attempt to define it, but I think the idea that being an "adult" means one necessarily becomes stodgy, ill-humored, conservative, and serious is a horrible way to perceive the process of maturation.

Of course both aspects you illustrated are part of the adult "you." I'm sure there are many more elements of you that exist, comprising the person you have come to be. Knowing what makes life enjoyable for you is a definitive element of being a "grown up."

[porphyrian]

9. I don't know, but people who seem obsessed with maturity and "being an adult..."

...tend to have issues with and/or an inability to act immature and/or understand immaturity and/or have a constant need to make the distinction and/or are stupid doodooheads.

[madinmaryland]

10. The Bush Admin are not adults. eom

[bertha katzenengel]

11. this has been very interesting reading, enlightening

i appreciate all the replies

anyone else?

[SacredCow]

12. If....

by Rudyard Kipling.


If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

[dropkickpa]

13. I hate being a grown-up

Responsibility sucks. I used to be able to get up and go where ever I wanted at the drop of a hat. I didn't worry about a stupid gas bill. I didn't have to buy healthy food and engage in WW3 to get someone to eat it. And it was much more acceptable then for me to fix a wedgie in public than it is now.

[Iggo]

14. A grown-up knows that he or she is a grown-up.

I hit it at about 35 yrs old...heheheh.

But really, up until then, I questioned every day whether I would ever feel grown-up.

Not anymore.

And my advice to the young'ns? Don't grow up. It hurts...lol.

[SoxFan]

15. Eating Captain Crunch for lunch

and nobody can do a damn thing about it! HA!

[redqueen]

16. No, IMO the first doesn't cancel anything...

The second describes my definition fairly well... I'd leave off paying a mortgage, though, and replace it with something like 'pay attention to current events'... and I'd also add 'practice compassion and empathy regularly'.

:hi:

[BuelahWitch]

17. Sorry, I'm coming into this late

The first is just personality. It has nothing to do with age. You're your own person, with your own likes and dislikes. You're a grown up who has her own idea of what is fun. What's wrong with that? :shrug: :hi:

[Hosnon]

18. Sacrificing immediate gain for long term gain. (nt)

[begin_within]

19. Taking responsibility for your own actions.

[SKKY]

20. Voting Democrat.

That would be a good start.

[Quantess]

21. You are more grown up than I am in some ways, and I envy you.

One of my first thoughts was... and I know at least 75% of you will scoff...
What is your astrological sign?

Edit:
I'm guessing Taurus (mid April thru late May). This sort of thing entertains me, that's all.

Possibly Aries or Virgo.