AARP Magazine’s editor did an interesting video interviewing folks on the question of what a grown up is. It was interesting to hear the diverse viewpoints on this concept, and to discover how little agreement there is about what constitutes ‘being grown up’. Everyone seems to have a different point of view about what the words mean. The conversations we have about ‘acting our age’ or ‘acting like a grown up’ or ‘a grown person wouldn’t act that way’ just seem to make the whole topic a matter of opinion. They have little power to inform or enlighten us. I wonder …
Whenever a simple phrase is interpreted in lots of different ways, it’s an opportunity to look at what’s behind the term to see what it might be as a distinction. Whenever we can distinguish something in any domain (in this case, ‘being grown up’ from ‘not being grown up’), we can begin to master our actions, learn and share that distinction with others. For example, if we can embody/internalize and distinguish ‘being a leader’ from ‘not being a leader’, then leadership becomes learnable. If not, it’s simply one of those aspects of life that some people come by naturally, but which remains a concept for the rest of us.
‘Being grown up’ doesn’t occur for most of us as a distinction—it’s more of an assumption attached to someone who is supposedly over a certain age. That age is determined by the culture we live in: in North America, it is often interpreted as whatever age we need to be to legally drink or drive. In other parts of the world, there are rites of passage that mark the transition from youth into adulthood. Of course, we can see lots of examples of people younger than this whom we judge to be very grown up and we all know plenty of older folks at every decade of life whom we say are not grown up at all.
The second most common assumption about being a grown up is that it’s synonymous (or at least it’s supposed to bring with it) a certain maturity—yet another word that lacks distinction. ‘Maturity’ is one of those words we use to label (and I would argue, control) the actions of others, rarely ourselves. I can’t recall the last time I thought, “I am doing the mature thing here.” I do think about whether I’m doing the ‘right’ thing or whether what I’m doing is good for the most people in a situation. So unless maturity means trying to do the ‘right’ thing, then I don’t know what ‘mature’ means.
I do know that when others are especially self-centered, focused on the short-term, and liable to overreact or dramatize the ordinary aspects of life, I say they are being ‘immature’. When I make this assessment, I’m imposing my standards of behavior onto them. In this sense, I’m judging others by my standards—which, while natural, isn’t in my book particularly mature if I do it automatically and without any responsibility for my judgments.
At the end of the day, I am of the view that ‘being a grown up’ doesn’t mean anything. Maturity is in the eye of the beholder. The judgments we make about one’s ‘grownupness’ are all relative to some societal or community standard that is usually connected to some notion of authority and, by implication, control of others.
From the perspective of a teenager thinking of growing older, being a grown up is an objective. From the perspective of a young adult, the objective may feel a burden. For someone in middle age, it may very well be one. And for someone in their later years, being a grown up may be considered a privilege.
No matter what our age, I suggest we consider that being grown up is actually about ‘growing up’, the ongoing process of opening up to life, learning and developing ourselves that will hopefully continue to our last day. Being grown up is not a destination—it is our journey.
