When I was a kid, adults sometimes seemed like a whole different species from my peers and me. Sure, they were taller, older-looking, and worldlier, but it was their behavior that seemed so peculiar. Adulthood seemed to be so refined — reading the newspaper, talking to friends about how business is going, doing taxes, partaking in romance. It seemed strange to me that those were things that adults enjoyed or understood. I, instead, enjoyed reading stories with pictures and talking to my friends about what cool things we’d do if we were superheroes … you know, fun stuff.
These things adults talked about and did seemed wholly uninteresting and complicated. What was it about the workings of business that made the topic so fascinating to talk about? How on earth does one acquire and maintain a bank account and health insurance? — two examples of responsibilities I did not look forward to having one day because there appeared to be so many hoops to jump through, bewildering paperwork to sort out, and all the related things to learn. My parents seemed hyper-intelligent to be able to juggle and complete such things while carrying on an in-depth conversation on mortgages (whatever the hell that was). How did one possibly learn and begin to appreciate such tasks and topics?
Adults also appeared to lack certain characteristics I would notice in myself and other kids. For example, while I doubted my ability to someday be able to handle these complicated responsibilities, adults seemed to take them all in stride. Grown-ups did not appear to suffer from very many worries or uncertainties that we kids were prone to having. While I could point out someone on the playground and say, “That kid there's just not sure how to approach dealing with such-and-such kid problem,” I doubted someone every needed to say about an adult, “That guy’s just not sure how to deal with such-and-such adult problem” — they just always knew what to do.
As I grew older, though, I obviously began to better see the gradual path that wound its way from childhood behavior and ability to adulthood behavior and ability. Rather than being a tall, rigid wall meant to somehow, someday be suddenly scaled, the difference between kid and grown-up transformed more into a gradual process, one that became easier to notice once I began to become more like an adult. In elementary school, I could not imagine myself partaking in high school prom — who wanted to dance with a girl and all that mushy stuff? When the time came, however, I could not imagine myself forgoing it. A hole had gradually been carved in that formidable wall between child and adult and I was glimpsing and understanding the other side and how and why that hole had been carved.
Now, as a 20 year old university student, I still have yet to set up my own health insurance and I still laugh and joke with my roommates if someone rips one, but I understand the interest in talking work and how to manage my bank account. I’ll be be speaking with a friend and find myself talking about what kind of hours we need to work in order to pay for food and rent or why Los Angeles is not fit for certain modes of public transportation and I’ll realize that we have been casually chatting away about topics I used to watch my parents and other adults speak of, topics I used to write off as boring and overly complicated, if not pointless. It was an interesting realization — I was now on the other side.
As I have grown and immersed myself in the responsibilities and dynamics of adulthood I also discovered that adults are not the perfect beings who always know how to approach or deal with any circumstance or problem that comes their way. Financial, familial, or and a whole host of other issues can and do leave adults at a loss for what to do. Grown-ups can suffer from emotional and behavioral faults the way their youthful counterparts can and when I finally began to interact with them on an adult-to-adult level it became clear that they can indeed be fallible.
All-in-all, experiencing adulthood has altered my childhood perceptions of it in two main ways: The sometimes intimidating, complicated responsibilities are indeed doable and serve as an interesting, purposeful topic of conversation and no matter how old one gets, one will at times have to wrestle with uncertainty and be imperfect in the way one goes about life. As a kid, not only do adults treat us differently and act differently toward us from the way they treat and act towards other adults, but we do not often perceive, whether we do not bother to or because it’s hidden from us, the way adult life works below the surface. Before maturing, learning, and developing skills that can only come with time and experience, adult responsibilities just do not seem interesting and are certainly not relevant yet.
I imagine someday my own kids will think of me like how I thought of my parents and all I’ll be able to do is smile and tell them it will all make sense with time.
These things adults talked about and did seemed wholly uninteresting and complicated. What was it about the workings of business that made the topic so fascinating to talk about? How on earth does one acquire and maintain a bank account and health insurance? — two examples of responsibilities I did not look forward to having one day because there appeared to be so many hoops to jump through, bewildering paperwork to sort out, and all the related things to learn. My parents seemed hyper-intelligent to be able to juggle and complete such things while carrying on an in-depth conversation on mortgages (whatever the hell that was). How did one possibly learn and begin to appreciate such tasks and topics?
Adults also appeared to lack certain characteristics I would notice in myself and other kids. For example, while I doubted my ability to someday be able to handle these complicated responsibilities, adults seemed to take them all in stride. Grown-ups did not appear to suffer from very many worries or uncertainties that we kids were prone to having. While I could point out someone on the playground and say, “That kid there's just not sure how to approach dealing with such-and-such kid problem,” I doubted someone every needed to say about an adult, “That guy’s just not sure how to deal with such-and-such adult problem” — they just always knew what to do.
As I grew older, though, I obviously began to better see the gradual path that wound its way from childhood behavior and ability to adulthood behavior and ability. Rather than being a tall, rigid wall meant to somehow, someday be suddenly scaled, the difference between kid and grown-up transformed more into a gradual process, one that became easier to notice once I began to become more like an adult. In elementary school, I could not imagine myself partaking in high school prom — who wanted to dance with a girl and all that mushy stuff? When the time came, however, I could not imagine myself forgoing it. A hole had gradually been carved in that formidable wall between child and adult and I was glimpsing and understanding the other side and how and why that hole had been carved.
Now, as a 20 year old university student, I still have yet to set up my own health insurance and I still laugh and joke with my roommates if someone rips one, but I understand the interest in talking work and how to manage my bank account. I’ll be be speaking with a friend and find myself talking about what kind of hours we need to work in order to pay for food and rent or why Los Angeles is not fit for certain modes of public transportation and I’ll realize that we have been casually chatting away about topics I used to watch my parents and other adults speak of, topics I used to write off as boring and overly complicated, if not pointless. It was an interesting realization — I was now on the other side.
As I have grown and immersed myself in the responsibilities and dynamics of adulthood I also discovered that adults are not the perfect beings who always know how to approach or deal with any circumstance or problem that comes their way. Financial, familial, or and a whole host of other issues can and do leave adults at a loss for what to do. Grown-ups can suffer from emotional and behavioral faults the way their youthful counterparts can and when I finally began to interact with them on an adult-to-adult level it became clear that they can indeed be fallible.
All-in-all, experiencing adulthood has altered my childhood perceptions of it in two main ways: The sometimes intimidating, complicated responsibilities are indeed doable and serve as an interesting, purposeful topic of conversation and no matter how old one gets, one will at times have to wrestle with uncertainty and be imperfect in the way one goes about life. As a kid, not only do adults treat us differently and act differently toward us from the way they treat and act towards other adults, but we do not often perceive, whether we do not bother to or because it’s hidden from us, the way adult life works below the surface. Before maturing, learning, and developing skills that can only come with time and experience, adult responsibilities just do not seem interesting and are certainly not relevant yet.
I imagine someday my own kids will think of me like how I thought of my parents and all I’ll be able to do is smile and tell them it will all make sense with time.
This article was originally published at Medium.com with the subtitle "The evolution of a child’s perception of adulthood into experiencing its characteristics firsthand."
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