On Being An Adult

           Don’t you just hate when people say to you be an adult about things, especially if that person is the same age as you, or doing the same things that you are doing. When prompted by this statement, I simply let it go because to put briefly I am an adult. But when I really thought about this statement, I began to question my adulthood. Lets start to explore this statement with step one, defining the term. Everyone already knows what be, and an mean.. a verb and an indefinite article respectively. The word adult is defined in the Merriam and Webster’s Dictionary as “fully developed and mature: grown-up”. Now this led to another question that popped into my mind. Does this definition describe physicality or some ones mental state? If it is describing ones physical being then in a sense we are all adults. But if it is describing someone mental, then we must dig deeper into what exactly is mature? This led me to many different sources by simply typing into the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, I got this definition “(1): having completed natural growth and development: ripe (2): having undergone maturation b: having attained a final or desired state”. Now it is obvious that the first definition is talking about ones physicality. The second and third, however, are the ones that indeed puzzle me. 

       Let us start with the third, “having attained a final or desired state”. This made me think a little that if we are all striving to attain that final or desired state, then when do we ever mature, or do we ever mature? A desired state could be anything from getting all A’s on a report card to being content in ones on skin. With desired states that are so broad, how can we tell who the adults are and who are the children. A final, desired state is far too broad to weed out adults; some people are still growing and maturing and may never reach that final state until they are dead. Now addressing definition number 2, “having undergone maturation”. To completely and utterly understand this definition, you have to have an understanding of maturation is. According to Merriam and Webster’s Dictionary, “the emergence of personal and behavioral characteristics through growth processes”. Now I know this is a ton of dictionary stuff but bear with me, I’m making a point here! 

         “The emergence of personal and behavioral characteristics through growth processes” Well if the above is true then technically we are immature until the day our growth processes seize or in laymen’s terms the day we die, for we are a species that are forever growing and forever learning. So how can you tell me to be an adult, when that is mentally impossible? People believe because you are of a certain age, that along with that age comes maturity and that is definitely not the case. “Being an adult” is in fact an illusion; something that society thus far has tricked us into believing. We are expected to hit the age of 18, and then all of a sudden have this magical transformation into being an “adult”, but what most people don’t realized is that adult of older and more responsible children. This is because the learning process never stops. The growth process never stops, so who are you to tell me to grow up and be an adult…when you aren’t even one yourself.

Written 1/10/2009