What does it mean to be an adult? Oftentimes, people think being an adult means paying bills, having a steady job, or being able to juggle many responsibilities at once. That can be what an adult looks like. However, there are plenty of adults that don’t fit that description. More to the point, there are children that actually fit that description. So, maybe adulthood isn’t as rigid as some people think. Maybe it’s an abstract, fluid concept that will have different meanings depending on context. It’s more than an age, a height, an income, a social status, or even the number of children you have. In an ever-changing society, being an adult means being ready to change with the times. Being an adult means being comfortable with discomfort. A necessary step on the path to adulthood is failure. Being an adult means accepting and learning from your failures, then making better choices.
You might think adulthood means more freedom - nobody telling you when to be home or what to wear, for example. Adulthood means you get the right to make choices that other people used to make for you. You might be right about that. But adulthood also means that the world expects you to step up in many ways that you weren’t asked to when you were a child or a teenager. Are you ready for that?
We aren’t here to give you all the answers -- we want you to look deep within yourself, ask some questions and challenge your assumptions about what it means to be an adult. Do you look forward to adulthood? Is growing up just growing old? Maybe that depends a lot on who the more important adults are in your life and what their lives look like to you. Are they happy with the choices they’ve made and glad to accept the responsibilities they’ve signed on for? Does it seem like the freedom and power they enjoy is a fair swap for the obligations they have, or does it look to you like they’ve had to give up everything fun? Who do you think of when you imagine a healthy, happy adulthood? What choices did they make and what challenges did they face down to get there?