Being an Adult

   A few weeks ago I read an interesting article in the Washington Post. It was titled 'We are sending kids the wrong message about adulthood. Here's what needs to change." The author is Judy Mollen Walters. It was an interesting article. She writes about how there are books out there teaching parents how to teach children to become adults.  She assumed that this was just something that naturally happens as children grow up. She also wrote about how many people seem to be giving kids the message that being an adult is bad.
  This idea is spread on places like Facebook where there are memes about not wanting to be an adult. People saying that they wish they were young again. Parents saying that teens don't know how easy their lives are. According to the author all these things give the impression that being an adult is a bad thing. It's too hard. It's too stressful.
  What this leads to is young people who never really grow up. They don't make any career plans. They may go to college, but then drop out or take a long time to finish a degree. There are those who still live at home and are under or unemployed. Their parents continue to cook for them and take care of them. They never really learn how to live independently.
  Now to be fair, there are some adult children who continue to live at home because they are unable to find jobs that pay enough or have debt that they are trying to pay off.  I don't believe this article is talking about those situations.
  In the article the write states that when she sees these memes and lamentations about adulthood, she points out that being an adult is a good thing. You get to make your own choices and decisions.
  I whole heartedly agree. As Robert B Parker wrote in one of his Spenser novels, "I been both and adult is better" I looked forward to the day when I would graduate from high school and go off to college. It was what got me through some of the dark days when I was in high school.  I knew that what I was going through was not going to last forever and that one day I would be able to get away and go someplace else. I would be able to start a new life and none of the kids that bullied me would be able to ruin it.
  I can still remember the first time I really felt like I was an adult. I was about 19 years old. I wen to visit my cousin Josephine who was in her 60s at the time. I know that I went to visit her alone. I had never done that before. She seated me in the kitchen as is the custom of the family and gave me a cup of coffee and a piece of cake. That was how I knew I was accepted as an adult. Children and teens were never given coffee. Josephine sat on another chair at the kitchen table with her own cup and we visited.
  One thing I looked forward to was the ability to make my own choices. My parents would not let us have things like pudding, Jell-O, Pop Tarts and Kool Aid. My mother did not think the sugar and the artificial colours in these things were good for us. In addition I think my parents thought I had attention deficit as a child. Since there were no drugs to treat the condition at the time, my mother tried to control it by diet. When I got to college, I lived on campus and ate in the cafeteria. There were all kinds of new things for me to try. There was Jell-O  and pudding in the salad bar. There was Coca Cola in the soda fountain. I could have Captain Crunch for breakfast if I wanted.
 I did try all the food my parents never let me eat. I quickly discovered that most of them were seriously overrated. None of them stayed in my diet for long.
  I like being able to make my own choices. I can cook for myself if I want or I can go out to eat. I can choose what to do with my free time. Sometimes those choices can be interesting. For instance, I was living in Albert Lea and was bored. I had been snowed in for several days and the roads were finally clear. I decided to drive to Austin and visit the Spam museum. (Spam as in the food, not the electronic junk mail.) It was not the most interesting thing to do, but I can now say that I've been to the Spam museum.
  Sometimes those choices can change your life. One time I was bored and drove to Stillwater to walk around. It was on a warm January day about 14 years ago. I was intrigued by the name of a coffee shop on the edge of town. I stopped by there to have a drink before heading home. The person who made my drink was this interesting guy. A week after that first visit I went back, found out he was the house musician and that his name was C. (Yes, that is the short version of how we met.)
  Being an adult does have its struggles. The author of the article writes about them and how it isn't bad to have them. I agree with that too. You learn to appreciate things so much more if you have to work to get them. I also believe you take better care of things that you earn. You don't take them for granted.
  The author ends the article by saying that being an adult is good. In fact I think I'm just going to quote her directly. "Being an adult is good. Let’s not only keep teaching our kids that. Let’s believe it ourselves." I agree.