When I was a young boy, I remember how important it was that you got my age right.  At some point, I eventually learned that six months after my birthday, I could add ½ to my age since I was over half-way there to my next birthday. I still hear children today tell me their ages and they consider it a compliment when you tell them they seem older. With each passing birthday, as an adult, I no longer concern myself with those ‘½  years’ knowing that I will reach that next birthday soon enough. You may be there also. 

What about growing up? We all progress through the years at what seems to be an ever-increasing rate, but what about “growing up?” There is a definite distinction between the concepts of growing older and growing up. I have known and treated some people who are older, beyond the chronological age of 21 years-old who were indeed not grown up. I have also known and treated children who were either forced to grow up and, of course, they were indeed children, but they impressed me in that they were way beyond what their chronological age might indicate. I finally was forced to come to the determination that growing up was something beyond the concept of chronological age. It had to do with something else.

Indeed, in our American culture, we have made concessions for the delay of the onset of adulthood.  The concept of the four-year college experience is one such concession. Statistics, however, tell us that the launch of the adolescent into adulthood has been delayed even until the mid and upper 20’s in some cases. Many families still have older children living in their home or moving back into their homes even until the age of 30 years-old and beyond. Certainly, part of the reason is for financial considerations and this is understandable considering the high cost of living today, but there appears to be a problem even beyond this. 

I have heard it said by some that when one decides to become an adult, it is time to put away childish things. I have two questions regarding this major life transition. First, why would a person have to make such a decision to become an adult in the first place? Second, why would this decision to transition into adulthood require putting away those things that are “childish?” Let’s attempt to address these questions one at a time.

Perhaps the more interesting question would be why some people never seem to grow up. What is it that characterizes their life and keeps them from wanting to be responsive to life? To understand that maturity is at least partially conceptualized by a person who is responsible – or broken down into the two words that form the word responsible; response-able. If I am ready, willing, and able to respond to life I can be described as “responsible.”  In my experience, I have seen those who are able, but not willing to respond to life. The largest factor is their inability to stand alone either because of fear or psychological trauma. If you listen long enough to these unwilling to leave childhood behind, many times below the surface, you will hear a litany of blame. Blame, as a device, removes me from having any sort of control in my life. Indeed, I am handing the control and consequences for my life experience over to others who I claim have caused my state of being to be so deficient. If I am where I am solely because of the action of others exclusively, then the action of others must change before I may find relief. I have no control over my life at all – I am a “child” at the mercy of the whim of those who have somehow managed to victimize me. I am also without hope because I will never have the ability to change others one whit, only myself. I am childish and childishly walking though life in a tantrum.

When I decide to become an adult, I have come to the realization personally that those childish maneuvers I have embraced over the years have not only severely stymied my development, but they have also severely limited my ability to become autonomous and free. When it is others who imprison me, I have no ability to escape. When I decide to become an adult, I realize that it was I myself alone who has imprisoned me. At this point, I am able to reach around the prison door, unlock it myself, and walk out a free person. As I look back in that prison cell of my own making, I realize the childish things that kept me there must now be left behind. 

When you or I make that decision to walk out of prison, it is a painful thing to leave those oft-cherished childish things behind. It hurts to know I have had the ability to change this for some time. It is hard to see that I myself have caused much of my own pain by refusing to give up the childish mindset. And now I walk away free wondering how to be fully responsible for my life when others have carried the blame for so long, but I feel lighter, less burdened. Would you be surprised if you were to just notice a few months from now that this is a far superior way to live? I think not.