I live in New York City. I pay too much for rent. I don’t own a car. I’m recently unemployed. In the meantime, I work a temp job to get money coming in the door. I’m up to my eyeballs in debt. I’m not married and I don’t have any kids. I love my life—when it cooperates with me. I follow my dreams. I blog because it’s free therapy ( … and because I really like you guys.) I’ve never had a mortgage. My college dorm room was larger than my current apartment is. My fears: being single forever and death. My joys: men, chocolate cake, working out, sunny days, strolls through Manhattan, and images of Paul Walker. And, very very soon, I’m going back to school part-time (while I continue to search for a job that is a good “fit”) so that I can begin to launch my own non-profit. I’m 31 and I’m happy. I am a (new) New Yorker. And, I am a grown up. That’s the State of Stolie.
But, when does one really ever “grow up”? That’s the question that Nerd Girl posts on her blog. And, if you haven’t read New York Magazine’s hottest new article*, “Up With Grups – The Ascendant Breed of Grown-Ups Who Are Redefining Adulthood”, you should. (Trust me, everyone is reading it.) The article discusses the typical 35-year-old New Yorker: The Grup. He tends to pay $600 for a messenger bag because only a “frat-boy Wall Street flunky” would carry a briefcase. The female Grup tends to “take her toddler to a Mommy’s Happy Hour at a Brooklyn bar”. In New York, 30-something is the new 20-something.
All of this talk about aging leads me to wonder: “what does it mean to be a grown up in today’s society?” And, how do you know when you’re there? Are you a grown up when you marry and have kids? When you start saving for retirement? When you don’t know what the DJs are spinning at the clubs anymore? Seriously, I’m curious to know what the sexy people of the Stolie Nation (um, that’s you) think. Feel free to use the comments section to share your thoughts about adulthood. Or, alternatively, write a comment to complete this sentence: “Grown ups are people who __” (All thoughts are welcome. Be as witty, goofy, or serious as you want to be.)
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NOTE: I’ll have you know that the Funky Brown Chick had a post about the Urban Fountain of Youth back in January, waaaay before New York Metro printed its article on the same topic. Yeah bitches, I’ve got my finger on the pulse of what’s hip and happening in New York City; so, when you wanna know shit — just ask the Stolinator. ;)
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
The words grown-up go hand in hand with the other word ‘responsibility’ I think. Along with responsibility comes a truckload of worries and concerns. For example if you (not stolie obv, I’m speaking in general here!) are not the least bit concerned about the big stuff like finding a decent job or paying the next rent-check, and simply sit back because your rich mommy and daddy will always cover you regardless, then even if you’re 40 I wouldnt say you’re grown up. If you don’t do your laundry on time and run out of clean underwear and then go ‘shit now what do I do…d’oh…I should do my laundry but how does this thing work again?’ then no, you are far from being grown up in my opinion.
Growing up can become an accelerated process for some, due to circumstances. A kid who had a happy childhood and entered adulthood would not be as ‘grown up’ as a kid who is the eldest in the family and had to look out for his/her siblings because their parents died in a car crash. Similiarly but on a much less dramatic sense, change makes you grow up faster as well; for example I can vouch for that personally, where leaving home in 2002 when I was 19 and moving to a completely new country has completely changed my approach and outlook to life compared with some of my peers who stayed back home and still live at home. The more life experiences you have, the more it widens your perspective and sense of reality; but within limits obviously.
Being independent, both in actions and in thought is also a indication of being grown up, because it is an extention of the responsibility part of it. Some things are beyond our control, and there is no point worrying about things we cannot do anything about, or help. But as long as we take responsibility for our actions, do what needs to be done in time, but also know when to loosen up a bit and have some fun and retain a sense of humour, and find that ideal balance, then in my opinion it can be defined as growing up.
Grown ups are people who can look a situation in the eye and not get excited about it.
When you go to the store in old wrinkled clothes, no shower, and don’t care if you run into someone.
They are the people that will discipline other people, kids or adults. Like telling kids not to climb on the back of your seat in the restaurant or telling an adult to pick up their feet when they are walking through gravel.
I refuse to grow up!
Growing up also means growing old.
Life is much more fun being young at heart if not in years.
They probably snatched the idea from you and didn’t give you credit. You know how those journalist types can be. LOL
For the longest time I referred to myself as a ‘boy’. It was only recently that I suddenly got too embarrassed, and switched to ‘man’. It still feels awkward when I say it, and I keep waiting for someone to laugh.
According to my birthday I’m a grown up, but I don’t feel it, and I certainly don’t act it – I have a boyfriend who can confirm this.
I used to think that I had to have it all figured out by the time I was 24. Now that I am past that age, I am going to have it all figured out by the time I’m 34. IRA’s, kids, and a fixed mortgage rate included.
I just think the expression “growing up” has such huge negative baggage: all these expectations of intellectual stagnancy, bills, kids, house, car, marriage. (Okay maybe that’s just me)
Still, I know there has to be something else because I’m not willing to join the ranks of the adult adolescent movement (not to be sexist, but I see a LOT of men joining up) either.
I guess ideally, IMHO, being a great grownup would be keeping the wonder of childhood, the fearlessness of adolescence and the ablity to “rage it” of young adulthood while being able to live independently (read: knowing how to “pay the bills,”) keeping an open mind/heart to life, and maintaining a sense of humor.
I guess that would be ideal, and maybe impossible. But one thing I agree with, “grown up” isn’t easy.
Grown Ups are people who: are my complete opposite.
I was told as a child that I was mature for my age, I took that as good thing most of the time. But now I’m 21 and I want to make the most of not having lots of responsibilities. I seem to have a mental block that makes me think that when you are a Grown Up, you don’t have any fun.
Let me tell you that I am 27 and I stopped growing up at 22. I live in Atlanta with my man and no brats and, like yourself, want to open up something nonprofit one day. In the meantime I take pictures of the MARTA and post them on my blog when I should be updating databases for my job or doing homework for grad school. Cest la vie!
Dave Barry said something that has always stuck with me on this subject: The way I see it, adulthood is a big, sleek jungle snake. It swallows you subtly, an inch at a time, so you barely notice the signs: you start reading the labels on things before you eat them…Before you know it, your furniture is nice. And suddenly you realize that you’d rather sit around on your furniture and talk about the warning signs of colon cancer than, say, find out what happens when you set one of those plastic milk jugs on fire. And if your kid sets a milk jug on fire, you yell at him, “Somebody could get hurt,” and you really mean it, from inside the snake.
I like this quote in particular because it still doesn’t make me an adult. =)
Being grown up is knowing when to walk away from a situation because fighting won’t do any good.
Being grown up is admitting one’s mistakes and facing the consequences.
Being grown up is respecting someone else’s opinion though it is different from one’s own.
I know some seventh graders who are more grown up than some adults I know.
Okay I am reading the “Grup” article.
I suspect that I am one of the pioneers having passed through the hallowed halls of 30 12 years ago.
ALL: Thanks for sharing! :)
Yup. I’m a Grup.
I was born in 63. Up until about 1981 it always seemed like I was getting bitten by one moray or another. The scars have finally healed. But it was a long process.
In the 70s kids used to harrass me every time I came to school with a haircut. It was like I could never be cool without an unkempt afro that blocked out the sun. The girls were all trying to do their hair like Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith from Charlie’s Angels. We were going to school in an overly critical adolescent culture that I must say I absolutely do not miss. It seemed like, of all things, punk rock/new wave was the social change that came to my rescue. I listened to a bit of the music and went to a couple of concerts, but it was the movements that defined the beginning of the 80s that stripped the power away from all those bullshit expectations. Well maybe I am overdramatizing. It may have been the simple act of graduation and no longer having to deal with the social cockpit of public school. I know when I showed up at UT in September of 1981, I realized that no one cared anything about who I used to be. I had a clean slate. It felt good.
When I graduated from UT in 1986 I wore a tie the first two years of my post college work life. But I guess I had started moving away from that. When I moved to California in 1990 I ended up in office environments where ties were optional. It was crazy. I would dress up to create an image to impress people to hire me for a job that I would not have to dress up to do.
I guess the interview culture is still that way. Maybe if enough people pay attention to the dress inconsistency that will change someday.
So now I only put on a suit when someone dies. So I don’t want a job with dress expectations of the old tradition. Because then going to work everyday would be like going to a funeral.
What I am taking away from the article is that it is okay to keep doing what I am doing. The idea that the stuff we did as college students has to end for “responsibility” to take over is a myth that is on its way to oblivion. I don’t necessarily have to pay attention to certain people’s expectations that I trade in my jeans and sneakers for more formal stuff.
My name is Raymond.
I’m 42.
I carry an iPod, a cell, and a digital camera with me at all times.
I dress casual pretty much every day at work and at home.
If I’m not grown up enough for you, if you have expectations that I do and live otherwise, either show me the money or keep your yap shut.
Wow! That was a long one. :)
Thanks for sharing.