"Elderly Youth": Different people about how they matured
We used to associate age with automatic maturity.but in reality this is not the same thing. The main signs of an adult person are considered to be responsibility for themselves and others and independence - financial, emotional or social. But does a person who formally fits into these criteria necessarily feel like an adult? We talked with women and men about how they feel about themselves and about their attitude to age as a whole.
I can say with confidence that I am an adult, quite reasonable and self-sufficient. But my understanding of growing up changed over time. I was a very "correct" girl who perceived all the attitudes of her parents about the importance of her studies and careers literally. Dubious threat that you must go to college, otherwise I will go to work as a janitor, firmly stuck in my head. Bad grades were my nightmare, I almost did not go to discos, and if I did, I could not relax, I felt guilty. Acquainted with her future husband, told him that I was not going to be a housewife and sit with the children, but I would make a career.
Having moved to live separately from my parents, I considered myself an adult and did not forgive myself for my weaknesses. I "should" do everything perfectly. I sobbed over the unsuccessfully cooked cake. I had a sea of ambitions, a red diploma, entrenched at the subconscious level of installation on a career and on continuing to follow the "parental precepts." I was such an “adult”, but in fact I was deeply stuck in complexes and the fear of not matching my own hypertrophied perception of parental education.
But there is a starting point in my life, after which I can call myself an adult without quotes. It was just a telephone conversation with my mother, but twelve years have passed, and I remember the place where he took place, and the phrase that changed a lot. I was afraid not to live up to expectations, and my mother condemned what I thought was pushing me, the second higher education, which took all my free time. The veil fell from my eyes, and I realized that it was only me who was responsible for my decisions, so I had to make my own choices, and not because my parents wanted them so much. They are wonderful people and love me very much. Just in pursuit of obedience, I did not even notice, literally or figuratively, the parents say something. Later, I realized that no one forced me to do just that and blindly follow the advice.
For me, psychological separation from parents turned out to be very painful at first and extremely useful in perspective. I no longer follow parental desires - for me these are tips, not a guide to action. In general, I have ceased to prove something to someone and to be afraid of what others will think of me. Of course, much now has to be done with an eye to the fact that I have a family and two children, but emotionally I am completely free, and the family is my cozy home, where I feel comfortable. I learned to listen to myself, relax, live in my pleasure and follow desires. I no longer strive up the career ladder: what is more important for me is not the position, but the content of what I am doing. I want to get a return, pleasure from the process, and not to prove to anyone that I knowingly received two higher educations. I’m not afraid to change, but I don’t seek to adapt to anyone. I do not put the principles at the forefront, I try something new and I am not afraid to make a mistake and admit that I do not know how. And I'm still trying to make up what I did not allow myself at twenty plus.
I terribly envy the current fifteen or nineteen. They grow in an era of free access to information and open borders. They can build a life and career with all the cards in their hands. In my adolescence, it was always possible to justify "But we are not taught this," "That book is not to be found on sale," or "No, well, we are not in America." I think it is these properties of the post-Soviet culture that have created a deficit of “adulthood” in people - adulthood as the ability to be responsible for their own education and development.
If I had been asked at twenty, if I considered myself an adult, I would say: "Of course, yes." And now it is even embarrassing for me to speak on this topic, because “adult” is a very pretentious definition. Age with maturation is foolish to relate. Yes, experience is a huge capital, but you also need to draw reasonable conclusions and move on. One without the other gives rise to nerd-moralists, who in fact cannot be held responsible for anything. To be able to fool around sometimes is an integral part of full adulthood for me.
Many associate adulthood with the ability to raise children - I think this is simply the easiest and most illustrative example of that responsibility. But it would be great if for most people such an attitude extended not only to offspring, but also to social norms, workflows, close people, creating their own culture, including the home one. It’s hard for me to call myself an adult because I still haven’t learned how to tidy up the apartment regularly or to allocate time so that I have enough for sports and the theater after work. I am aware that the responsibility for the mess and shortcomings in the organization is entirely on me. The more I teach myself to bear this responsibility, the faster and better the life around me moves in terms of career, relationships, and my own development. And I can confidently say that I "matured" when I built it all up.
I think women are harder to grow up. They are much more pressure: it is believed that you need to give birth to children under thirty, the cosmetic industry has been struggling with wrinkles since the age of twenty-five. And it seems to me, you need not to be afraid of growing old. Here is Michelle Lamy is very cool.
It is important to be in trouble with each other. Do not want to grow up - do not grow up. I don’t feel like an adult and I don’t understand what is going to happen for me to start growing up. These frames each sets itself. Someone thinks that after school, institute, salary increase, thirty-three years, weddings something should change. I have all the old way. Mom always wanted to see me leave the bank in a suit - my idea of happiness is different. I have a flexible schedule, I don’t wear a suit, on Fridays I can roll on the lawn with a laptop, and I have a backside from a leather chair. I have two small children, and now this is the most important project. I am a happy man.
I am one of those who think: "It is terrible not that we are adults, but that we are adults." When I turned thirty, I completely did not understand that I was already thirty, that I was big and grown up. I still perceived myself younger. And this is despite the fact that I already had two children. Perhaps the reason is that I talked a lot with the guys from my sister's company: they are all about five years younger than me. I realized that an adult, when he began to make completely independent decisions, without external influence, about his life and when he saw the consequences of these decisions. The first of these was a divorce.
Recently, I began to oppose myself and those who are under thirty, and especially up to twenty-five. There is no negative connotation in it, just a feeling: here I am they, and we are different. For example, I now hang out much more rarely at night, because I’m recovering longer and can’t afford to lose a day or even two. But again I would not want to become a teenager. If we imagine that there is an opportunity to go back and stay indefinitely at a younger age, I would choose twenty-seven years: health is still at seventeen, and you take yourself as a person is already much more serious. In addition, this is a borderline state in terms of attitude towards you: the younger ones are still taken for their own, while the older ones no longer refer to them as a "bezusomi young boy." My present age still suits me less, although I am not particularly worried, I am quite comfortable, it does not. I feel like an adult, but not old.
I would not want to become a teenager again - the time was too unhappy for me. Growing up, first of all, about loneliness: for me to grow up means to find myself completely alone, calmly agree with this and build relationships with myself and with others from this point. I am afraid that a full understanding of growing up has not come to me yet. When I manage to earn money myself (and this does not always happen, because I have project work and a small child), a feeling of independence appears, it gives peace of mind and confidence. The rest of the time my husband keeps me, he pays utility bills and the like. Sometimes I hear from him "it's time to grow up" - it seems when I do not clean the cups behind me.
I know the best aspects of my appearance, I take it calmly. I smear wrinkles with cream, I go to sports a little, although I think that I would definitely look more toned - but in this sense I am more interested in the issue of energy and mobility. And the energy comes when you are doing interesting projects - at this time I look better than without them.
Being an adult is cool: an adult is a responsible person, he sets goals and achieves them, knows how to plan, helps relatives. I meet these criteria in part, but I am working on it. And I think that by the age of thirty-five I had a lot of time.
I felt a bright moment of growing up when I was busy at three jobs: I was carried away and I was managing time and money. Also an important element of growing up is self-realization. In my case, it is expressed in the construction of life, comfort and comfort of my family. Several years ago, I preferred the construction of my own house to the main work and sent all my forces and interests there. It takes effort and commitment, and I like it. My wife and I recently had a second child. Fortunately, I have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my daughter, and my wife almost immediately go to her favorite job.
I am also comfortable at my age, because it is pleasant to spend time with my peers who grew up with me - now they also have families and children. I got a family early - at the age of twenty. My lifestyle has not changed much, rather it has changed in favor of family values. Now I would prefer to have a disco for family gatherings with friends or family outings with a tent. My life has become richer and more interesting than before.
An adult is financially and emotionally independent. I am not like that because I do not earn money and I am emotionally dependent on the mood and opinions of others. I am "aged youth". My head is no more than twenty-five, and the reflection in the mirror does not correspond to the internal state. Young people go to clubs and buzz all night, then go to the pair as if nothing had happened. Unfortunately, I already can not do it, although sometimes I really want to.
Most adults are childish to one degree or another. My grandmother is ninety years old: as far as I know her, she is happy with ice cream or a rainbow, and maybe she can take offense at the nonsense. My dad said that at forty he began a new life: he radically changed the scope of his activities. My life completely changed six years ago after the birth of a child: I no longer belong to myself completely, no matter what I do, I do it with an eye to my daughter.
Over the past ten years, I have wrinkles, it upsets me. Although I use anti-wrinkle cream, I understand that a long sleep, diet, walks in the fresh air and, of course, heredity are really important. A little scary on what will happen next. Sometimes, when this is of particular concern, I straighten up, take off my husband's T-shirt and run from home to an exhibition, to a concert or just to walk.
There is no standard definition of adulthood. For me, growing up has never been associated with such concepts as a husband, three children, a mortgage. Family does not mean that you are fully responsible for the children and for your life. There is another extreme when a woman completely dissolves in the family and ceases to be responsible for what happens to her personally. Now I am not very different from myself by twenty years, and in some aspects I even like myself more. But I’m already keeping a close eye on myself: more sports, fewer rolls, massage, beautician.
In the series “Sex and the City,” to the question whether Carrie would like to return her fourteen years, she replied: “Oh my God, never. I went with a terrible haircut and had no idea about the style. And most importantly, I could not afford to buy manolo blahnik. " I think the same way. At fourteen, I just waited for me to start working and I could afford traveling, expensive clothes and cosmetics. Therefore, to become an adult meant to cease to depend on the money of the parents. So I moved away from them and began to pay the rent myself while I was studying at the university.
Modern schoolchildren, who are now thirteen or sixteen, are wonderful, intelligent, with their own interests, go in for sports and are addicted to computers. At their age, we were doing such a shameful thing to remember. Although, perhaps, with the advent of gadgets and social networks, something from the real life of adolescents was gone and all the adventures moved into virtual space. Perhaps this is the only thing I regret sometimes.
I really felt like an adult, having gone to the other end of the country, to nowhere, with one suitcase to start a new life. I was twenty-four years old. Earlier, I began to pay for renting housing and utilities. But I did not want to take loans and stayed until the last - up to thirty-five. But I can relate myself with adults only situationally, for example, when in the so-called adult life you have to make difficult choices or decide on an expensive purchase. And on a walk with a dog or on the beach I feel a maximum of fifteen years: I jump and yell like a child.
I look a little younger than my years, doing physical exercise, I do not have a beer belly, I often wear silly hairstyles. The only thing that bothers me is the natural "wear" of hair. Sometimes I want more of them and they are much darker, and sometimes I want to shave my head, which is also cool. I do not want to look younger, I just feel that way. Therefore, they often give me less years than in reality. And I still do what I did in my youth, and in the same volumes - except to sleep now I love a little longer.
I do not associate myself with adults, I can not even imagine that I behaved like a "typically adult" person. I feel about twenty years old and at the same time I am outraged when some forty-year-old woman gets up next to me in public transport and sighs that I give up her place just because I look like her daughter.
I am not telling anyone how old I am - shameful. When I used to hear about the midlife crisis, I thought it was nonsense - until he knocked on my door. Previously, if I spent the whole day at home, I thought that I would climb a wall. And now, wherever I am and whatever happens, I want to quickly go home on the sofa. About ten years ago I despised such people. And now they are me.
Up to the heap "ticking watch", and I think I will not have time to give birth. At the same time, I don’t really want a child very much - I just understand that if I continue to pull, I may not be able to give birth. It seems that everyone is looking at me and thinking: "Poor thing, she is so lonely, nobody loves her." And I do not understand why I feel so good that no one loves me. Although, perhaps, I dissemble that good. But I definitely do not bother the lack of a relationship. Tired of the expectations of others, all of these: "Well, when will you finally have someone?" While it is even strange for me to imagine that someone else will settle in my apartment, walk around in their underpants in it, spill over on the couch, my curtains will not please me - oh well!
PHOTO: seanlockephotography - stock.adobe.com (1, 2)