My daughter Annie will be five soon. She’s the oldest of three children, and the only girl. Recently her middle brother was sick, and she did a lot to help her Mama take care of little brother. A few days later, I asked her to watch her baby brother while I put the middle brother to bed while Mama was out.
She told me that when she helps watch the boys it makes her feel “big.”
It was really cute.
At the same time, it made me sad, because I don’t want her to hurry through her childhood. She won’t be a child for long, but she will be an adult for quite a long time in comparison.
When you’re 30-something, though, doing all those “grown-up” things are just a matter of course. You don’t feel any more or less “big.”
At least I don’t.
I suppose adulthood for me is something that came gradually. There was no one moment in my life where I said, “Oh, yes, I’m an adult now. This is what being an adult feels like.”
Not getting my driver’s license, or going to college, or spending a semester in Europe and backpacking around without adult supervision.
Buying a house didn’t make me feel like an adult, though it probably should have. Getting married 2 years later didn’t, either. Neither did becoming a dad, or losing a job, or starting my own business.
Maybe it’s because I’ve never looked like what I imagine a typical adult to be, which in my mind is someone who wears a suit and tie every day and carries a briefcase. Does anyone look like that anymore? I wear jeans every day and have a three-day beard most of the time.
For some reason none of these “grown-up” things ever made me feel like a grown-up. They felt like a matter of course.
It’s almost like I’ve been a spectator to my own life.
And I can’t say if that’s good or bad.