I was out and about the other week and heard a little snippet of a song as public background music. A repeated refrain went something like, "I might grow old but I don't have to grow up."
How sad! This kind of sentiment is shockingly common and the reason "adulting" has become a term, though I refuse to dignify it by calling it an actual word.
Recently I also saw some video titles suggested for me, made by well-intentioned mothers, but claiming teens are growing up too fast and we should be giving our twelve-year-olds a childhood.
If you are trying to keep your twelve-year-old a child, I'm guessing you're having a hard time with that. Mom's heart is broken, and she wants to blame society and social media and movies and music, but the reality is that a twelve-year-old's biology is pushing him or her out of childhood. Just because mom isn't ready for it doesn't mean something is wrong.
For over a generation now, many parents have sent their kids off to college, paying the way, telling them to make the most of the time and enjoy themselves. The college campus message is that they should be living it up and making the most of the free-and-easy social life available to them. Later they can settle down, but they should take advantage of this opportunity to live for pleasure with just a few classes sprinkled in if they choose to show up.
My husband and I got married at 19 and were told by some (not our parents or pastor) that we were too young. Then, after we were married, we were told to wait to have children so we could have fun together as a couple before that extra responsibility came on. Without kids we could travel, we could do things. Postpone those kids until after you've enjoyed life a little.
All these messages spring from the same root: An assumption that The Good Life is a life of carefree pleasure. A working life is an unfortunate necessity that we should postpone or cut short if we're able. The purpose of responsibility and work is to fund carefree pleasure: our children's, our own, vacations, etc.
Carefree pleasure is not even the same thing as leisure, not leisure in its true, philosophical sense, not leisure that is the basis of culture as Josef Pieper describes.
Having denied objective truth, rejected virtue, and embraced existentialism, all we have is a yolo approach to life that sees responsibility as shackles, keeping us down.
Prioritizing fun for fun's sake, maximizing fun in life, is not making us happy or satisfied or even connected with our family and friends.
Responsibility does the connecting, the grounding. Carefree fun and pleasure is always individualistic and personal, even to the point of being narcissistic. A relationship built on fun will not last through a storm.
Historically, children were adult-level contributors to the home economy by twelve at least. The early universities, educating at a higher level than our current best offer, were open to twelve-year-olds.
We might be over-sexualizing our children, but we are not making them adults too soon, not by a long shot. Perhaps part of our problem is using the descriptor "adult" to describe immoral or irresponsible content or places. Perhaps "adult" is now a completely useless term to us. It was a late-comer to the language anyway, not arriving until the 1500s, invented as an English word via import of the Latin adultus which means "grown up."
How did people say "grown up" in English before that? Well, you called someone a man or a woman rather than a boy or a girl. There also was no word for a nebulous transition period like we have now. No adolescent, no teen or pre-teen. You might be young, but you were a young man or a young woman.
A boy became a man by proving he was able to do a full day of physically demanding work, risking himself for others or for the sake of building and creating something. A girl became a woman when she was able to conceive a child.
The Good Life is the life of fulfilling what you were designed to do, fulfilling your purpose. We were not made to be pleasure-seekers. We were made to work, to build families and societies and cultures, to take dominion. It's actually delightful and enjoyable to take on responsibility, to feel the weight resting on you and know that you can handle it. You were made for this.
The pleasure-seeking culture trains us to feel the weight and react with a selfish "I don't wanna!"
Fulfilling your roles and responsibilities in society and among your various relationships is the Good Life. Let's not trash-talk being grown ups or advise young people to postpone it. Rather, let's bring up our children to contribute meaningfully and to enjoy doing so.
Let me tell you, the Good Life is being a grandma at 42 and seeing your children become men and women others rely on. I wouldn't trade that for any adventures I might have had in my twenties. Lord willing I will still be cogent for my great-grandchildren, which is more of a blessing for myself and them than any parties I might have missed because I was married with a baby at 21.
Think about the life you want, the life you want your children to have, and prepare them for it. Daily domestic duties are the glue that binds our relationships, not a burden we should escape and defer if possible. Building a life worth living, a life worth passing down, a family with weight and dignity doesn't come by recommending irresponsibility. It comes by taking your place, bearing your roles with grace, and learning to love what must be done.