The other day, as we drove to school, my four-year-old asked, “When do you become a grownup?”
My seven-year-old, of course, had an answer right away. “Well, you go to high school, then college, then grad school, and then you’re a grownup!”
If only it were so simple.
The transition to “grownup” is kind of like the transition into sleep ~ we’re not aware of it until it has already occurred, and we wake up only to realize we missed the actual moment. It just happened, when we least expected it.
Perhaps the most unexpected part of being a grownup {besides the fact that I actually am one} is what my grownup life looks like. As children and teenagers, we imagine adulthood as extraordinary; it’s complete freedom – no one to boss us around! No curfew! No rules! But we tend to settle in to grownup routines and structures and rules pretty quickly. Adulthood, which sounds so extraordinary, becomes pretty ordinary.
My daughter, when she was four, envisioned being a mom as a stage when the forbidden fruits would no longer be forbidden. But she didn’t dream of the extraordinary, of sowing wild oats: she once told me, “When I’m a mom, I’ll chew gum, I’ll eat nuts, I’ll drink wine…”
Perhaps the most unexpected part of being a grownup is how … expected and ordinary so much of it is.
In The Gift of an Ordinary Day, Katrina Kenison writes, “I think the word ordinary has a bad rap. We encourage our children to strive to lead extraordinary lives…. [yet] … It turns out that life is rich and full enough right here.”
Kenison notes that raising small children may “tether us for a time, creating limits and enclosures that hold fast through elementary school. We know our children need security, rhythm, and routine in order to thrive…” Similarly, in All Joy and No Fun, Jennifer Senior writes that children “give us structure, purpose, and stronger bonds to the world around us.” When “grownup” equals “parent,” it does become routine and prosaic, which, often unexpectedly, provides comfort and joy.
It makes me think of parenting as an abstract expressionist painting ~ a confusing mixture of chaos and color and uncertainty somehow held together on the canvas with breakfasts, naps, homework, and bedtime.
Watching all those Facebook 10-year videos a few weeks ago, which captured many years of our lives in just one minute of photos and status updates, drove home for me just how much of our adult lives are about the mundane and, for many of us, the routines of life with children. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t joyful and exciting. Consider this one of mine from last week:
I was so excited I even spelled “poop” wrong!
In fact, reviewing my Facebook timeline and recent social media updates revealed a lovely alchemy of extraordinary and ordinary moments:
Being a grownup has meant returning to the exciting cycles of the kid year:
It’s experiencing the profane and the profound from my children {and myself!}:
It’s watching my children, and me, grow and change:
1st birthday!
Being a grownup means an entirely new routine:
“[W]e find ourselves surprised by delight in the ordinary moments and the modest pleasures of everyday life.”
Katrina Kenison
We hear these days that Facebook is no longer cool because it’s been overrun by grownups and parents and grandparents and old people, and is comprised of the mundane and quotidian and ordinary. But I think that’s what makes it extraordinary.
*****
Today’s post is part of the Finish the Sentence Friday linkup, which I am thrilled to be co-hosting this week!!! Today’s prompt is “The most unexpected part of being a grownup is…” You can link up right here, and click on the images below to read more!
- A Mindful Approach to New Year’s Resolutions - January 13, 2020
- Just This Next Step - December 16, 2019
- WAIT: A Mindfulness Practice for Waiting in Line - December 9, 2019
