So, yes, I’m mostly pleased with my Spinsterlicious life...but maybe I’m a little odd, too. I dunno. My friend, Lorraine, has an adorable son, AJ. One day he asked his parents, “Is Auntie Eleanore a grown-up?” I loved it because I was sure he was implying, “she’s so youthful and cool and fun, she couldn’t possibly be as old as you two are!” (His parents are actually younger than I am). Alas, turns out he was saying something really different. What he meant was “…because she doesn’t have a husband or any children”. Uh-oh. Even at 4 years old, he understood that I hadn’t done what I was supposed to do. (Sigh).
Fast forward a few years. The New York Times Magazine ran an article "What Is It About Twenty-Somethings" that talks about the traditional transition to adulthood as having five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying, and having a child! WTF!? I’m stuck at stage three. So AJ isn’t the only one who thinks I'm not a grown-up.
I never really liked too much being told what to do and I find this blurry, undefined lifestage of mine to be freeing. When you buck major traditions, there’s not a lot of rules you have to follow. If you’re supposed to get married and have children, and you don’t…well, it’s kinda wide open.
A guy I used to date who really wanted to get married used to complain that I lived like a college student. What was it? That I only cook when I feel like it? Not making my bed? No ironing board? What? He went on to marry and drive another woman crazy. I, on the other hand, like this open-ended existence with no hard-and-fast parameters. Last month, my friend, Angie, and I drove to Washington, DC just to go to a party. One of my more mature, married friends pointed out that that's what college kids do. Well, so do Spinsterlicious babes. We don't have any "rules" to follow. Maybe that’s what’s keeping me young.
So, now I’m wondering: what really makes a “grown-up”?
12 comments:
Once again, your life is one I am trying to emulate. Love it. What makes a grown up is being responsible to me. Paying bills on time, taking care of yourself. Having kids and getting married does not make you an adult.
I must confess I have thought about it the same way. Pondered the situation. Not for unmarried women, but couples who decided not have kids. I wonder about it. And their lifestyles are much the same as yours. They can party til the wee hours if they want. They can pack up and leave for a weekend get-away on a moment's notice. I sort of see their lives as college student-ish. You made me reconsider this. Maybe I'm slightly jealous! I love my children but.... it does tie you down and make you feel burdened by responsibility.
Talk about bucking rules - my new boyfriend is 15 years younger (30) and I'm loving every minute of it! Not that I'm here to rub that in. I do find he and I have a similar level of maturity (not high) and both of us are a country mile behind the world in terms of expected milestones and achievements.
This has always bothered me, and I do beat myself up about it, but I'm learning a lot from him about why I should just shrug off all these judgments and enjoy life. There's something so delightfully unemcumbered and free and glass-half-full about this guy. It's wonderful, and he genuinely doesn't give a monkeys about my age.
As for marrieds, two of my best friends are a long-married couple who have 2 kids, age 1 and 4. The mother is one of these "I don't know how she does it" women who approaches life and motherhood with great maturity and self-sacrifice - same way she approached her career. It does strike me that every single Facebook update she's written since the kids is about the kids, but that's how she likes it.
HOWEVER, her husband gives the impression his life hasn't changed one iota since the kids came along. He edits the most infantile, grubby little mag on the market, his Facebook updates are all about his favourite pornstars and wrestling characters. He continues to put out his "zines", go drinking, go to wrestling shows... whatever he wants. He is a decidedly immature man, despite having acquired the requisite 2 kids.
So I don't believe marriage and kids automatically renders you a grown-up - I have another single mum friend whose 14-year-old boy is far more mature than she is, and she fobs him off on me and anyone else she can find, including whatever toyboy she's dating at the time.
Other than my younger boyfriend, I live like a geriatric, in bed by 10.30pm, tired most of the time, full of aches and pains, grumbling about anything and everything, and I hate partying.
So here are just more examples of how everybody's presumptions are presumptuous!
I always thought that buying a couch was an entree into adulthood. Even a college student can buy a bed, but a couch - a real grown-up one - is a committment.
Just sayin'....
Living like a college student: time and space for intellectual and emotional growth. To think, travel, and do what you really want to do--creating your own life experience--sounds great!
I tell my kids (well my teenage daughter, my 10 year old son is, well, a boy). I love being your mom, I just hate some of the crap that goes with, i.e. making sure there's dinner, picking up, dropping off, homework, teacher conferences, keeping up with their shit--shoes, coats, hats, soccer balls, baseball schedules. I could go on. Of course there are good things--but what I miss about my single life is just what you cite--freedom from convention. I wanted to get married. I wanted to have kids, but I thought I could have the life I had and just add them on. I know, dumb ass. What I miss most is time to daydream, to think, to be spontaneous, to lay in bed all day (sometimes I do still do this). I've stopped writing and I think it's because I'm afraid of what might come out. This ephipany just came to me last night, after I'd spent all day cleaning out the freezer, the fridge, laundry, supermarket. We were without power for a a week! I'm not a homemaker. I'd spent a night at my friend's house and I told her that she had a grown-up kitchen--all supplies and spices and cookware and pantry, neat and complete. Her magazines are Rachel Ray and other homie advice maags-- recipes; mine are Vogue, Bazaar, O, More, I do get Real Simple. I inhale the Sunday Times...hm, what do your periodicals say about you? Ok, I'm ranting. I'll stop.
I don't think having children (or even - getting married) makes you an adult. I think being responsible makes you an adult. I chose to be childless because I knew I wasn't willing to make the sacrifices necessary in order to have them. I wanted a life much like what you describe - altho I didn't have quite as much discretionary income, I have lived happily childless for a very long time. Have never regretted it.
I completely agree with Sandy; being responsible makes you an adult.
Here, and maybe there, many college students don't pay their own way: their tuition, their car, their expenses etc. Maybe that's how we are not like college students, we are responsible, make our own decisions, and pay our own way.
Like Sandy I also knew I never wanted to make the sacrifices necessary to have kids, and I simply never wanted kids. That made life simpler for me. Maybe that's being an adult- thinking about your life choices.
And, finally like Rhona, I want to emulate your life, eleanore.
Great post!
Stella x
I would say that knowing yourself well enough to know just how you want to live makes one a grown up! Doing things just because you think everyone else believes you should kind of makes you more of an adolescent.
So here is to being a grown up!
Eleanore, thanks for this post. I am 40, never married, no kids, and still live in an apartment, while most of my friends are now married homeowners with kids. Sometimes I feel like everyone around me has grown up, and I'm still stuck in an earlier state of development. :) It's hard not to feel less-than.
Haha! I rarely feel forever young! Despite not being married or having kids, I have a lot of obligations and a lot of responsibilities. I rarely socialize and often avoid social entanglements. But once I finish grad school and have some more disposable income, sure, I'd drive hours just to go to a party -- if it was what I wanted to do. Having kids does put a lot of limits on your life. So people wait until retirement to "live it up". What harm is there in living up the life you're already in? Spouseless and Kidless or not?
There are many ways of being an adult. What harm is there in going the fun route?
What makes a grown up? Seems easy, yet totally complicated. I feel like I am more of a grown up (because of the stability I now have), as a single mother of three kids than I ever was when I was married. My soon to be ex-husband is still immature and irresponsible. I am more financially and emotionally stable during these last four (single) years than I ever was during our ten years together. Its about being someone responsible for yourself and for those who depend on you (if you have kids). I love my kids, but it limits me in many things. And I joke them constantly that in a few more years, they should all be able to go out on their own, become responsible grown ups and I will be able to do whatever I want without having to worry about the child stuff responsibilities. And to some outsider, that might seem immature or irresponsible. To me, its I've done my job (one that I love) and its now their turn to go out into this world and learn, and become grown ups. Or not.
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