all grown-up!

As I watch my kids grow up, my biggest wish for them is that they become grownups. I am not stating the obvious, as being a grown-up isn’t something we can take for granted. Being a grown-up mean that one has matured until they are able to stand unaided, figuratively speaking, and take responsibility for what they do. Being a grown-up means that when everything goes wrong, when you get that sinking feeling you get when you realise that you have fucked something up and fucked it up badly that you can trust your God or your luck or whatever you want to call it because the biggest fuck ups pass over time and things that get worse always get better.

Being a grown-up means learning to accept the range of your emotions, be it love, hate, joy, anger, contentment or grief and accepting that they are all apart of you, whether you want them or not. Being a grown-up means knowing that no one can stand alone all the time and sometimes you need give someone a hand; you yourself cannot always stand alone and sometimes you need a hand too! Being a grown-up means that you can fall out of love and lose friends but that doesn’t mean you can stop yourself from falling back into love or gaining new friends. Being a grown-up means that you can laugh, argue, play, and work in equal measure. You accept that people may not like you, and that you may not like them.

Someone close to me, who has spent most of his adult life caring for wife with MS, said recently:

For 30 years I have lived with one who has valiantly got up each morning and watched her body deteriorate, but as you know, has remained happy and vibrant. She is well cared for, yes, by me, but also by the government in providing her all she needs to have as full and happy a life as possible under the circumstances.

That is a very good example of someone being grown-up. Not because she is ‘happy and vibrant’ but because she recognises that she is having as full and happy a life as possible under the circumstances. That is all any of us can do. Regardless of whether you were born into the fancy house on the hill with the swimming pool, the shanty-town in South Africa or suburban hinterland we all have reasons not to get up every morning, but as grown-ups we have to get up anyway.

Making mistakes is as important to grown-up life as it is to childrens’ life. As a parent I try to teach my children that it is better to do something and fuck up, than do nothing and not. This isn’t so much an important lesson for them as children as it is for them as adults: a grown-up must make mistake.

Grumpy Teenager

Not making mistakes, means not trying, and not trying means not being a grown-up. ‘Not trying’ is a adolescent state. Anyone who has experienced adolescences can probably appreciate the ‘deer-caught-in-the-headlights’ fear that accompanies particularly the later stages of teenagerhood when we try to decide ‘what we are going to do with our lives’. It is no wonder that this stage is often accompanied by the “dunno, dunno cares” and the “can’t be bothereds”. Indeed, who can blame a teenager for their fear to go forward! It is only when we swallow this fear, when we say to ourselves “I can do this” and walk boldly forward into life, with nothing but what is in our pockets and a trust in our God, that we become adults.

A friend of mine had an mother who was fond of saying “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken”*. This is moto of a grown-up. Without standing tall and facing life, without the courage to lead life as a grown-up, we shrink away from everything, enveloped by our fear. If we don’t get over our fear of loss, we never get to love. If we don’t get over our fear of failure, we never succeed. If we don’t get over our fear of success, we never learn to take responsibility for our actions!

Sadly, many people never do grow up. Parents are often tempted to teach their children to fear life rather than embrace it, to avoid mistakes rather than make them, and to shirk responsibility rather than take it. And I can’t say that I blame them, it is a scary big old world out there and taking it on, eyes wide open, will petrify the best of us. But life is great, especially when you don’t weaken and I hope that my children will one day grow-up to embrace life, to face all the shit head on, and learn what a wonderful experience living life really is!

*with apologies to said mother who most certainly would not be fond of all my choices of vocabulary.