When Did I Become a Grown-up?

I started a post on this topic in December and it never materialized. Mostly because I was still pondering the answer. I basically determined there was no answer. It just happens.

You wake up one day, and you're a grown-up.

Well I am reconsidering that position. In some cases, apparently, you can pinpoint the exact day you wake up a grown-up. Sunday, May 20, 2007 was that day for me.

The concept of adulthood is a bit confusing. Does it have to do with age? Status? Behavior? I am not sure. Society's perception of "adulthood" is a bit arbitrary, wouldn't you say?

You turn 18 and you're an adult.

Now you can vote; You can go to war; Be tried as an adult. You still can't drink; Your parents can kick you out of the house; You can't rent a car. When I turned 18 I was a senior in high school; I'd lived away from home for more than three years; I chose not to vote; I didn't have any money. I was not a grown-up. Hell I have friends who are on the back side of 30 that still aren't grown-ups. Not that there is anything wrong with that: I just said I wasn't one before yesterday.

You get married and you're an adult.

I just don't see the connection here. You're part of a two person team so therefore you've got the added responsibility of looking out for another person. But that should just be an inherent desire. If you're married to the right person you would feel that responsibility at any age. The problem is people don't take marriage seriously anymore [obviously I don't mean all people]. And their behavior often makes it clear that they're not quite grown-up yet.

You buy a house and you're an adult.

To get a mortgage you have to be a certain age and portray a certain level of maturity. Basically you have to have a job and a steady income. An 18 year old kid who waits tables, full-time, in a fancy restaurant, can pull in 40 grand and buy a townhouse. He can use the living room for a whiffle-ball field and the kitchen for a meth lab. He's got a blackjack table upstairs where his bed should go, but he passes out on the couch in the second bedroom most of the time anyway because that's where the plasma and the Xbox are. Point being: Not everyone is sewing window treatments and working on the landscaping so they can have the curb appeal.

You have a child and you're an adult.

The philosophical aspect of this statement is so jaded I will leave it completely alone. But even for me, having a child did not make me a grown-up. Sure I had to come home at night, and even if I was a little banged up I had to get up at 6 am. But by the time Gavin was born I was steadily employed, married, and a homeowner so I was already behaving similarly to an adult.

When Molly was born, it got pretty real. We were dealing with emotions we had never realized existed; making decisions no one should ever be faced with; aging well beyond chronology. Even still, #96 in my list of the 100 things I have learned this year, which was posted on just over one month ago, referenced a denial of my own adulthood.

So what could possibly have been such an epiphany, if none of the things above - and not even the combination of all things above - made me feel like a grown-up?

Saturday night when I went to bed I looked out the front window; there was a mysterious vehicle parked in our driveway. No big deal: I wasn't going anywhere. I figured it would be gone by morning. It wasn't. Then I remembered that the mystery vehicle in question had actually been put there by my wife. And we had paid for it before putting it there. And it will be in the driveway for the foreseeable future.

It's a minivan.

I'm a grown-up.