When did I become a grown up?

One of my oldest and dearest friends just got engaged. I have a baby. My close friend is expecting her second little girl next year and it got me thinking, when did I become a grown up?

I know you are technically classed as an ‘adult’ from the age of 18, but that certainly doesn’t make you a grown up. I mean, you think you have it sorted, you think you know your shit. But, really you know very little in comparison to what you know now.

At 18 you are still a teenager, you like to spend your time talking about boys (or girls), catching up on gossip, going through statements to find and discover the ‘real’ you. One minute you’re all pink and glitter, the next you’re some emo kid with haywire emotions, loving the colour black and all things dark. All this time, you think you are being original.

So, when did this life thing happen. When did I become a grown up?

Perhaps it was only very recently, maybe I realised my life priorities needed to change and adjust when I had my baby.

It seems strange though, as sometimes I still feel so young. Ok, I know I’m not old, but I would now be in the over 25 group in the X factor!

When did we all become these responsible adults that have houses, jobs, children. When did we start worrying about paying the bills, writing lists for the food shop? When did we become our parents?

I am now a parent and it still feels like such a strange concept to me. I make the decisions, the rules, decide on bedtime, whether we want Archie to have certain immunisations. I have to make huge, massive decisions!

Having a baby has made me reach a whole new level of appreciation for my own parents. I realise now how much time, love and energy goes into raising a family and I am eternally grateful for all that my parents did for us all when growing up, and I know through the difficult times, you were just trying to make the right decisions, and I now know how difficult that is.

I read another blog recently about being a young parent and getting a certain look, as if to imply that you aren’t old enough to raise a little human. Im 25 and although that’s not that young I still find myself throwing my age into conversations with new people. Just so they know that I am old enough to be a parent. That I am, in fact, a grown up. (Although, I’m still not sure when that happened!)I definitely don’t have my life together just yet, but I have found that well, I’m doing alright at this whole parenting business! I try my hardest to give my baby everything he needs, even through the sleep deprived days, he is never, ever short on love and I am just as capable as raising a tiny human as anybody else.

We don’t have bottomless pockets, we have to be frugal with money, but Archie is getting the wealth of nature, the countryside, the beauty of the world. Which in my opinion is worth so much more than material accessories, that money buys.

Perhaps we become grown ups at different times. Maybe for some it’s when you buy a house, perhaps if you had a baby at 18 you felt it was then. That you grew up faster than some of your peers.

Perhaps, we never really grow up, we stay young at heart we just have added responsibility?

When did we become old enough to make the rules. To wear a ring on our finger? To have our own houses? To parent the next generation?

When did life happen?

 

*A friend just commented on my Facebook page about this blog. Life hasn’t happened. It is happening and everyday we learn something new that makes us a little bit more grown up!* – I couldn’t agree more!