Growing Up and Other Fantasies

“Oh, will you grow up!”

I heard this a lot as a boy, especially from my two older sisters. Perhaps to counter their disapproval, or through some genetic trait or developmental defect, I acquired an attitude toward life that can be best summed up by what a boss said to me when I was twenty-two:

“Alan, you’re only young once, but you can be immature forever.”

I don’t wisecrack when I feel uncomfortable as much as I used to because I’ve learned that those jokes frequently get me in trouble. I still hear “Oh, grow up!” occasionally, but now more often it’s “Will you please act your age!”

I used to think there was some archetypal age when I would be “grown up.” When I was six, I thought it might happen when I was a teenager; when I turned thirteen I thought it would happen when I was sixteen. And sixteen was awesome; I got my license and put the ’53 Dodge I bought when I was fourteen on the road. But it quickly became clear that rolling a pack of cigarettes up in my tee-shirt sleeve and driving with my left arm resting out the window didn’t really make me grown up, which more than one policeman was happy to point out to me.

Then it was draft age (nope), then age twenty-one when I’d be grown up. It was true I could vote and drink, but voting wasn’t such a thrill and, in college, I’d already proven that drinking definitely didn’t add anything to my maturity. I remember whining to my father when I realized that it was time to stop trying to earn a living as an actor and get a real job. “I can’t believe I am twenty-three years old and I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up!”

“Do what I did,” he said softly.

“What?  Become a printer? You’re always telling me it’s a dying trade!” I exploded in my truculent twenty-something angst.

“No. . . .  don’t grow up.” He smiled.

I didn’t appreciate it then, but Ray Culler was on to something. He died one night when he was ninety-five. Earlier that day, he was “cutting up” with the nursing staff. “He had us in stitches,” one nurse said. Maybe being grown up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, after all.

Then I was married with children, still waiting for the mythical maturity to be bestowed upon me by my advanced age. Oh, I was responsible. I had worked since I was thirteen, had had lots of jobs, paid off car loans, and had a mortgage by twenty-six, but somehow I never felt grown up.

I’ve often looked at others who seemed a great deal more together than me. They usually seemed older, whether they actually were or not.

Sometimes I feel like a grownup and am annoyed when I’m treated like a child. I’m not alone. On the morning commuter train to New York recently, the conductor walked into the full car and wanted everyone to get out their tickets to speed up the process. What she said was, “Okay, kids, let’s get this done.”

The thirty-something woman crammed into the seat next to me muttered, “There are no kids on this train.” 

“At my age, I’m starting to feel like it’s a compliment,” I said in what I thought were soothing tones. Her expression told me that she did not share my view.

I have come to learn that one’s idea of maturity is individual and personal. It comes from inside. Twenty years ago I was talking to a client who was the founder and CEO of a $1 billion media company. Here was a man who traveled by private jet and limo, and owned five houses around the country, two of them in communities whose names began with the word “Palm.” He was complaining that an employee had referred to him snidely as “comfortable.” “I’m not rich,” he boomed and then quickly named two other well-known media executives. “Now those guys are the real grown-ups in this business.” He was in his mid-sixties at the time.

It strikes me that feeling grownup doesn’t happen at any magical age. It can’t be bestowed by others and shouldn’t be derived by comparing yourself to others or having others compare themselves to you.

On one project years ago, a forty-something independent consultant was talking about the difficulty our client was having prioritizing strategic actions. “It seems obvious to me that they can’t do everything. I find myself thinking, ‘Oh my God, ‘I’m the grown-up in the room.’”

“That’s never happened to me,” I cracked. We laughed, but his espousing greater maturity probably didn’t help others to become unstuck.  Perhaps you’ve seen those signs in parking garages and along the road that show your speed in real time in big yellow lights. Turns out they work better than anything at getting people to slow down because you “see” that you are speeding.

Fitbit, which measures your activity in steps and allows you to compare yourself against yourself, is a very successful tool for losing weight and getting fit because the feedback compares yourself to a goal you’ve set, not what someone else wants you to do.

Seems like comparing yourself to others only makes you vain or unhappy. Comparing yourself to a realistic view of yourself can create the motivation to change.

Recently, I had lunch with a friend who is seventeen years younger than me. He had consistently struggled to get projects in his chosen field. He had difficulty in relationships. Our past conversations had always been laced with his self-comparisons to others who were richer, or more established, or luckier. This, however, was a different conversation. He said, “I have come to realize I am basically happy with who I am. This year I am going to listen a bit more, speak a little less and try to be less judgmental.”

Wow, I thought. He seems so grown up. Maybe I could get there someday.

The picture above is of our granddaughter, McKenna, when she was ten. Now that she is older, I hope she isn’t too “grown up” to climb trees.