When my daughter tells me she can’t wait to be a grown up I have to laugh. Maybe I’m laughing because I remember wanting to be a grown up also, or maybe I’m laughing because her reasoning behind this is so that she can watch TV whenever she wants, because apparently that’s all grown ups do! It’s so easy to say “if I knew then what I know now” but without the flux capacitor rarely will we ever be able to experience this and children of every generation will grow up wishing to be adults and then spend the rest of their lives wishing away that responsibility.
Don’t get me wrong I would not want to go to school all day and deal with the drama of who likes who and who is mad at me today (although sadly some adult relationships can resemble this playground scenario as well). I don’t want to do homework and be told when to go to bed and when to get up and when to clean my room but…I could do without the going to work and paying the bills thing so in that case I would be willing to compromise. I would actually love to go to bed at 7 o’clock some nights, sure I’ll clean my room and you go sit in a cubicle for 8 hours and then mail the rent payment on the way home. Don’t forget to put gas in the car…it will only cost you about 8 weeks allowance!
Sometimes I think the most complicated part about being a grown up is the decision making process. Sure we all want to grow up and make our own decisions considering these decisions are solely based on if we want to watch Spongebob or Phineas and Ferb, but unfortunately as “grown ups” our decisions tend to be a bit more complex. The one thing I miss now about being a kid is that rules were rules. You don’t talk to strangers, you don’t run with scissors and you look both ways before crossing the street. As adults we tend to make our own rules. Things aren’t as cut and dry as they used to be, just because something seems right does it make it right? If something works for someone else does that mean it will work for us? As adults we have the ability and the freedom to make our own choices and cut our losses but at what expense? I guess I will ponder that as I watch some TV.
I think the expense of having the freedom to make your own choices is having too many choices with no clear winner, to the point that it becomes mind boggling. Like which one of the 600 channels do I want to watch? I can't make up my mind. ARGH. I can't decide between Bill Nye the science guy or I love lucy reruns. But mostly, it's really, really great to have the freedoms adults have. Not much downside to that IMHO!!
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