What Does It Feel Like to Be a Grown-up?
This is a question my eight-year-old asked the other day. It gave me pause. I asked her what does it feel like to be eight. She said "I'm still Me". I answered "So am I".
“Perhaps time will make my memories fade, perhaps when I grow up I’ll perceive my teenage years very differently than I do now. I hope that this journal, which I start today, will help me understand my children much better when they reach my age now. I hope this journal will help me bridge that ‘generational gap’ that everybody seems to be talking about.”
So starts the first entry in my very first journal. February 1999. I was 15 years old.
I had been a precocious, rather sensitive child. Academically strong. Interpersonally clumsy in my earlier years, I got in a lot of trouble for not knowing how to manage my big feelings. Despite (or perhaps because) of that, I later became obsessed with understanding myself and the human psyche. I was a deep thinker and an even deeper feeler.
I grew up in post-communist Eastern Europe at a time when the whole region was going through profound cultural turmoil - from the ‘no freedom’ of dictatorship to the seemingly ‘total freedom’ of capitalism. The atmosphere was confusing, anxious, hyper-competitive, and people were plagued by an endemic lack of trust in other people - deep wounds from four decades of collective abuse. Parents were desperate to see their children ‘succeed’ and generally had rather fixed ideas about what that would take: hard work, academic excellence and later a career in a ‘serious’ field - like law, finance or engineering. My loving family was no exception.
I was urged to value work and see rest and play as indulgence. I was guided to focus on the exact sciences and join maths and physics academic competitions because I showed potential in these areas and it was seen as a great foundation for a financially viable profession in the future. I learnt very early on that being good at something doesn’t mean you get joy from it. I wanted nothing more than to spend my time immersed in literature, writing, exploring psychology and philosophy or getting into deep conversations with others who shared my existential questions. However, all of these were seen as ‘leisure time’ pursuits - to be squeezed in here and there between the ‘serious stuff’.
As I hit my teenage years, my friendships got more complex, I fell in love for the first time and my questions and dilemmas deepened. I started to wonder why the adults around me seemed so ill-equipped to understand me. How come they couldn’t grasp the depth of my teenage feelings? How come they saw life in black and white? How come they seemed perpetually stressed, rushed, not able to slow down, listen, ask questions, sit with me in my emotional turmoil or wonder at the small miracles of life I was fascinated by? How come they never played? They seemed to have forgotten they too had been children and then teenagers once.
I, of course, was not aware that in making all these judgements I was equally playing in black and white - blind to the deep love my parents bore me, blind to the weight they carried from their own past. I was blind to the battles they fought just as they were doing their very best to raise me and my sister in a safe, loving and supportive home. I was unaware of how lucky I was, but even had I been aware, the painful ‘generational’ gap would still have stood gaping between me and them and I would have had no idea how to traverse it.
So it occurred to me that if I couldn’t build a bridge to my parents, I might at least build a bridge to my future self, so that I would never forget what it felt like to be 15, wondering about life and trying to figure yourself out. So I started a journal, which continues to this day, 25 years later, and has become the biggest developmental gift I have ever given myself. It is perhaps one of the most precious artefacts I could have ever created for the child who later made me a parent.
I too used to wonder what it feels like to be a grown-up. Do grown-ups feel somewhat more ready for life? Are they privy to some very special knowledge? Do they gain a profound new perspective that younger people lack?
I heard the phrase - “You’ll see when you grow up!” - many times throughout my formative years, as if growing up would open up a whole new world of answers that would perfectly explain all the adult behaviours that my childhood self could not make sense of. It made it seem like grown-ups had it all figured out. I later learnt they didn’t. I later learnt that being 40 doesn’t feel that much different than being 15 - you might have learnt some things, yet you still have so much more to figure out.
I never gave up my teenage dreams and ended up studying what I loved rather than what was ‘reasonable’. I built a rather unconventional career in adult learning and ended up studying the very thing that mystified me as a child. My research took me into the depths of developmental psychology focusing not on children, but on adults. I learnt that grown-ups keep growing up on the inside way after they stopped growing on the outside. I learnt that confusion and not-knowing are an inherent part of human existence and the condition of being an adult doesn’t spare you the pain of these feelings.
Later, when I became a mother, I put all of my research and practice in service of walking the talk and striving to be as wise a parent as I possibly could. I learnt that knowing how maturity is built does not make you automatically mature. I found myself messing up as much as any parent. Yet, as self-reflection became a life-long practice, I also found myself being aware of when and how I was messing up. Every moment of fallback has become a moment of growth. All the years spent studying how the human mind works and what it takes to foster growth helped me better understand myself: my strengths, my triggers, my patterns, my failings and my gifts. I’ve learned that being a conscious parent is never-ending work with myself first.
I came to believe that the biggest gift we can offer our children is our own development. We help our children grow with every moment we put in reflecting on ourselves, understanding who we are and who we are becoming, with every hard question we ask of ourselves, with every time we find the compassion to forgive ourselves in our least proud moments or the courage to experiment with breaking old patterns. All these become gifts to help us actualise our fullest potential, and also gifts that help us show up for our children as the most conscious versions of ourselves.
If you have arrived here, reading this, you too are likely sharing the belief that growing yourself is worth the effort. You might have already spent years honing the instrument that is YOU. You might have done it systematically or simply by trial and error. You might already be a parent or just contemplating having children one day. You might have raised children and are now stepping into the role of grandparent with new eyes and a curiosity to see what else there is to learn. You might be caring for children who are not your blood, but who hold your heart and whom you are longing to see flourish. You might be an educator - creating space for the growth of not just one or a few, but many children whom you are helping build the foundation for their future lives.
Whoever you may be and wherever you might be on your life’s journey, we welcome you! Together with Valerie, I strive to share all I’ve learnt from my research on how humans transform and from my own beautiful, messy journey as a mother. I hope to learn from you in turn, as I know how much power there is in collective wisdom and I also believe that transformation happens when we can all become teachers and students at the same time.
We are aiming to build a community of self-inquisitive adults who believe there is no such thing as a ready-made ‘grown-up’ and instead are committed to the work of growing up as a life-long practice. By joining us as a free subscriber, you’ll receive weekly musings - articles and podcast episodes - all inviting you to look inward and learn one more thing about yourself. We’ll constantly nudge you to experiment - apply the insights you are gaining here back into your life and your relationship with the children in your world.
If you choose to become a paid subscriber, we’ll be delighted to welcome you into a smaller, closer-knit community where we regularly meet, share, and learn together. You will have access to the chat and comments on every article. We will invite you to periodic webinars, workshops and fireside chats hosted by myself, Valerie and selected guests from whose wisdom we can all learn. You will also receive discounted access to our online self-led developmental program for parents and educators: “Growing Humans: How Raising Children Raises Us” (to be launched in September 2024).
Thank you for being here and I am excited to be learning with and from you all.
Dive deeper
Join our in-depth, self-led developmental course for adults who raise and educate children - Growing Humans: How Raising Children Raises Us. As a paid subscriber to this substack, you will receive a 50% discount on the price of the program (you will receive the code when you activate your paid subscription).
Head on to the program page to learn more.
Spread the word…
If you’d like to see this community grow, we hope you share this article with other parents, grandparents or educators who could benefit from the reflection.
and, if you haven’t done it yet, Subscribe!
Join the ‘Growing Humans’ community and let’s keep supporting each other to keep on growing up, as we raise the kids in our care!
As a paid subscriber, we’ll welcome you into a smaller, closer-knit community where we regularly meet, share, and learn together. You will have access to the chat and comments on every article, as well as dedicated, facilitated fireside chats for the community.
You will also receive a 50% discount on our self-led program for parents and educators: Growing Humans: How Raising Children Raises Us.
Growing Humans is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.