What Does it Mean to be Grown Up?

[Michelle]

I'd like to know what you think it means to be grown up or a grown-up. How do you know you are one? How do you know you aren't?

[llong]

It's a process, but for me it's when you pay your own way.

The next level is when others count on you.

[Kamma]

I can only say that you'll know. It's never at a certain age. Everyone is an individual. I know of some who are not 'grown up' in their 50s. Whe your responsible and feel the effects of responsibility you might feel grown up, you may not.

[Cath]

To me it means being accountable for my own actions.

[SamBeaven]

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis:

Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

[Shamou]

Hello Michelle...

According to Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) there are three stages of growth...

1. Dependence: Seen in infants where a person needs someone to take care of his/her vital needs.

2. Independence: Where the person is self-sufficient.

3. Inter-dependence: Where the person has grown to a stage when he/she feels the need to work with other toward the advancement of humanity and a better world for everyone...

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[Jill]

I'm 45. I'm still working on becoming a grown-up. Maybe when I'm 50?

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by Jill

I'm 45. I'm still working on becoming a grown-up. Maybe when I'm 50?

I could be your dad... and I'm still working on it...

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[Michelle]

:-) Thank you for your answers! Something in me grew up a bit more one day last week, but I was having a hard time articulating the change.

[JohnPlace]

Originally Posted by SamBeaven

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis:

I loved that quote. Thanks for sharing.

It sort of reminds me of when people say, "If you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it." As in, "If you have to ask whether or not your grown up, you're not."

I had never thought of it quite that way before.

[Kamma]

Just wanted to say that I also loved that quote from C S Lewis

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by SamBeaven

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis:

Great quote Sam...

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