"I'll tell you when you're older". Or perhaps more frustratingly, "You will understand when you are older"!
I am sure that we are all familiar with these patronising statements, all too whimsically thrown out by older brothers, sisters, friends and parents. But as we grow older, are we really enlightened? Do we suddenly understand and have all the answers to the uncertainty and tricky scenarios that life throws at us? I am beginning to realise that the answer to this question is a resounding no.
So what does it mean to be an adult? Perhaps the most important ingrediant to a successful and convincing adulthood is either delusion (though probably not the recommended approach!) or the ability to create the impression of self-assurance and Dali-Lamar like wisdom. In this way, one can convince themselves and those around them of their capabilities. Those of us with younger siblings or children of our own probably hear a distant voice they recognise as their own, uttering the above loathsome statements, as a pitiful attempt to disguise ignorance or to divert attention away from an unwillingness to explain the subject at hand to questioning bemused faces.
I wonder whether the world today places too much pressure on people to come up with flawless answers and solutions. Responsibility has always been coupled with age and married to a necessity for correctness. Fatal at worst, and bruising at least, consequences increasingly occur if someone of adult age makes a mistake or misjudgement. Surrounding brow lines crinkle as peers tut,
"At their age they should have known better" or "You would think that they would have learnt their lesson by now".
But when should this epithany occur? There is no clear-cut division between adolescence and adulthood, what is right or wrong and what is wise or unwise. Some believe that at eighteen we are enrolled into adulthood, whilst America believes this to automatically occur at twenty-one. Is it once you leave school, learn to drive, or in academic circles, when you graduate from university with some letters next to your name? Do you have to leave the parental nest, become self-sufficient, self-reliant or reach a certain level of maturity before it is possible to justifiably claim to be a sensible adult?
Yet, maturity does not always correlate with age, and individuals are exactly that - individual and unique. How can we place oppressive sociological rules on the expectations of each age-range? There is no university of life that educates society in how to think and how to act at every age in every context ... thankfully! But I agree that there must be some understanding of how to behave to ensure that there is social order and harmony. A combination of schooling, family and the law must provide an understanding of decorum and respect, however varied school and home environments may be. However, I would say that the tredmill of exams and targets from the ages of five to retirement fascilitates an unhealthy and hostile competitive pressure-cooker of individuals eager to proove themselves superior and right. Hundreds of pupils have nervously awaited the August release of examination results, fearing disappointment will destroy their future ambitions.
There is no freedom for children to explore and find their own answers. We become slaves to exam timetables and pressurising expectations, or we rebel against them. Those who fall short or "fail" increasingly seem to turn to other circles to try to prove themselves. The norm being to hit middle-age, change careers, change partners, students changing university and colleague courses or institutions, but most worringly, kids falling into the wrong crowd and gaining respect of peers by "achieving" an asbo next to their name, or flashing a gun in their baggy jean pocket.
Too much pressure, too many expectations, too little freedom, or too few answers? Whatever the cause of our self-indulgent insecurities, there seems to be a necessity to always get it right, or else to horribly get it wrong. I have converted to believe the old saying,
"To be old and wise, you must first be young and stupid".
By this, I interpret "stupid" to mean carefree and innocent, with the breathing space to make your own mistakes and to learn from them. This, along with the ability to admit when your wrong, I believe to be the most important ingrediants of adulthood, and the best way to avoid horrific rebellions, such as teenage gun crime, against elders and their rules.
Only on these free-er foundations will we see frowns disappear and more adults, children and all the 'inbetweeners' smiling.
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"Perhaps one sign of adulthood is the ability to co..."