When I was younger, no one told me that being an Adult meant:

• Settling insurance claims on sick days
• Being on hold for 15 – infinity minutes
• Trying not to use all of your vacation days during the first month of the fiscal year
• Keeping your credit score above 700 by any means necessary
• Knowing what a fiscal year means
• Debating if you want gas or groceries for the week
• Working with people who require you to fake a smile for 95% of the day
• Your metabolism slowing down to 56 Kbps (that’s dial-up internet speed for the Generation Z folks)
• Bills, Bills, Bills no Destiny’s Child
• Not being allowed to date until you were in college and then having family members ask why you’re not married yet
• Finding out what a paypig is and wanting one but not wanting to come off like a gold digger (this one might just be me)
• Wondering if you’ll ever mature and become a REAL adult. 

I read a post on Quora.com that stated that “[Millennials are] sometimes known as the Peter Pan Generation because childhood was so good to them that they have a tendency to delay adulthood.” I wouldn’t say that I have delayed adulthood…or would I?

When I think about real adults, I remember my late mother. At the age of 27, she was married with three children and owned a home. I am currently 27 and I have two cats and a car. Does that make me any less of an adult? 

WHAT IS ADULTHOOD?!

I spoke to a coworker about this recently. Let’s call her Adam ( shout out to gender neutrality). Adam is a few years older than me and is engaged with a son. She enjoys video games, twitter, and Netflix. We had a discussion about constantly wondering when do we finally become adults? Adam even mentioned how when she googled her mother, she had the most prestigious job title! Her mother also wears sneakers with dress pants to piss of her supervisor. Does that make her any less of an adult?

Does being an adult equate maturity?

Adam also mentioned that an older gentleman that she worked with in his late 50s or early 60s loves watching Bojack Horseman and Rick & Morty. Which led me to believe that there is no such thing as being an adult. It’s just a social construct to classify–I’m just kidding. 

My conversation with Adam led me to believe that adulthood is what you make of it.  You can spend your adulthood wondering if you will ever measure up or you can spend it defining adulthood on your own terms.  There are too many factors that go into being an adult for it to be simplified into a single definition. 

Being an adult to me means:

• Being able to eat ice cream for breakfast
• Having a Master’s degree and a few certifications/licenses under my belt
• Having a core group of friends and making new ones
• Raising a cat and a kitten because I’m not ready for snotty nose children
• Paying all of my bills on time even if that means I have to make that ice cream stretch for lunch and dinner until pay-day
• Trying not to do the savings to checkings to savings tango
• Trying to stay hip on the new lingo the kiddos are using
• Listening to Huncho Jack and wondering why the hell do I still listen to this
• Complaining about new music while secretly loving Lil Uzi Vert
• Enjoying my own company in my apartment for an entire weekend because it’s too cold to go anywhere
• etc.

What does being an adult mean to you?