The Grownup Project
Some years ago, a friend (now departed) and I were having one of our serious bull sessions over dinner and Jack Daniels. Our conversation that evening turned to what we both perceived as a paucity of “grownup” public discourse. We had both previously followed Robert Bly’s conversations about the need for what Bly termed the “mature masculine”. Though Bly has written extensively on the masculine, many ideas about “missing adulthood” in modern America can be found in his book The Sibling Society: An Impassioned Call for the Rediscovery of Adulthood. Though nearly twenty-five years old, it’s still worth reading.
In our Jack-lubricated meanderings, Paul and I mused about the possibility of embarking on a “grownup project” aimed at promoting more respectful grownup approaches to issues of the day. The project never got off the ground. But it remained on my mind these many years.
Memories of my conversations with Paul resurfaced when I read a recent Washington Post editorial by George Will that echoed Bly’s call to adulthood. Will suggested that if we as a country are to get past our dysfunctional politics, it is the citizenry (not just our President) who must grow up.
Paul and I had discussed whether the term “grownup” or “adult” best conveyed the intention of our looming project. Little did we know that the youngsters would come to hijack the word “adult”, eventually deciding that the noun should be made into a verb with accompanying gerund … taking its place alongside such favorites as “friending”, “texting”, and “googling”. Merriam-Webster has even seen fit to include “adult” as a verb in their dictionary (it’s true, I googled it):
adult (verb): to behave like an adult: to attend to the ordinary tasks required of a responsible adult.
No self-respecting old fart would have ever conjured up this definition. Somewhere in the vicinity of eighteen to twenty-one years old, we just automatically became adults. No particular action was required. Now that adult has been verbed, I suppose it means that youngsters are giving themselves a choice. Automatic admission into the fellowship of adults is apparently a thing of the past.
I’d like to know, though, who the asshole was who decided that the tasks required of an adult were ordinary. Sounds to me like they’re talking about things like holding a job, showing up on time, paying bills, eating right, and getting a good night’s sleep. No wonder the youngsters don’t want to adult. Sounds boring.
Rather than trying to challenge Merriam-Webster’s definition, however, I suggest we transcend ordinary and embrace the extraordinary tasks of growing up. Raising, providing for, and nurturing a family isn’t ordinary. Building a career isn’t ordinary. Supporting family, friends, and community through thick and thin isn’t ordinary. Living a passionate and ethical life isn’t ordinary. Leaving your corner of the cosmos better off than you found it isn’t ordinary. Aspiring for and growing into elder wisdom isn’t ordinary. Grownup stuff is freaking heroic!
Becoming an adult is easy, whether you believe it’s by completing eighteen trips around the sun or by choosing to engage in those ordinary adult tasks. Growing up is hard. It’s the work of a lifetime. Growing up is the work each of us should embrace until such time as we take our rightful place in the Hall of Ancestors.
Paul and I, either unconsciously or serendipitously, labeled the work of growing up as a project, a collective endeavor that in our current environment feels particularly urgent. Though we might catch faint flickers of grownupness around us, we also find ourselves overwhelmed by social media (and even media of the mainstream variety) that all too often feels like Lord of the Flies at a time when we desperately need Lord of the Rings.
I don’t know how to engage more of my fellow citizens in a grownup project. But I can work on doing my best to grow myself up. And I can do my best to distance myself from adult adolescenting (adolescent adolescenting is fine). And I can encourage and support those brave souls willing to take up the project with me.
If we hear catcalls of “Ok, boomer”, it’ll probably mean we’re doing something right. One important aspect of growing up is reflecting on our past. Those of us who came of age in the 60s likely recall the rallying cry of our younger selves: “Don’t trust anyone over 30”. I’m pretty sure the over-thirty grownups of that era just smiled.
As we contemplate the difficult tasks ahead, the closing lines of Kahlil Gibran’s poem “On Children” should encourage us to stay the course.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
