Coming of age
I just read a little article on the BBC about the coming of age ceremonies in Japan. While the article is mostly about Japan’s aging population, what it made me think about was the increasing lack of ritual in our own society and how we don’t actually know when we become adults. Once upon a time, there was lengthening, when girls started wearing skirts down to the floor and boys stopped wearing shorts. Maybe the Sacrament of Confirmation used to have this function. Certainly Bar Mitzvahs are supposed to. The Quinceañera is much the same, but for girls. Some women make their daughter’s first period a time of celebration (which I think is an excellent idea).
What do we have now? Sweet sixteens? Voting? Getting completely rat-arsed when you turn twenty-one? When do we know that we’re adults? I’m still wondering, still waiting to feel grown-up, still waiting to feel on the inside properly responsible and competent and calm. When am I going to get there? When are any of us?
Thing is, we’re not. Because young is now such the right thing to be, such the perfect thing to be that there is no kudos in achieving adulthood, no honor, no respect, no sense of having arrived. More, there is a sense of having lost something, aging past exclusion in the club of life. We fear our own adulthood and therefore more and more, don’t allow our children to achieve it. What will this world be like, all us youngsters spinning around, refusing to settle down, refusing to be slower, calmer, wiser and well. Who are we going to look up to? How will our children know when it’s all right to be the next thing?
I’d like a ritual, please. A rite of passage. I’m pretty sure I’m an adult now but a ceremony would be nice. At least then I’d know.
Come over and we’ll do our taxes and discuss the gas mileage on our cars.
It’s not a ritual (as of yet) but it is the type of thing that shines a spotlight on the fact that I am no longer 12 years old.
The other side of this problem is we treat our children like adults from early on – just witness the “fashions” available for children these days, even the boys whose clothes look like miniatures of their fathers’ wardrobes, albeit less scandalous than their sisters.
For me, the ceremony was the childbirth. Never before did I not only feel so responsible for someone else’s path, but on that day I realized I no longer had the option to veer off of my own.
Heartbreakingly- when they recover the black boxes from planes that have crashed, nearly each instance is the pilot, a grown man with his own children and wife, calling out for his mother.
A mother tethers her children to the earth, my mom always said. And I think my own children have tied me in so many inexplicable ways, to my adulthood. I will never feel the carefree choices of my youth- even the worries of the world have become mine now, because it is my children’s inheritance.
Beautiful post, as always.
callie
Maybe adulthood is just something that comes upon us more slowly now, in this era of running water and buying your food at the shop, as compared to the days of hunting and gathering. So maybe there is no defining point, just a steady path to parenthood, or having a mortgage, or making your own decisions about how you live your life. Which might be a luxury when you think about it, a way we can inhabit both worlds, child and adult.
excellent point.
It is hard to want to grow up in such a youth-oriented culture. I feel this is especially true for women, who seem to lose their societal value at the first sign of wrinkles or gray hair. One more reason, imo, to detest the term MILF.
” What will this world be like, all us youngsters spinning around, refusing to settle down, refusing to be slower, calmer, wiser and well. Who are we going to look up to? How will our children know when it’s all right to be the next thing?”
This part resonates the most with me.
When we DO slow down and choose to take time to relax or spend unplanned time together, others look at us as if we are lazy or undisciplined.
I’m tired of comments like, “I wish I had that kind of extra time” or “you must have a lot of time on your hands” when I share some craft I’ve done or pictures of things I’ve done with my children.
When did family time become a bad thing?
I completely agree with you. And I think it is bad that most of the rituals that occur are when we are too young to get the true meaning of them. I was bar mitzvahed “as a man” at age 13! Maybe 13 was considered a man hundreds of years ago, but now you are a kid. If I had my way, I would have people get a non-religious bar mitzvah-type ceremony every 13 years, to celebrate you coming into a new stage of your life.
I think (this is sort of crazy, but it’s what did it for me) moving back home with my parents is what did it for me. I had to, for health reasons, at 27, and living in a house with adults (my parents) and teenagers (my siblings) I saw which team I was on. When I moved back to Pittsburgh on my own, it was getting that Library degree that did it–I am a Professional with a title.
I don’t feel 35, but I do feel like an adult. I like the idea of a party every 13 years though…
I have made this point over and over. Americans don’t know how to celebrate anything except with liquor and money.
Life should be about so much more.
So, I just have a “Welcome to Reality” party everyday, which commences with a cup of coffee.
The Sacrament of Confirmation did NOT make me feel like an adult, by any means. It just made me feel guilty for getting confirmed, because at the age of 13, I already knew I wasn’t in it for the long haul.
I’d like to hear more on that celebration of the period thing…
I’m reminded of when my youngest (now 20) got her first period. It was months and months before she quit blaming me — she was convinced I was somehow responsible