You may have noticed fewer posts here recently. Sorry. I’ve been writing elsewhere, both online and off, and have had fewer words left in the tank for this space.
I’ve also been tidying this space, working away behind the scenes. And while doing that, I stumbled across this post in drafts.
I wrote it a year ago. I’m not sure why I didn’t post it then. Perhaps I thought it needed more. A lesson to share, perhaps.
But here it is. And I wonder how many of you with decision-making responsibility for little people have ever felt the same.
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I’ve had lots of moments of the grown-up variety in my life.
First full-time job. First rental. First home. Getting engaged. Getting married. Having kids.
But I have never felt like a true grown-up. Like an adult. None of these moments made me go, “WHOA. Back the truck up just a minute. I am not ready for this. This is something grown-up people do.”
They were just things. They happened. And I was ready for them. Without feeling like a grown-up.
But I have never felt less like a grown-up adult of the mature person variety than when I handed in the enrolment forms for my daughter’s primary school.
I stood there at the desk, waiting for the registrar to return from the photocopier with her birth certificate and immunisation record. And waiting for someone – ANYONE – to come along and ask me just WHAT exactly I thought I was doing there.
Who is this impostor claiming to know what the best interests of her daughter are? How can we entrust important decisions to her?
To me?
Who am I to make as big a decision as which school my daughter will go to? Who am I to complete the enrolment forms and hand them in?
Who am I to decide where she will spend the majority of her days for the next seven years?
WHO AM I?
I am her mother. I know that. I believe that.
I am a grown-up. I am a fully-fledged adult. I know that, too.
I just wish I could believe it.
Do you ever feel like you’re play-acting at this whole adulting thing? And can you think of a word for it? Fauxdulting? A-dolt-ing?
I never contemplated how having kids would elevate my decision making skills. Sometimes I don’t want to adult and make the hard decisions. Glad to hear you are busy with writing work. xx
Thanks Bec. Busy and confused. More to come on that. And yes – the more I reflect on how many important decisions just get made like that *snaps fingers*, the scarier it gets!
Being an adult is totally boring and crappy in my opinion. The responsibilities weigh me down at the moment. I went to high school subject selection for HSC and I think I could return to school and do a few subjects for fun – they are interesting. Way more interesting than anything I talk or think about on a daily basis. So if you don’t feel like an adult, I say high five to you!
Go me! Hooray for not adulting!
I don’t have kids but at the moment every day seems to be a challenge as an adult. I feel like I’m faking it from the moment I get up and go to work to when I get back home. I think the responsibilities have just gotten to me and I’m a bit over it all. I just want to sit in my pyjamas and watch cartoons and read!
I like Fauxdulting as a word. I think it could catch on.
Thanks! Hopefully it does catch on. Impostor syndrome is really. Amy (Handbagmafia) wrote about it recently and my head nearly feel off from nodding too much.
Yes, I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently as I am about to turn forty five in a few weeks. It’s like I am an accidental grown up. On the outside I’m mid forties, but on the inside I’m about five and a half. I once saw a birthday card that said “Don’t grow up, it’s a trap!” I’ve been following that advice ever since!
Accidental grown-up. I like it. Sounds like a good song title.
A few years ago for some reason we had my mums car for a few years. Anyway, I would catch myself driving around thinking really am I a grown up – and yes I really was with three kids, hubby and mortgage and well 40! I am not sure we ever really feel grown up I am pretty much just faking it every day!
Haha! You’ve just made me realise that when my mum offered to have the kids over the holidays, she said that swapping cars would be easier than moving car seats around. I asked if she was sure. Because I’m so used to being the kid that I figured she wouldn’t trust me with her car! Oh man. Time to embrace the adult.
I never feel like an adult. Granted, I also try not to act like one, so that helps. I still want a trampoline in my backyard and I want a bouncy castle for my birthday party. Because they’re fun, no matter what age.
Oh no. Oh no oh no. No pelvic floor-testers in my backyard, thanks!
Every single day – all the decisions we have to make are so daunting!
So daunting! And yet when we have to, they seem to happen quickly enough.
I just turned 52. I can’t believe it and it still shocks me to see it written there. I can tell you though … I still feel like I am pretending I am a grown up and someone is going to find me out. Still! I think the kid in each of us is always there. We may get older but we stay the same on the inside … just our priorities change and hopefully we get wiser with the year! 😉
The fear of discovery is REAL, isn’t it? AAARGH!
I can’t believe I am mother to grown ups myself! Surely I am too young?! (My kids are now 22 & 19)
OH. EM. GEE. I just had a flash forward. That’s some serious next-level adulting. I’m freaking out!
Sometimes I’d like a break from being an adult! I’ve never felt like I became an adult as such. Others around me, especially after I had kids, just assumed I was an adult and started giving me adult responsibilities and asking me to make the hard decisions! I wish I had an adult to make some decisions for me sometimes too!
Nailed it! We never become adults, we’re just assumed to be adult(ish) and have to step up and start acting like it. Which most of us do, with varying degrees of success.
Every word of this post rings true Em. I still feel like a big kid. A proper adult is someone like my mum and dad, not me! Blogging about toys probably doesn’t help my cause…
Bahaha! Blogging about toys is VERY important. How else would we make such adult decisions as what to buy all our kids’ friends for their birthdays? So adultish!
Totally get it. I don’t believe I’m full swing into this adulting gig either. It just happens and I can’t catch up with this time thing that doesn’t let up. I had a moment when I left the hospital with my first born. I was all like “are they seriously going to just let me walk out with him??? Trust me to be responsible and know what to do???”. That was totally a WTH moment.
Oh, I remember leaving the hospital and I was too nervous to carry my daughter. I asked if I could wheel the bassinet thing out to the car! I didn’t even trust myself to carry her correctly!
My inability to make decisions is well known – I even coined a term for it – decisive indecision (where I decide not to make a decision because it’s just too hard!). And I always question my ability to adult – and I have a child heading to high school next year!!!
Decisive indecision. BRILLIANT.