Destination Adulthood

Why would kids want to grow up?

Part one of three. For Mothers.

Stop performing life - live it! For yourself… For your children.

Remember being a kid? Did you imagine having a family, children? Did you dream of flying planes or spaceships? Maybe you wanted to take care of horses? Cure diseases? Build bridges? Drive a train? I remember I wanted to be a garbage man, hanging off a garbage truck, tossing heavy bins.

Most of us wanted something special. I don’t remember any of my friends dreaming of a four-bedroom house with a lawn. We came to that later, having been told that it was what adults are supposed to dream about. Then we mortgaged ourselves to it and called the mortgage a sacrifice for our children.

My family lives in a large, comfortable house that we built a few years ago. My wife and I designed every room; we spent countless hours in meetings with architects, contractors, suppliers. We made sure the kids had space to grow. We showed them our drawings and asked for their opinion. And when we were done, my daughter told me she would rather live in a condo. It stang. We created a myth to justify enormous effort - we were doing it for the kids, for our family. But it turned out that our kids had other priorities.

It was for ourselves. We wanted it. It was a struggle to build through COVID pandemic. It was stressful and demanding. But also exciting. Just like putting together a house out of LEGO blocks but this time it was lumber, bricks and concrete. Our excitement working on a project of our lives was what actually mattered. The kids were not involved in our meetings, they would rather live in a condo but they watched us doing the adult version of kids play. That is what matters the most.

This is what I want to write about. Not parenting technique but a direction. Are we doing a good job showing our kids that adulthood is a destination worth arriving to?

Every parental advice and technique assumes the kids are motivated to grow. We assume the destination is self-evident. Grow up, get a job, pay the bills, raise the next round of children. And the strangest thing is, most parents would rather deal with none of it. Our kids, watching us, are quietly wondering whether they will feel the same when their turn comes.

Children see everything.

They have been studying us since they were born. They are figuring out what life is about, and we are their main input. They don’t care about our quarterly performance metrics. They are reading whether what we are doing connects to anything we actually want.

My wife stays up past midnight sometimes, working on immigration files. Why? Because it is who she is. In school she was the kid who competed and liked to win. She also wanted to see her friends succeed. At times, her classmates took advantage of her generosity, but she did it anyway. She does not compete in the Olympics. But in her line of work, she still helps others and gets to win or lose. Her wins bring real adult results - escaping poverty or war, reuniting families after years of separation. That is more than any childhood dream of winning an Olympic gold. Her work is a manifestation of her.

Our kids do not need her to explain this. They feel it. The signal that travels to them - mommy is tired because she is doing something meaningful. They know why she is slow in the morning, and they get themselves ready.

The same hours, lived from obligation, transmit something opposite. I am tired of working because we have to pay the bills. Or worse, because of your tuition. Same activity, different signal. One says adulthood is a place where things matter enough to cost you sleep. The other says adulthood is captivity, and kids are part of why.

I have been watching young people in my psychiatric office for years now. The ones who are most stuck are not stuck because their parents failed to regulate, or validate, or enrich. They are stuck because they have looked at the adulthoods around them and see only a graveyard of dreams. They are not lazy. They are not broken. They are watching, and what they are seeing is not pulling them forward.

Watching depleted adults, kids draw a rational conclusion. Growing up means they will have to give up on themselves. No wonder they refuse.

The parenting books cannot quite reach this, because they are written as if the child is a problem to solve. It is not the child, it is the destination.

Destination adulthood.

Kids must grow up. It is in the DNA, so they cannot keep finger painting and kicking a ball until it’s dark but they don’t have to. The kid who painted with her fingers turns into a fashion designer. A house league athlete becomes an immigration consultant. The boy who took clocks apart becomes a surgeon. The girl who organized her dolls becomes a public health researcher.

This is the part most adults stop believing is possible. They think the dream was the artifact — the medal, the canvas, the cockpit — and when the artifact became unreachable, they assumed the dream was over. The dream was the surface waves driven by powerful currents underneath.

It is in our power to transform our dreams.

The childhood currents grow into adult waves — real consequences, risks, and victories.