The recognition that you are, in fact, a full blown adult tends not to come as a whimper. It's a sudden blast.
One experience--often mundane--compels a reckoning, and afterwards you look around with new eyes. You are an adult with an adult lens. Your reality is tinted, it likely had been for a little bit already, and you conclude adult things about all that you see.
A Reddit thread collected how that moment came about, looked, and felt for a variety of now-accepting, self-proclaimed adults.
For some it was a big life moment with stakes so high that it was clear only an adult could be in that position. But for most, it was a tiny occurrence; a knee jerk response in which they witnessed themselves with their guard down acting the futherst thing from kid-like.
egeuoglu asked, "What moment made you realize that you are not a kid anymore?"
When You Fit the Bill
"I told my niece she needed adult supervision to do something and she looked me like I was dumber than a block of cheese and asked why I couldn't watch her."
The Younger Generation
"When some doctors or teachers are younger than me." -- letionbard
"The last time I was at the ER I slowly realized that all the medical personnel treating me were younger than me." -- dorvann
"When I went to the dentist and he had the same name, but now it was my lifelong dentist's son." -- JeffTheAndroid
No Longer in a Vaccuum
"When my actions started to change a lot people's life."
" 'If I don't do shopping today I cannot cook for my wife and she would not have any food to take in the other day and in the next day I will be working so no one will buy food.' "
"As an example."
-- ButcherChef
"That Man"
"At work one day when I was 19, I heard a little girl ask her mom, 'What's that man doing?' and I turned to look at what man she was talking about and what the man was doing, only to discover she was pointing at me."
-- Finklemaier
Looking Over the Shoulder
"My first year of teaching. When we told the kids to get an adult if there's an emergency and I realized-I was the adult they would be getting." -- littlemissbookwrm
"I feel you there. Sometimes it just hits me that I'm the adult in the room and I'm responsible for everything, it's such a weird feeling." -- Gneissisnice
"YUP. I still look for a more adult-y adult." -- alykins89
Self-Imposed Parenting
"Having the 'we have food at home' talk with myself." -- NakedKittyAlucard
"Absolutely. I realized it when my thought process went from, 'What do I feel like having for dinner?' to 'What do I have to eat before it spoils and I wind up wasting the money I spent on it?' " -- cicadasinmyears
Cleaning is King
"I was really excited to buy a mop... From that moment on it all went downhill." -- LolaLoops
"When I was excited about a new vacuum cleaner." -- MiLeenalee
Snow Days Suck Now
"When I saw a forecast for snow and I was annoyed instead of happy." -- ApocalypseWednesday
"This is a great one. Kids see potential snow day and imagine all the fun a snowy day brings. Adults see shoveling it out of the driveway just so you can sit thru a sh!tty drive to work." -- ImWhatTheySayDeaf
"It's all fun and games until your car door gets frozen shut. 'Cmon you little...it's already 6:30, I'm late...MOVE.' " -- MEScout
To Do Lists
"When I realized I could never be fully relaxed because there's always some responsibility looming over me." -- SchindianaJones
"This is when weed stops being fun." -- _Citizen_Erased_
"This. This. I envy the younger me when I could just kick back and do nothing all day." -- TooneyLoonnz
Non-Discerning Adult Eyes
"I ate a pack of fruit snacks without checking to see what shape they were." -- mynameisbirthdayboy
"Damn, I'm 31 and not that stone cold." -- a-r-c
"You are unhinged." -- nacho_breath
"I just started biting the cheestrings instead of pulling them apart." -- BananasLover
Suddenly Mom
"The morning after my parent's divorce when I was 10. My father was an ultra helicopter/tiger parent. My mother was a neglectful abuser. We ended up with my mother."
"My siblings and I stood in front of the garage door for an hour before realizing our mother wasn't going to take us to school/daycare. I ended up carrying my siblings to their respective locations before making it to my own school by lunchtime."
"I picked up bus signup slips that afternoon and was forced to forge my mother's signature for the first time to try and get transportation. Later that week I also was forced to forge free lunch slips for us all because no one was going to make us food anymore."
Pragmatic Consequences
"I used to be able to take days off work whenever i wanted and now i find myself having to have the 'if you take that many days off you wont be able to pay your mortgage so suck it up and go to work' speech with myself at least once a week. lol"
-- Ellixxerrr
Me?
"When they said, 'Some people will meet the person they are going to marry here" at my university welcome speech."
"That sh** f***ed me up real good."
It's All Hanging by a Thread
"Realizing that nobody knows what the hell they are doing, everyone is just winging it."
"Asked a mate (one of the most well put together guys I know) if he had any adulting tips. Just came back with "if you ever find out, please tell me.' "
-- Holo323
More Lost than a Life
"When my mother died. I was 17 and the overwhelming sense of 'you're on your own, no one is going to protect you or do things for you anymore' felt like the sharpest transition to adulthood imaginable."
-- dxmxmlxx
Pop Culture Moves On
"When I was 19, I made I made a reference to one of my favorite shows from when I was 8-12, and a couple of 13-year-olds listening had no idea what I was talking about. I'm learning that those moments never stop happening."
-- Happy8Day
The Flash
"I was 23, no high school diploma, and a security guard doing access control at an ice cream plant. I realized that if I didn't get out of there and do something, I would be 50 in the a flash, and not seen or done anything worthwhile."
"My life would have peaked at 20 and the rest of my time amounting to little more than waiting to die."
No More Hiding
"When I decided to have an abortion. There was no more sitting back and letting my life run itself. I had to make a decision and one that would not only affect my life."
"I remember so desperately wishing someone could take over to choose but not doing anything was a choice in itself and one I wasn't mature enough to make at the time."
"Ironically making me more mature in the process."
-- emmamary225
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "
One of my favorite books is "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." It was a key element in unlocking what I could see with my imagination. No adolescent should go beyond sixth grade without knowing it. What else?
"ANNOUNCEMENT FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE READING THIS THREAD:"
"MANY OF THE BOOKS MENTIONED HERE ARE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND IN AUDIO BOOK FORM. GO THROUGH YOUTUBE/RANDOMHOUSE/AUDIBLE/OVERDRIVE FOR ALL THE CLASSICAL GOODNESS YOU WANT."
"It almost totally eliminates the financial/time commitment that many will cite for not picking them up. I listen to books on double speed all the damn time. I am working my way through "A Tale of Two Cities" now."
Meaning
wondering simon cowell GIF by X Factor GlobalGiphy"Man's search for meaning - Viktor Frankl."
Oh Milo
"The Phantom Tollbooth."
"Maybe one of my favorite literary moments…"
"Milo: "Many of the things I'm supposed to know seem so useless that I can't see the purpose of learning them at all."
"Princess of Sweet Rhyme: "...what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover the wonderful secrets of tomorrow."
- wort_hog
Johnny
"Johnny's Got His Gun. It's so intense, but it's so good. Metallica's song One is based off this book. Guy has his arms and legs blown off, goes blind and deaf, and is left to live like that. I only read it once, but it's forever engrained into my memory. It hits you like a freight train."
Brothers...
"Surprised I haven't seen it here already so I'll add it... The Brother's Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. In Slaughterhouse 5 Vonnegut said it could teach everything that we needed to know about life, except that wasn't enough anymore."
"If the only thing that book did was make you marvel at how people centuries and oceans removed from you in time and place, could experience the exact same emotions about life as you did, it would be worth the read. There's so much more to it, but Dostoyevsky had such a knack for digging deep into universal human experience. And it's just a hell of a good story too."
Classics
diva read GIFGiphy"Speaking as somebody who isn't religious, the literary value of the Bible (and the Hebrew Bible) is severely underrated."
I took a class on it in college, with a prof who'd once allegedly gotten into a bar fight over Beowulf. We would sometimes spend half a class discussing a single verse or two because there's so much stuff going on under the hood."
- dmillson
I know so many of those. And sadly, I'm already behind in my studies. I love books and I'm always on the path to find more to consume. Let me ready my already lengthy list.
WAR
War Shockwave GIFGiphy"All Quiet on the Western Front. Everyone should have to reckon with the reality of what war actually means."
- BigHern
Thanks Teach...
"Night, by Elie Wiezel. It is absolutely heartwrecking , and I hated every moment of reading it, which is exactly the effect it is supposed to have."
"Came here looking for this one. I had to read it back in high school and it blew me away how moved I was by it. Stories like his need to be remembered for all time, no matter how hard it is to get through (emotionally-speaking; it's actually quite an easy and short read). I'm so grateful that my English teacher assigned it."
West
"The Westing Game."
"A Librarian here, such a terrific book. I have gotten so many kids to read it by hooking them with the fact that the reader can play the game and has all of the clues. And good luck as it is fiendishly clever."
All the Good Crazy
"The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Such a great book."
"Oh my god yes. I love this book for being the sex, drugs and rock and roll of the classics world. It is lengthy but has revenge, treasure, plots and schemes and drugs. There is nothing stuffy about this classic."
- skundrik
The "Good"
"The Giver- that book made my 9-10 year old mind really think about what was important in society. It was the first time the idea of "good" things having a negative consequence was presented to me. I think what makes it work is that we are learning how this whole society really works along side a character who has lived in it his whole life."
"As the facade of the utopian society begins to fall away to show devastating consequences of the "perfect life and society" the reader not only feels their shock but the main character's shock. This was a book I read in school 4 times- once in 5th grade and once in 10th for English and then in both high school and college sociology classes. This book written for 9-13 year olds made for great discussions."
Good and Bad of Life
read ford GIFGiphy"The Grapes of Wrath and/or Of Mice and Men. Both are heartbreaking, but not for the sake of being heartbreaking - instead they provide a glimpse of how freaking hard life can be, but also how beautiful it can be."
That is a lot of good advice. And a lot of great storytelling and advice giving. Did anyone miss anything that should be there? And make sure you read anything by Harlan Coben, he's a fav.
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