When I Grow Up

In which I am apparently the adult in the room.

How it started

When I Grow Up (From Matilda the Musical)

When I grow up
I will be tall enough to reach the branches
That I need to reach to climb the trees
You get to climb when you're grown up

And when I grow up
I will be smart enough to answer all
The questions that you need to know
The answers to before you're grown up

And when I grow up
I will eat sweets every day
On the way to work and I
Will go to bed late every night

And I will wake up
When the sun comes up and I
Will watch cartoons until my eyes go square
And I won't care 'cause I'll be all grown up!

When I grow up!

When I grow up, when I grow up (When I grow up)
I will be strong enough to carry all
The heavy things you have to haul
Around with you when you're a grown-up

And when I grow up, when I grow up (When I grow up)
I will be brave enough to fight the creatures
That you have to fight beneath the bed
Each night to be a grown-up

And when I grow up (And when I grow up)
I will have treats every day
And I'll play with things that mum pretends
That mums don't think are fun

And I will wake up (And I will wake up)
When the sun comes up and I
Will spend all day just lying in the sun
And I won't burn 'cause I'll be all grown-up

When I grow up

And when I grow up
I will be brave enough to fight the creatures
That you have to fight beneath the bed
Each night to be a grown-up

When I grow up...

Just because you find that life's not fair, it
Doesn't mean that you just have to grin and bear it
If you always take it on the chin and wear it
Nothing will change

When I grow up...

Just because I find myself in this story
It doesn't mean that everything is written for me
If I think the ending is fixed already
I might as well be saying
I think that it's OK

And that's not right!

—Tim Minchin

As I write this, I am staring down the barrel of my 48th birthday, which will have passed by the time this hits your inboxes. I am mostly at peace with being this age, although perimenopause can bite me, and also I have started groaning in some very concerning ways every time I stand up.

One thing, though, has been troubling me for a long time, namely: How the hell am I an adult?

I know you are probably questioning how I could have managed to get through the last 2+ decades without noticing that I was - and am - an adult, but stay with me here. I promise there is an explanation.

You know how, when you are a kid (assuming that you had at least one reasonably responsible parent and grew up in a safe home in a safe country), it seemed like adults just had the whole world figured out? You went to sleep at night believing that if a burglar broke in, one of your parents would just handle the situation - probably with some awesome ninja moves they were hiding from you - and you would never be the wiser. Or if the house caught fire, they’d jump into action and douse the flames, leaving no trace of the conflagration (except maybe a faint burning smell that they would explain away with no trouble). And of course you never thought of the countless things that might go awry - the heat or hot water heater failing, the roof leaking, termites chewing through the walls, carbon monoxide quietly seeping into your bedroom while you slept, and on and on. You just blithely lived your life, and let the competent adults take care of the details.

But of course we all grew up, and at some unclear point we all became the competent adults, and I don’t know about you but I want my money back because I never signed up for all this stress, and I certainly never feel prepared for it, even on my best days.

Witness: I have mentioned before that I am incredibly lucky to have found the best Facebook group on the planet, which is somewhat about parenting but mostly about just having each other’s backs and bitching about life’s insults and vagaries, and that even though I have never met the overwhelming majority of members in person, the love and support they have shown me and my family over the past decade has been extraordinary. (This past fall, when the awful parents of Ash’s former best friend allowed their kid to just ghost Ash while Ash was in the hospital, and I shared that with my group, a torrent of gifts showed up at my house for Ash over the course of the next month, all meant to remind her, and me, that she is not alone. How incredible is that?)

So anyhoo, as Vee would say, I often turn to this group, and its Whambulance Wednesday and similar threads, to vent about this ridiculous landscape of adulthood I have found myself in. For example, I posted this rant in December, on what the group deemed Solstice Shouty Thursday:

I PARTIALLY FLOODED THE LAUNDRY ROOM BECAUSE OF PET SNAKE-RELATED STUPIDITY, ONE CHILD WAS HOME SICK THREE DAYS THIS WEEK, MY HEAT WENT OFF TO HALF MY HOUSE FOR 28 HOURS (I didn’t notice until hour 26, but aforementioned snake got very cold which isn’t good and I lost a ton of work time and got a few new gray hairs getting it back on), MY ALARM SYSTEM HAD A “FIRE MAINTENANCE” MESSAGE THIS MORNING, [PRIVATE DETAILS ABOUT MY PERIMENOPAUSE WOES], AND I AM STILL FIGHTING WITH THE [FREAKING] SCHOOL DISTRICT ABOUT A PLACEMENT FOR ASH.

In other words, adulting kind of sucks, and it seems like it has gotten infinitely harder since COVID, and I am over it.

In the song I quoted from Matilda the Musical, the kids sing:

And when I grow up
I will be smart enough to answer all
The questions that you need to know
The answers to before you're grown up

Which is exactly it, isn’t it? We need to know the answers to the questions about home maintenance and school district bureaucracies and elder care and a million other things besides (admittedly most people do not need to have answers about snake husbandry, but I’m not most people) before we grow up, but I am not convinced we ever really learn the answers at all. Because maybe I figure out how to fix the broken washing machine, with the help of YouTube of course, but then the next time it breaks YouTube is useless; or maybe I end up with a kid who has challenges that the school district cannot even contemplate, let alone address; or maybe my siblings and I manage to successfully move our dad from independent to assisted living, but then within six months, because they are understaffed and also maybe because the CEO of the huge retirement home company needs a new boat, suddenly I’m trying to figure out how to keep them from pushing my dad from assisted living into nursing care without my consent; and on and on and on.

Marriage helps a bit with the relentless decision-making and tidal wave of challenges life throws at adults, and there are times I really miss having a spouse to tackle those challenges with. But I emphatically do not miss the constant negotiations required for navigating challenges with a spouse, and I do not miss feeling like no matter what, I was always doing more of everything than my husband. Lara Bazelon wrote an excellent piece in Slate several years ago, about a study that showed that single mothers across demographics “have more free time, spend fewer hours on housework, and sleep more than married mothers.” As Bazelon explains:

Pepin and her colleagues write, “Transitions into parenthood among married couples increase mothers’ household and care work and reduce fathers’ household work, even among couples with egalitarian patterns before the birth of a child.”

Why is this? According to the study, a major factor is the stubbornly “gendered” nature of heterosexual marriage “that ratchets up the demand for housework and childcare” performed by women, even when both husband and wife work similar hours for similar pay.

Single mothers, on the other hand, have no need or even opportunity to “perform gender” by demonstrating obeisance to centuries-old conceit that good mothers prioritize everyone else but themselves. There’s not much point in putting on a play if there’s no audience.

This has been my exact experience, coupled with a whole lot of discord around the endless decision-making that sharing a home and raising children together require. But doing everything alone can be overwhelming too, which is why I lie awake so many nights listening to the house making its little house noises, and worrying about all of the many emergencies that might arise (all of which only seem to happen in the wee hours). And I think too about my kids, confidently snoozing in their rooms, safe in the knowledge that no matter what happens, a competent adult (ME!) is there to take care of it.

More and more though I am realizing with relief that even if we don’t share a home or finances or kids, Ben and I are there to help each other catch the fastballs life throws our way. (That truth that really hit home when Ben was at my house one recent morning with Elise and the house cleaners, while I headed to the office, and one of the cleaners found Vee’s large ball python insouciantly curled on the carpet next to Vee’s bed. Thank goodness Ben was there because I shudder to think what would have happened if it had been Elise alone in the house with the hysterical, snake-fearing, Spanish-speaking cleaners and the snake on the lam. Luckily Ben is both fluent in Spanish and not scared of Nini, and he managed to get Nini put back and calm everyone down, thus averting a crisis. As I mentioned before, adulting in my menagerie house can get pretty weird.*)

This is all to say that I really wish there had been a test I had to pass to get this Being A Grown-Up gig, or maybe even a manual or a cheat sheet. It is kind of terrifying how many times in a week I stare into the headlights of a possible disaster, and realize that I have no earthly idea how to keep it from running me over. And when, as is usually the case, I manage to avert a crisis at the last minute, I am just filled with adrenaline, as I realize that the train track I am walking on has a sheer drop on either side.

I really would love it if my kids had it easier, but if anyone is going to write the manual, it ain’t me. Frankly, I do not think there is a person in America who has all of this competent adult stuff figured out, and if anyone tells you they do, they are absolutely lying.

All of this reminds me of that little kids’ book, “Are You My Mother?” Except my version is called “Are You My Competent Adult?” In it, my kids wander from person to person, asking the title question, and getting the same answer: “No.” And then, when they come to me, and I am supposed to answer with an enthusiastic “Yes!,” I instead make this sort of harrumphing noise and nod vaguely and hope it is enough to convince them, and then they give me a worried look and the book ends. It is not exactly the thrilling resolution that the original offers, but I bet it will be a bestseller anyway. And we can all keep a copy on our bedside tables, to thumb through in the witching hour, to distract us when we are wide awake and frantically trying to remember if we know any ninja moves for the burglar we definitely hear moving around downstairs. You’re welcome.

How it’s going

*Before you all decide to never visit my house again (apart from the fellow snake enthusiasts), rest assured, Nini is now confined to a maximum security tank, with lots of supervised release periods with Vee. Also, she’s totally harmless. Unless you’re a rat. And you’re not a rat, are you?