The last step after graduation... When do they become adults?

[Karen in CO]

My ds has graduated, and now we're working through the final step which is turning over his student loans to him to pay. I realized today that this and not graduation makes me feel like his is "grown up." Next year, I won't even claim him on my taxes. He has a "resident" card for Japan. :unsure: When did my baby grow up?

 

Anyway. When did you start to feel like your kids were adults?

[Gwen in VA]

Ds#1 -- when he bought a car all by himself

 

Dd#1 -- after she spent the summer after graduation organizing/packing her stuff and generally moving out of the room she has always shared with her sister. With amazingly few exceptions, her worldly belongings moved halfway across the country that Labor Day weekend!.

[Jane in NC]

My son is not quite there yet but may I just say Hats Off to the two of you for doing such a fine job!

 

What struck me this week as my 21 year old was preparing for two months abroad is how much his confidence level has grown over the past year. It is true that he is returning to the same site so he knew exactly what gear he needed (tent, solar shower, sleeping bag, hard hat, trowels) but seeing how well he negotiates the financial aspects of being another country, using mass transit, etc. just astounds me. He is becoming both an adult and a citizen of the world.

 

It is so cool!

[Nan in Mass]

This is a really blurry line in my family. In some ways, it is about 13 or 14 when they start going away for months at a time to foreign countries. In some ways, it is about 18yo when they register to vote, the US considers them adult, and the household rules switch over to from the child set to the adult set. In some ways, it is when they are bigger and stronger than I am. In some ways, it is when they are through school and working full time ("launched" lol). Sometimes I think it has something to do with when they stop coming on the family vacations, but considering that I still am going on my parents' vacations, that doesn't really work, either. I think the real dividing line, as far as the clan is concerned, is the birth of your own children. Interestingly, moving out seems to have nothing to do with this. We all have lived in our parents house after we were incontravertably adults. In my clan, parents keep parenting until they die, so that doesn't work as a dividing line. People are encouraged to be self-supporting before they get married, but again, that doesn't necessarily mean setting up their own household. I guess this hasn't turned out to be a very useful concept in my clan lol. Karen - a resident card for a foreign country does seem rather grown up, doesn't it? Gwen - When our oldest got his first truck and began working a man's job, he was considered grown up, although there were definately things he couldn't manage. He was 18. Now, at 26, he is SO much more grown up than he was then. So I don't know...

 

Nan

[Brenda in MA]

When mine got a job that enabled him to pay for his own keep (rent, food, car insurace, cell phone, etc.). He started his first "real" full-time adult job this month, and the whole thing seems so surreal. He is still keeping in touch, but he's clearly moving towards independence. Surprisingly, I felt worse when he first left for college. I guess that was because it was a more dramatic change for me -- having him here all the time to being away for months at a time. Nevertheless, we are very proud ot the boy! :hurray:

 

Brenda

[8filltheheart]

You know, I thought of ds as an adult when he went off to college. He was independent, self-reliant, mature, and he really was not relying on us.

 

BUT......I will never forget the first time I recognized him as a man--- and not simply my son. It was during those blurry days of his wife going into pre-term labor and coping with a very preemie daughter. He was truly a man whose character and strength shone through.

 

Those 2 images are completely different for me.

[Julie in MN]

I'm agreeing with Nan that the line is very blurry here.

 

I'm thinking my son started feeling like a man when he started taking care of *me* in some ways rather than my taking care of him. It's not cut-and-dried, but there just has been a different feel somewhere along the way with my oldest, now 28. He isn't married, nor does he have kids, and he's been pretty self-sufficient since he was in his teens. But there has been a shift in his 20s to where I consider him not so much my child any more. My middle dd is a mom but I still feel I am doing most of the giving and the teaching. She does some things for me, and I for her, but I don't have that feeling like it's even or that the balance has tipped yet.

 

Julie

[AK_Mom4]

For DS21, it was during his first visit back home after leaving for the Air Force Academy. It had been six months since I had seen him and he had totally "grown up" while he was gone. Also just plain grown - he was a couple inches taller too! He still comes "home" for visits, but that's what they are - visits. His real adult life is what he lives every day.

 

DD19 is still working out all the details on this growing up thing, but is definitely almost there. She is mostly self-sufficient these days, working this summer and saving money for school. The only thing that trips her up is the medical stuff - since she is still on our medical insurance, sometimes things are complicated and she asks for Mom's help on figuring out how to make it all work.

 

But we are definitely transitioned to the "advice" mode, rather than "teaching and parenting" for DD.

[Beth in OH]

I wish someone would write a script for this life stage--Launching. All three of mine are going to be very different.

[FaithManor]

For me, it was not very long after we graduated dd. She was enrolled in her first semester of college and EMT school at the same time. On a ride along about two and half months into classes, she assisted the medic team she was riding with in successfully rescucitating a heart attack victim. That same night she held a frantic mother in her arms after the team had to ask permission to cease efforts on their three month old patient. The look on her face when she got home from the shift kind of said it all, but after a brief nap she was up to make a bank deposit and then study for a college chem exam and several hours later she was back on that rig.

 

She was not just an adult, she was a woman and my peer, my equal. It was definitely one of those defining moments in motherhood.

 

Faith