On Adulthood: Introduction

Recently, while discussing life decisions with a friend over a cup of coffee on a set of cement steps, this friend asked me if I consider myself to be an "adult."  It struck me that nobody had ever asked me that question before.  I hadn’t ever really asked myself that before.  I didn’t know how to define "adult" in that moment, and as a result, ended up responding philosophically, stating that adulthood was not something to be strived for as somehow of higher value than childhood, and instead we should be striving for a fluency between the two and all grey area in between.  But of course, I thought further, and since I truthfully do consider myself an adult, began to ask what qualifies that distinction.

<It took me a while longer than I expected to write this post, for this reason: while self-analyzing, and cross-analyzing, I found in my methods some harsh double-standards.  I have been working to reconcile those double-standards, and did not feel it appropriate to post a piece which would employ them.  Thank you for your patience, those of you who have been waiting.  The rest of you, forget about it.>

"Adult" is commonly defined as "Fully grown" (Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, Random House).  This is far too objective a definition, because in nearly every context we use the word, we define far beyond physiological development.  Adulthood is a realm of Status that is neither an American invention nor an American institution, but we do have our own distinctions for that Status.  So, I will discuss what I feel to be particularly American ideas of Adulthood.
It is automatic for us to draw up Adulthood’s cultural dualistic classification: Childhood.  Being asked if you are an adult is primarily the same as being asked if you are a child.  It seems that if you are not one, then you are the other.  I remembered a list of Adulthood/Childhood dualisms from a book called Consumed by Benjamin R. Barber, created as a development of concepts from social critic Neil Postman‘s book, The Disappearance of Childhood.  The list of dualisms looks like this:
DELIBERATION or IMPULSE
REASON or FEELING
UNCERTAINTY or CERTAINTY
DOUBT or DOGMATISM
WORK or PLAY
WORDS or PICTURES
IDEAS or IMAGES
HAPPINESS or PLEASURE
LONG-TERM SATISFACTION or INSTANT GRATIFICATION
ALTRUISM or EGOISM
PUBLIC or PRIVATE
SOCIABILITY or NARCISSISM
OBLIGATION (RESPONSIBILITY) or ENTITLEMENT (RIGHT)
EROTIC LOVE or PHYSICAL SEXUALITY
COMMUNITY or INDIVIDUALISM
KNOWLEDGE or IGNORANCE

Barber simplifies these and the rest of the dyads in to: HARD or EASY, COMPLEX or SIMPLE, and SLOW or FAST (ironic that he simplifies his essay for the sake of his "Adult" audience!).  You can see that these are fairly telling but also somewhat limited words to employ when defining what is realistically such a critical distinction to make for sake of our Personal, Spiritual, Relational, Social, and Employable well-being.  If we cast ourselves in to the first set of definitions, are we sure we are being honest with ourselves, or are we merely posturing for the sake of our fragile self-esteem?  I want to unpack some thoughts on a few of these concepts in particular, which I shall in a short series I’m calling "On Adulthood: Characteristics of Fluency."