Recognizing Adulthood

I worked in youth ministry for 10 years. But I left at least as many years ago to concentrate on my own children. All the kids I had in youth ministry are adults now.  I think all of them are older now than I was when I began in youth ministry. They have jobs, educations-some of them PhDs, children-one of them has twins, and houses.  And yet I still think of them as kids sometimes.  I meet and work with people who are the same ages as those youth group kids are and have no problem thinking of them as adults.  The same happens when it comes to my own adult children.  It is a weird thing our human brains do.  A few blogs ago I talked about finding the adults in our adult children. It is proving almost harder to recognize the adults in all of those kids I watched grow up. Why is that? 

I suppose it could have something to do with not getting older myself.  If I am not old enough to have an adult child how can my child be an adult?  "I don't remember getting older when did they." (So how many of you know that song so well that you just sang that sentence? I sang it as I typed it.) Maybe I just can't trust that we actually gave them everything they needed to be adults. Maybe I can't remember being that young.  More likely I saw myself as older at that age than they seem - which of course is a delusion on my part. Maybe I thought I would be at a different place at this age.  Have you noticed that when you were younger "old" people seemed more, I don't know, together? Or older? Or smarter? Or established? Or something. Now that I am "old" I don't know many people my age that seem as whatever as the "old" people did when I was younger. Old doesn't seem as old.

One of my problems is that I got married and started having babies right out of college.  Today, couples are not even getting married until the age that I already had 3 or 4 or 5 kids. Then there are those who are getting married out of highschool and starting families. I wasn't even having a real life by then. I recently started working with a really nice young man who is a businessman. He knows some of the same people I do. He is a member of the Rotary Club. Just got engaged. Without him, I would not be as comfortable in my new role as cantor. He is an adult. I am old enough to be his mother, without stretching it. I don't feel parently toward him. Well, maybe a little. And yes, I just made up the word 'parently'.

So what can I learn from this?  What sage wisdom can I pass on?

Age is relative. Age is all wibbly, wobbly, timey, whimey. You are only as old as you feel but everybody around you is as old as they are. Some people are wise beyond their years and some will just never be wise. Age is a linear construct imposed on a non-linear function for the sake of convenience. Ok, now I am just making stuff up.

I got no real wisdomy things to say. Check back later. Maybe I will have something then. Or at least have a few more made up words.

Oh, by the way, the song is "Sunrise, sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof. In rehearsals as we speak at the Newport Opera House.