Time to Grow Up!
A modern problem
There is an undiagnosed, and often unrecognised, problem in our society — growing up, or rather not growing up. I’ve been involved in a couple of conversations recently where people of my age have talked about our peers, or ourselves, not being grown up.
So what’s gone wrong? Yes, we are grown, we are physically mature, we have our own children and even grandchildren, but we’re lacking maturity.
I used to work for the Inland Revenue when I was in my late thirties, many of the people in my team were of a similar age to me and would talk of the ‘grown ups’ — the lower reaches of senior management. It never had a good feel to it. Some of the ‘grown ups’ had a bullying attitude, it was depressing and damaging. They were like mean parents who mistreated their children. Perhaps they succumbed to organisational bad karma — grade conscious, patriarchal, hierarchical — or, more likely perhaps, they were not mature enough to handle their own position and treat younger people below them appropriately. Unless they were just bullies — an arrested state of juvenile development.
So, here comes the science bit — what causes this? We grow up, we get bigger, taller, develop into physically mature humans, but there is something missing. In fact there are gaps in our society, or communities, and families. We are not integrated and connected enough with each other to pass successfully from child to adult, this is the work of young and then maturing adulthood. The expression itself — ‘grown up’ — is one that is used in relation to children. If you hear adults (the proper description) using it with each other then you know that something has gone wrong.
In life there are few user manuals, we are not taught how to be ‘grown ups’, or parents, or how to form relationships with other people. This is where rites of passage come in, but they are lacking in majority white, Western European culture, lacking even in intergenerational places like churches. They may be lacking in other cultures and communities but I cannot comment on them. Some of my own personal development includes native American and shamanic practices, e.g. the Vision Quest — a rite of passage which forces one to engage with life and death through three or four days of complete fasting, only water is allowed. I have also received psychotherapy and group therapy over the last fifteen years. One of the most basic, and most demanding, questions in this therapeutic ‘work’ is — ‘Who am I?’ I am still working out the full answer but wrestling with this question is transformative. It’s an easy question not to ask, as you have probably just realised.
And what of growing up, of being adult? It is to be present with oneself, not determined by others or losing sight of ‘me’ in their expectations. It also means accepting responsibility. You may be aware of the parent/child/adult transactional analysis model, or of the more pointed victim/rescuer/persecutor. If we are ‘grown up’ then we want to be and behave with others as adults, if we are aware, neither parenting others (taking away their responsibility and their own realisation), nor being parented (patronised, subordinated and disempowered). If you have some awareness of this, feel it for yourself when you are with other people, hold your ground, don’t interfere or intervene (parent) or let someone else take over, even infantilise you (child).
It is even worse to be in any position in the victim (‘poor me’), rescuer (‘poor you, let me fix it’) or persecutor model (‘I’m going to make things hard for you and turn you into a victim’). You may notice some people around you who are adult — calmer, not interfering — they stand out from others, they are leaders, or good leaders, there aren’t many good leaders around. Society does not help, it enshrines these unhealthy positions and stages in arrested development.
There is much more to be said but this is an awareness-raiser, not an essay, nor a fix. If you’re interested in digging deeper into this add a comment below (I always read them), connect with me on Twitter, or send me an email.
