<p>boysx3 - I love it. A touching moment.</p>
<p>We will know they are all grown up when:</p>
<p>a) they implement an honest financial system
b) develop a health care system that works
c) don’t need to use war to solve international problems</p>
<p>I was pretty mature at 16 when I graduated from high school, traveled around the world (well Europe and Africa) on my own, dealt with a bank account in a foreign country. I took another step to maturity summer after sophomore year when I spent my first summer away from parents, renting an apartment and supporting myself on my earnings. </p>
<p>My son was a lot older than me when he graduated from high school, but like me spent his first summer on his own after his sophomore year. He arranged housing, job, finances etc. on his own without any input from us. (Though with some help from the company that hired him.)</p>
<p>OMG! I needed to read this thread today. High school just called to say someone found my American Express card in the parking lot. I had given it to D, a senior, to get gas at lunch (and pay me back for half of it with her babysitting money). Because I had to go to school to retrieve it, I decided I had better take freshman S’s winter coat, that he couldn’t find this morning. It’s 12 degrees and he walked to school without a coat this morning. I’m an enabler, aren’t I?</p>
<p>I am hoping that I will be grown up pretty soon. I have been paying my own bills, doing my own laundry, fighting my own battles, arranging my own travel, etc. for 30+ years, but there are some deep areas of immaturity that keep hanging around. My wife hopes the same thing (for me), but she’s a lot less optimistic about it. She, on the other hand, was basically grown up sometime around 12, although she didn’t learn how not to tell the complete, unvarnished truth all the time until she was in her mid-20s.</p>
<p>I noticed a marked difference in my S1 between age 20 and 21. Just a totally different kid. He came home for a month and he was just more self sufficient, more thoughtful, more confident…just a joy to be around. He was a pain as a teenager. I didn’t expect that until about age 28 LOL. Hope it sticks. He’ll be home again in a week and we haven’t been around him for 9 months…we’ll see.</p>
<p>I think you just have to hang in there and look for those positive baby steps as they make progress…and remember too that it depends on your expectations as far as what you expect for them to be considered all grown up. My dad (73) says that you never stop worrying about your children even after they’re grown and married - he also says that he always knew that he’d worry about the children and the grandchildren but didn’t know he’d also worry about the grand-dog!</p>
<p>On the issuing of enabling, DD’s high school of all girls tried to help with that by having a policy that parents were not allowed to drop <em>anything</em> off at school for child…not forgotten lunch, projects, papers, texbooks, backpack, nothing. It did help a bit because they got burned on something once, they tended to remember the next time.</p>
<p>When do they grow up? I know the exact date. August 29 2005. D was 20 and Hurricane Katrina forced her to evacuate her apartment with four friends. Apartment, clothes, books, musical instruments etc gone. She grew up fast that weekend and has been pretty focused, mature and determined since. She did it all by herself. A rough way to mature, but it IS an ill wind indeed that does not blow some one some good.</p>
<p>Magnolia, that’s an interesting rule. I do agree that “the rescue” does not “help” kids become self sufficient. Unfortunately (or fortunately) for our kids both my husband’s and my office were an hour away. We’d have the kids organize their “stuff” the night before and see them out the door then we were both on the road. They would forget stuff now and then if they forgot to pull it together the night before and those were my “bad mom” days because I knew there were dozens of other “moms” that could run stuff out to the school but my kids never gave us lip about it and they took their knocks I’m sure, they knew deep inside in was “on them” to remember the gym bag or the homework or whatever. Baby steps, yes, for sure.</p>
<p>at 51, there are parts of my personality that have been grown up since I was 16…other parts are still a work in progress and some aspects of my personality will never hit maturity (due to baggage)…so many aspects to “maturity”…</p>
<p>with my own kids, definitely baby steps as MOTB says…</p>
<p>When we die.</p>
<p>I’m 54, but I didn’t feel that I had truly grown up until the last of my parents died 5 years ago.</p>
<p>Being independent and self driven in college has nothing to do with being grown up. I noticed that some of the highest achieving peers of my S (now 25) floundered after graduating when there was no longer a direct structured linear path in front of them. I see it in D who is a sophomore. She’s finally realizing that her happiness is her own responsibility, that her college experience is going to be what she makes of it. </p>
<p>For S, it was definitely this past year that he has really grown up. It wasn’t so much a change in behavior as an emotional shift, a realization that it is up to him to create the life he wants. I still buy him underwear though. He is truly appreciative instead of taking it for granted. I guess that’s another sign he’s grown up!</p>
<p>For us, it was a given that the path to independence and self-reliance was the goal from infancy. Two parts of the college app process were still challenging: getting the !@#$%^&*! essays done (so much for my theory about doing them over the summer twixt 11th and 12th grade), where a kind of paralysis seemed to set in for several weeks. D finally started talking about it, asked me one question, and my answer had the effect of bursting the pent up dam…I wish she’d sucked it up to ask me a couple of months earlier instead of non-productively stewing about it.</p>
<p>The other thing was test prep. D hates standardized tests with a passion. And I’m of the opinion that the SAT measures basically how well you do on the SAT. Nonetheless, too much was at stake to blow it off and I insisted on her doing test prep, to which she acquiesced with a tolerable grudging spirit, and the result was not only some very flashy test scores, but some significant merit-based aid. (As it turns out, I don’ t think the scores affected her admissions decisions…still turned down by HYS, in at her other four.) Now that she’s out on her own, she repeated the same pattern, putting off the GRE prep and then finally sucking it up and prepping with a furious attack that got the requisite 800 Quant needed for the programs she’s interested in.</p>
<p>But on other issues, including being a very self-reliant international traveler, managing her monthly budget, dealing with work relationships, I think she’s very mature if still somewhat self-conscious about being so young at work.</p>
<p>I"ve notice increasing maturity & independence by my S. My sister commented on it as well when he & D & their cousin went on a trip to Taiwan 1.5 years ago. He took charge & made sure they stuck with the group & got where they needed to.</p>
<p>He has taken charge of securing his housing, dealing with landlords, making sure he has enough money in his account, paying his rent, submitting invoices for hsi work & getting paid. It has worked pretty well. He still doesn’t do his own tax returns but at this point that’s pretty minor.</p>
<p>He also has been helping D get “settled.” He still likes me to handle all his air travel arrangements, but I guess many “adults” have travel agents too. For the most part, he’s gradually taking more & more charge for things & the transition is working well for both of us.</p>