This year of my life is an interesting one for me to contemplate (24, hitting the quarter century mark in October.) There are the obvious reasons for this, like I’m sort-of-officially-an-adult now… I’m no longer “just out of college”; I am instead fully entrenched in the “young professional” category. I’m no longer “too young to be thinking about marriage”; aunts and uncles and grandparents and family friends now want to know “if I’m dating anyone” in a “when should I save the date?” kind of way. Instead of encouraging me to throw caution to the wind and backpack around Europe for a summer, people want to know what my career plans are.
WTF? When did this growing up BS start?
Honestly, I don’t really mind. I like the young professional life much more than I liked college (having money is awesome, and the whole leave-work-at-work thing is fabulous, rather than always having some homework/exam/paper hanging over your head). I sort of have the feeling that I’m the kind of person who will enjoy life more and more as each year goes by, knockonwood. But, there is something about this point in my life that kind of freaks me out.
At my age, my mother had been married for almost 10 months.
She had been pregnant for 6.
With me.
I know, I know, times have changed and all that, things were different twenty five years ago. But still. If I was living my life as my mom did, I would be married. To a husband. And pregnant. With a baby. That was going to come out of me. This fall.
(Can’t you just picture my face at the thought?)
Sidebar: My mother was the best mom that anyone could ever, ever ask for. She worked hard before we were born and then stayed home with us when we were little and cooked and cleaned and drove us to every friend’s house and soccer practice and gymnastics and made me spaghetti O’s when I was an ungrateful little brat who wouldn’t eat the amazing dinner she’d made and then when we were older she went back to work part-time and then full-time so that they could give us everything that they wanted to and gave me ambition and opportunity and confidence in myself and always always always made sure, above all else, that we knew how very very much we were loved.
It’s not that I don’t ever want to have kids; I’m definitely open to the idea. (And when they’d have a grandmother like that, how could I not?) It’s just that right now, the idea of that is basically the most terrifying thing that I can think of (with marriage coming in at a close second). That’s something grown ups do. And I’m definitely not a grown up. Just because I have a boring office job and support myself and am in charge of all the decisions that are pertinent to my life doesn’t mean… oh wait. Shit. Am I… when did I… does this mean…
Holy schnikes. I’m a big kid now.
Someone get out the big girl panties… because somehow, some way… I am officially an adult.
(But I refuse to feel like one.)
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For the past 4+ years, my mother’s been taking every opportunity she can find to match me up. Pretty much her only criteria are that the girl is 1) alive, 2) more or less close to my age, and 3) “nice.”
I don’t get it. My older sister is married and already has given my mother a grandchild, so what the crap is the rush with me?
Yeah, I don’t know what it is, but my parents went from the “you’re too young to settle down” to the “why don’t you find a nice boy to marry” in a flash. I can’t remember when the changeover happened, I think around 31.
Women had to get married younger a few decades back because a) they usually went from their parental home to a husband home and b) money – wage gap way bigger back then.
When the girls put on their shoulder pads and bust back into work, all the rules of the game changed. I still think I’m too young to get married and I just turned 35. Shit!!
Career plans?
*shudder*
i-66: I don’t think there’s a worse adjective to describe a person than “nice”… you might as well just say, “generic”…
velvet: my mom actually still tells me to take my time (I think because she was so young – MY AGE – and she wants more for me as far as enjoying life. But the extended family… they’re already laying it on thick. Part of me thinks it’s just because, honestly, what else do we really have to talk about, after we exhaust the weather?
rachel: You said it.
In that I’ve never brought a man hometo meet the family, I’m pretty sure my mother thinks I’m a lesbian. That, and I once had short-short hair. The truth is that I think any boyfriends would be traumatized by our dysfunctional family dynamic. So I’ve never been victim of the marriage/kids goading that my sisters have been subject to.
I’ll take it! Whatever works…
Freckledk- Ha, so funny. I actually wondered about my sister for a while, because I’d never so much as heard her talk about a guy being cute in some sixteen or seventeen years… then she got a really douchey boyfriend, and I knew she truly was my sister.
Thank goodness he’s way out of the picture now!
Don’t hate on douchey men…they are here to teach us things.
Thanks for reading and commenting on my blog! I definitely developed a crush on the city and I’m trying to plot & scheme my way back up there.
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I wrote a similar post to this back in April when I turned 28. I’m still waiting for that “grown-up” switch to flip while simultaneously grasping for the remains of my youth. At my age, my mother had been married for 7 years and I was 6 years old. Me? I just can’t wait to whoop it up in Adams Morgan again!
Shannon- I hear you 100%. Things are sooooo different now… and thank god.
I also have the most amazing mom. Hardworking, loving, smart… and she was married at 20 and had me at 21. Im 23 and not ready for kkids at all (I stutter because Im afraid.) Part of me wants to lean into that old world mentality and be a homemaker, but Im too selfish and looove to go to the gym whenever I want and screw being needed etc. So…. we’ll see.