on growing up

Caveat: For those of you who err on the side of being sadistic, narcissistic, risk-averse, or stereotypically “male” in your relational style, you might benefit more from a slightly different angle on this topic – and many other topics on this blog, actually. This is written from my personal experience as a person who errs on the side of being masochistic, borderline, risk-prone, and stereotypically “female” in my relational style. If you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, either ask or disregard this part. :)

Over the course of the past 2 months, I have bought a house, replaced the adventurous Jeep Wrangler with a safe, family-friendly, Volvo station wagon, and started a “real job” as a psychotherapist. I have begun crossing the threshold into what our culture defines as “adulthood,” and I am scared.

My dilemma as I take on these new responsibilities is that I believe that we (in American culture) overrate the value of and define ourselves entirely too much by these “marks of adulthood.” Part of the reason I haven’t made these choices earlier in my life is because my personal values and desires don’t necessarily fit into what feels like the sterile, generic, lifeless box of a house, car, career with benefits, and 2.5 children. Ugh – that depresses me actually.

But here I am – pursuing a master’s level career, a family-friendly car, a house, and possibly 2.5 children, and I can’t help but wonder if I’ve sold out. Am I turning away from open, adventurous exploration of myself and the world and putting myself in a sterile, generic, lifeless box?

Let me explain my fear a little bit more. Some common explicit and implicit messages that our culture claims as inevitable truth about “growing up”:

Marriage = bondage, rules, obligations (ball and chain)
Marriage = the end of your social life
Marriage = the end of passion, creativity, sex, intimacy
Career = money
Career = the end of playing/ having fun
Children = the end of traveling
Children = the end of your personal interests, passions, dreams, pursuits
Children = the end of what little scraps of passion, creativity, sex, and intimacy you managed to salvage after the trauma of marriage.
Children = the end of marriage
Children = the end of your life as you know it

Are you kidding me?! No wonder I have felt hesitant and fearful of entering any of these phases of “adulthood.”

Granted, I don’t want to miss the wisdom that underlies these depressing, hopeless, and all-too-often-unnecessarily-true messages… There are huge risks and significant sacrifice that are necessary to maintain a healthy, godly, life-giving marriage, career, and having children. But I don’t believe for 1 second that many of the values, passions, pleasures, relationships that are sacrificed are necessary or good.

The moment that my marriage, career, and children become more life-sucking than life-giving to me, I know something is wrong. Even more than my own suffering, how can they (my family) possibly benefit from my self-sacrificial misery? And how can I truly give to them when I am so deeply depleted?

Of course, there will always be moments, days, months, and maybe even years when the life-sucking feeling might dominate the life-giving feeling. But I refuse (for the sake of myself and every other person in my life) to accept the life-sucking possibility of marriage, career, and children as the “inevitable reality” to which I must resign. I hope and pray that I’ll always find the strength and faith to fight for life-giving goodness, beauty, and pleasure in every area of my life and relationships.