The scariest part of becoming an adult is not making your own doctor’s appointment or having to learn how to do taxes. It’s that children will now see you as an adult and rely on you for help and protection.
A comedian once told a story where his son came into his bedroom at night and said he was scared because he heard a sound outside. The comedian said “Oh shit we better get an adult. Oh no. I’m the adult” and the first time this new role as expected protector of children really became clear for me was when my neighbor’s daughter knocked on my door and asked me to come help her and her friend get a dog back into the house.
Long story short my neighbor was running a small dog recuse for Eastern European street dogs and one got outside while the kids were home alone. They had managed to corner it in the front garden but had been told to never touch it for their own safety. As I followed the girl into the garden I heard her yell to her friend “I got an adult!” and I had the same feeling as the comedian “Oh no. I’m the adult” It turned out to be a midsized dog that could have hurt me but very unlikely to kill me and luckily it wasn’t aggressive at all and the situation was easily solved.
Since then I’ve been in several situations where children have looked to me for help or protection, including strangers. And I know people will want to rant about how parents should be more protective of their children but that’s not the point. When you’re an adult you’re a real shithead if you don’t help young children because they are completely reliant on adults for survival and sometimes that can be scary but you’re an adult now so at the very least you have to get them somewhere safe. One time a young boy approached be at a bus stop because a group of older teenagers had stolen his phone and were now following him. Groups of teenage boys can be fucking monsters and I was probably as scared as him but I took a photo of the group in the messenger app which meant the image was immediately sent to my friend, which made them back off when they realized they had no way of getting out of it. I ended up following the boy home. It was terrifying and I missed my bus but that’s the scariest part of being an adult we never consider as children.
Judging by some of the responses I feel like I might not have been entirely clear.
It isn’t about realizing that you have to look after younger children because I think most people know that pretty early on in their own childhood. It’s about the realization that it has gone from an internal moral compass to an external expectation purely based on your age.
I was more like a parent than a sibling to my sister who is 11 years younger than me. It was part expectation, part because I wanted to, and I felt an obligation to help other children younger than me because I couldn’t stand to see them sad or scared, but my “Oh no. I’m the adult” came from realizing it was no longer about morals or feelings but an assumption, not just from other adults but from children who know took one look at me and assumed I’d always be able to help them as if I was a firefighter or doctor. Even if you were surrounded by shitty adults who expected you to do way too much way too early you always eventually realize that’s not normal and that the majority of people didn’t actually expect you to do it even if had resulted in harm of another child. Now it’s expected and children you don’t even know assume you can help them and other adults expect you to do it on your own and you’re suddenly very aware that you’re an Adult.
I mostly wanted to make that clear because even if that wasn’t the intend, saying “Taking care of others comes very naturally to me so I never experienced that” comes off as implying other people don’t naturally want to help children. It’s not about wanting to help, it’s the pressure of all of society and especially children suddenly assuming you can and putting complete faith in you despite you not feeling any differently.
Happy tenth anniversary to this comic. I just learned that it’s still being shared constantly on Tumblr. I don’t totally understand why people like it so much, but I like it too.
Ya ever agree to way too much and overwhelm yourself to the point of full mental shut down and then suddenly 8 months have passed and you still haven’t even gotten halfway through the project you agreed to do so you avoid all social media whatsoever so that the person who asked you to do this project for them just thinks you dropped off the face of the earth but you really do want to drop off the face of the earth due to guilt and anxiety? Yea that’s today’s vibe anyway here’s the unblocked lacework I’ve been working on for 8 months.
decided that my favorite book trope is when the female love interest is in mortal peril and the male main character goes absolutely fucking feral to protect her
i don’t think people understand the irony of the date on this post. yes it’s jan 31st and it’s a mood so every jan 31st we reblog it. but guys… this was made in Jan 2020. By the first week of February covid numbers were finally starting to come out of china, by mid Feb Italy was shutting down and by the end of Feb half the world was entering their covid lockdowns. OP Jan may have be tough but you had a big storm coming
wasn’t January 2020 when the US almost got into a new war in Iran
