When we were young, we were continuously protected by our parents, our immediate family, our extended family, our teachers and our close family friends — the list of our gracious protectors goes on and on. We lived in a world that for the most part, seemed like a perfect place. If we fell down, we had someone there to clean and bandage our scratches. As years went by, we were hit with the tough reality that the person who has to clean and bandage our scratches is ourselves.
Being in college seems like the biggest uphill battle, and this is just the beginning of the rest of our lives. It’s overwhelming, it sucks and it’s hard. Sure, we have people who are going to be there to lend a helping hand, wisdom or some good advice, but ultimately we’re responsible for figuring out this crazy thing called life. There are a million aspects to growing up that really suck, but I've narrowed it down to what I personally believe to be the top 10 things that simply make growing up the absolute worst.
1. Being your own shoulder to cry on.
When you grow up and move out of the house, you don’t get to run to your parent’s room anymore when you’re scared and can’t sleep. Everyone important in your life is surely just a phone call away, but at the end of the day, you have to pull yourself together and figure it out on your own. There is no escaping the fact that no one can put on a brave face and be strong for you anymore — that’s your job now.
2. Cooking.
Not everyone struggles with cooking and not everyone hates cooking, but everyone does have those really long days when you get home and are starving but can’t find the energy to make yourself something to eat. We don’t have dinner waiting at home for us anymore and we don’t have our parents to give us money to stop and pick something up on the way. We inevitably start eating fast food 50 times more and forget what it’s like to eat a home-cooked meal. Cooking takes time, and we look back and wonder how our parents did it nearly every night of the week for 18 years.
3. Losing relationships.
You meet people, you become close and you spend nearly every day together; they become your people. What we don’t think about in those moments when we’re making those memories is what it would be like to lose them. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing that we don’t think about it because no one plans on losing people, but not everything lasts forever. Growing up means you kind of just lose people along the way. Everyone goes through different things throughout the years, people change and life happens. There’s just something about losing people you thought you’d always have that really makes you realize how much growing up sucks.
4. Missing nap time.
How did we ever cry when we were told we had to take a nap in daycare? If someone were to tell us now that we have to take a nap, we’d say when and where. The older we get, the more sacred naps are. They have become our most prized possession and when we don’t get to take one it’s all we talk about. Parents give their young children naps so that they aren’t crabby; we have the same reasoning behind giving ourselves naps as adults.
5. Grocery shopping.
Well, now we know why our moms hated going grocery shopping. Walking into a grocery store for the first time on our own can be the most intimidating thing ever. We think, “Do I need a cart or a basket? Or can I just carry it all?” or “What aisle is the ramen in? Wait, maybe I should try to be healthy, so where’s the organic aisle?” It’s scary and no matter how many lists we make, we still end up calling Mom to ask her what she thinks we should buy. To think we’re going to be making at least two trips a month to the grocery store for the rest of our lives leads us to finding the wine aisle.
6. Waking up on time.
Growing up, we would set our alarm clocks that sat on our nightstands, but would end up hitting snooze about 50 times in the morning. Some of us had a personal alarm clock referred to as “Mom” that would eventually come in and yell until we were so annoyed that we’d get up just so she would leave us alone. Now we understand that life doesn’t have a snooze button, and it also doesn’t wait up for us to get out of bed.
7. Going to appointments.
Whether you’re 20 or 25, there’s no point in trying to deny that we all wish we could still bring our parents to our dentist appointments with us. We try to find any excuse to get them to come with — “Sorry, Mom, they said I have to get a cavity filled, I think that means you have to give me a ride home.” OK, no, that’s not what that means, but we wish it was. Our parents know our medical history when the doctor asks for it; they know all the medications we’ve been on, and their presence somehow makes it all a little less scary. Growing up means we have to sign all the forms and face every appointment alone.
8. Not becoming famous.
You realize it's time to get your life together and get a big kid job. Maybe it’s just me but I grew up planning my whole life around the fact that I would marry Justin Bieber and win "American Idol." Well, it’s 2016, I’m 20 and single, and "American Idol" just finished its last season. If that isn’t reality slapping me square in the face...
9. No birthday cards with money.
As a kid, we would get birthday cards containing money from close family, distant family, twice removed family, our neighbor's mom, our babysitter's cousin and 30 other random people. But why? I was 13 and the only thing I had to pay for was that month's J-14 magazine containing poster-sized Jonas Brothers' pictures. Now we get excited when we receive a card reminding us that at least our grandma remembers us. I’m not complaining because I never have and never will expect anything on my birthday, but it’s OK to miss getting birthday money equaling the amount we make now in a two-week paycheck.
10. Realizing money doesn’t grow on trees.
We spend our childhood not thinking about money, where it comes from or the significance of it — which is good because children shouldn’t have to worry about those kinds of things. However, college hits us like a ton of bricks. We graduate high school and then all of the sudden, we’re begging our parents to transfer money into our accounts for food because we ran out of money on our college meal plans. We quickly realize that money has to be earned and spent wisely, so we miss the days when we’d get allowance money and spend it all on candy. Growing up will make you contemplate that if you hadn’t spent your allowance money on candy when you were 10, you’d be about $50 richer right now…
