If you’re anything like me you have loved your college experience. You’ve loved moving out on your own, becoming independent and being treated like an adult. It’s great isn’t it? Being able to do what you want, when you want. Everything is all peachy and great until the semester ends or your lease is up and you wander back to your parents’ home. Back again you go to the house you grew up in, to your childhood bedroom where almost immediately, you become a child again. Gone with your independence, gone with your adult status; child once again.

It’s the littlest things that always make you feel like an adult. Buying your own groceries, choosing your own bedtime, cleaning when you want to clean, making the decision to buy yourself something nice if you think you deserve it.

It’s the small things.

Granted, when you come home for the summer all you typically have to do is ask your parents for things like groceries, and your parents probably don’t still set your bedtime, but it’s just not the same as living on your own.

One of the biggest dilemmas for a half-adult-half-child hybrid is merely listening to their parents. I’ve always had a great relationship with my parents and listening to them has never been a problem for me. But now, that I’ve been out on my own making my own decisions, something just irks me about someone telling me what to do. I’m not referring to instances where parents are genuinely trying to offer life advice but rather, when parents instruct their child to do something(like pick up a dish) right then and there. I feel as though when someone like a parent instructs you to do something trivial, they don’t trust you to have the initiative to do so on your own. And that, right there is the root of the issue for half-adult/half-child hybrids; trust.

Trust is huge between a child and their parent. And the way I see it, if a parent trusts their child to move out and live on their own, they should then trust their child to independently function under their roof when they return home.

A supplementary issue that those stuck in between childhood and adulthood typically encounters is when a parent doesn’t fully understand the professional side of their child. I know that this is a prominent issue for myself in particular. I am sure that parents are aware that their children are learning and growing as professionals while away at school or work but I’m not convinced that they understand the caliber to which their children are performing. What this honestly burns down to is, a little respect would be nice. We are no longer children who fully depend on others for survival. We are grown up, ass kicking, professionals; and that’s all we want our parents to know and fully understand.

So, at the end of the day, I offer no panacea for the half-adult-half-child hybrid. All that we can do is hold on tight, appreciate your parents’ insight and hope for better days.