When a parent says 'why are you in such a hurry to grow up?'

I'm just curious, who here heard this one as a kid? Have you used it on yours? What does this question represent to you? What qualifies as 'being in a hurry to grow up'? I'm sure what everyone else will say won't compare in any way to my story:

As a child I quickly became bored with our boring little town, I figured out early on that there wasn't anything to do: we couldn't go to the movies because 'that's a waste of money', I wanted to try bowling but nobody else likes bowling so that was that, there was no arcade, we're 200 miles away from the nearest amusement park, when I was 9 the circus came to a neighboring town and I wanted to go, but no, we don't travel anywhere for anything that's not job or emergency related, and I was not content to just sit around wait until I was grown up to actually do things.

All my life I wanted to go to amusement parks, I wanted to take dance classes, I wanted to go bowling, I wanted to get a dirt bike, when I was 10 or 12, I wanted to go on game shows and win money and prizes and I had found out about a junior round of Jeopardy for kids to go on, and I wanted to go and audition for that, and that was when my mother said those 10 words 'why are you in such a hurry to grow up?' and then proceeded to go into further comments of kids who get to do everything when they're young kill themselves because there's nothing left for them to do.

As a child I never really questioned that because I had a very limited idea of what all there WAS to do, but when I got older, that made no sense to me whatsoever...so let's say as a kid you get to go to Disney World and you go to Worlds of Fun and get to go on Double Dare or Mad Libs or Wheel of Fortune, and get to go camping or boating or whatever, there is still a whole world out there to see and places to go and people to meet and things to do.

Now, people agree, when you give a child all the material things they could ever want at an early age, the only place for them left to go is to sex and drugs, but this was not a matter of gimme gimme gimme, it was a matter of wanting to get out of the house and see what there was out there and being able to travel and do adventurous things. And that to me had absolutely NOTHING to do with wanting to grow up because even kids can travel and become worldly.


Anyhow that's just my two cents, what're everyone else's thoughts?

It was never used on me as a kid, I grew up pretty much near everything you mentioned so going places and doing things was not a problem.

Now that your an adult why can't you start doing the things you so wanted to do?

The smaller stuff like bowling and going to movies I do, but the other stuff still involves a large deal of traveling, and we have 1 car between 3 people and I'm currently in no position to take time off to do any traveling since I'm relied on to run the house a large part of the time. That's one reason why it would be good if we'd win the lottery because then everything wouldn't have to be on such a schedule and we would have time to travel.

Supernova wrote:The smaller stuff like bowling and going to movies I do, but the other stuff still involves a large deal of traveling, and we have 1 car between 3 people and I'm currently in no position to take time off to do any traveling since I'm relied on to run the house a large part of the time. That's one reason why it would be good if we'd win the lottery because then everything wouldn't have to be on such a schedule and we would have time to travel.

I hear ya, I wish I could win the lottery too!!!!

That's just a parents way of trying to combat the inevitable. Part of growing up is being in a hurry to.

Folks didn't say that to me.

No offense but ur mom sounds like a major control freak that wants to keep you under lock & key. Most of what you describe wanting to do there aint even adult activity.

I'm sorry. What was the question again?

Alan Smithee wrote:I'm sorry. What was the question again?

WHen a parent says 'why are you in a hurry to grow up?', were you ever on the receiving end of this question, and when you hear it, what to you qualifies as a kid doing just that, being in a hurry to grow up?

I wasn't asked that question but I was advised not to be in a hurry to assume adult responsibilities even if they came with adult freedoms.

Bless your heart for wanting a dirt bike. Same here. Though I left at 18 because I couldn't tolerate a backwoods life. I turned 18, moved, got a three wheeler and a couple years later, started to ride dirt bikes. All while living in the city... So, you are not to old to start to ride.

RobbieFTW wrote:No offense but ur mom sounds like a major control freak that wants to keep you under lock & key. Most of what you describe wanting to do there aint even adult activity.

I know huh? Imagine my surprise when just recently she confessed she's about as tired of this place as I am and about as anxious to get the hell out...when I asked her why she never said any of this years ago and made it like it was just me, ergo I was the problem, her response was something to the effect of so I wouldn't always be wanting to get out when it wasn't a possibility, except being the lone wolf never changed one damn thing, I still wanted to get the hell out. Especially with winter coming we're BOTH wishing we could get out of here.