Regular readers of The Long Haul Project will know that I periodically write about our decision not to have kids. This decision has not been an easy one. I reassure myself that not having kids is a valid choice for someone who feels limited (to no) maternal instincts. I relish the opportunities and experiences that we’re able to explore because we’re not in nesting mode. But, thus far, I haven’t managed to completely quell the creeping voices of doubt and uncertainty. I wrote about them before here, contemplating if the decision not to have kids meant I was callous and unwomanly. And I’ve been thinking about the topic this week, but now I’m wondering if our decision not to become parents means that we’ll never become real grown-ups.

Livin' the Downton way

I just spent a few days visiting my parents. It’s weird but wonderful to visit “home”. A place where other people procure and prepare food for you, always picks up the tab at a restaurant, buy you cute clothes just because, even make your bed while you’re taking a shower. It’s what I imagine life would like with a Sugar Daddy, or if I lived at Downton Abbey.

My parents’ house is spotlessly clean. I don’t know how they do it, but I never see dust on shelves or dishes left in the sink or scuff marks on the floor. They never run out of anything– there’s an abundance. The refrigerator is always stocked, their huge bathroom is full to the brim with yummy-smelling soaps and lotions, there’s a stack of magazines to read, the television in the guest bedroom has more than 1,000 channels. When I’m there, I feel a soporific sense of being safe and protected; like I’m a kid again.

I’m 34 years old. Every week, my husband and I stare into the bright, bare abyss of our refrigerator trying to figure out what recipe we can concoct from half a cucumber, olives and a block of cheddar cheese. We’re often on the brink of a toiletry crisis. We don’t have cable TV or a car. Sometimes I wonder when we’re going to grow up, and suspect maybe we’re not… or at least in the same way our parents grew up.

When my parents were 34, they had a 7 year old (me) and a 4-year old (my brother). They had to think about getting us to school, preparing our meals, taking care of us when we were ill. Letting the refrigerator go bare or giving up their car wasn’t an option. Neither was the risk of starting their own business, renting their house and moving to the city, or taking time off to travel. My parents’ decision to start a family put them on the path towards a specific kind of adulthood; one with responsibilities that Tom and I don’t have. And let’s face it, responsibilities that we’ve run a mile to avoid.

I love the life that Tom and I have made for ourselves, I really do. I can’t help but worry, though. If I don’t have kids and experience that kind of adulthood, am I an adult at all? Am I in a state of suspended adolescence, never moving past the inherent self-absorption of youth?  Am I on a path to being 70 years old and still shopping at Forever 21? Will the day ever come when I learn how to buy enough food at the grocery store to make it through a week of cooking dinners?

How about you? Do you feel like a “grown-up”?  When did you realize you had passed into adulthood? Did it involve having kids or was it another rite of passage? As always, love reading your comments!