A friend and I were chatting the other day about how we each define the notion of adulthood and how we have be boiled down to three essential events: Marriage, Home Ownership, and Child Rearing. Now, for certain, none of these is a measure of maturity, responsibility, or preparedness. They are just three random events that we both thought are the best indicators of when society at large would stamp your papers and usher you into the exclusive club of grown ups. The thing of it is that as Management and I check off the last box neither of us feels very grown up at all and we are left wondering if others feel the same as we do.

Is “Adulthood” a real mental state or is it some arbitrary construct used to divide those towing the line of society at large and those who are not? Management and I have friends at the same stage as we are who certainly seem more adult than we by being more staid, reserved, and possibly a touch dour–maybe having children does that–as well as friends married for a couple of years who seem stuck in neutral at 15. We seem to fall somewhere in the middle straddling the line between acting responsible and essentially flitting about in a place where Oreos and cold pizza is a complete breakfast, cartoons are for any hour of the day all week long, and getting new music each month is a necessity on par with making sure we pay for heating oil in the middle of January. Does that make us less grownup than the people who obsess over their lawns, window treatments, and gutters? To me those things are just one of the costs of having a place to run servers, play video games, or pile books.

The only thing I want to be is a good father and if that means wearing dad-plaid, tucking my t-shirts into my jeans, and having an overwhelming sense of urgency about the “Grub Problem” with the lawn then so be it, I’ll make the necessary sacrifices to do it. In my heart, though, that little Peter Pan voice is yelling, “For the love of all that is decent at least make sure a little Monsieur Leroc is spinning in the background and sneak a little time to catch the latest Venture Brothers!”