Quotes about Adulthood

The Bible warns [parents] against extremes in dealing with our adult children. It tells us to avoid trying to control [them] once they become adults. When children become independent, a major transition takes place: They are no longer under our authority.

Before the seventeenth century, a child passed directly into the adult world between the ages of five and seven . . . then came the industrial revolution . . .so the child-centered home was born.

In earlier periods of history, adolescence was virtually unknown... Today, the span between childhood and adulthood may extend over ten years. Deferred adulthood is synonymous with deferred responsibility.

I still have deep respect for the evangelical tradition and feel, in many ways, close to the Baptist roots of my childhood, although I've been an Episcopalian throughout my adult life and a regular churchgoer.

Self-control is one mark of a mature person; it applies to control of language, physical treatment of others, and the appetites of the body.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry is own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

A few days later, however, he wrote in one of his memo books this, which he let me read, "Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so 'safe,' and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.

But I won't bore you any longer on the subject of old men. It won't make things any better and all my plans of revenge (such as disconnecting the lamp, shutting the door, hiding his clothes) must be abandoned in order to keep the peace. Oh, I'm becoming so sensible! ...

Things were different when I was growing up.

Why do grownups quarrel so easily, so much, and over the most idiotic things? Up till now I thought that only children squabbled and that wore off as you grew up.

It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox, full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools—friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty—and said, Do the best you can with these, they will have to do. And mostly, against all odds, they're enough.

It is therefore not of small moment whether we are trained from adulthood in one set of habits or another; on the contrary it is of very great, or rather supreme importance.