Recently my son turned 18. He was unfortunately, but actually normally, sick for is birthday. Somehow that time of year he always gets sick with some virus. He didn't feel well enough to go to dinner, which is part of our family's birthday ritual. He had chosen Benihana's. He did say he wanted a cake though. He wanted the same cake we got his sister - the Celebration Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory.
That cake is huge! And even though he didn't feel well, he ate most of it himself over just a few days! Ah, he may be 18, but he is still a "teen" with a teen boys appetite!
I didn't eve get a picture of him for his big birthday, I grabbed this silly one from some other family meal or something. It shows his "cheesy" side!
One thing we have learned having two "adults" in the house is that the day they turn 18, legally everything changes. For some kids they may still have a long way until high school graduation too. The world just expects them to miraculously make big adult life changing decisions just because they had another birthday. Suddenly they are expected to make and remember their own medical appointments. They are expected suddenly to know what they want to be when they grow up, because they are a "grown up" now. Their frontal lobes won't even be fully developed for another 5-7 years.
I understand from a governmental legal standpoint that you need to pick an age at which you expect humans to be adults. I am just not sure 18 is it. Yes, they can graduate and go off to fight in wars for their country and graduate high school and drive a vehicle and so on. But face it, some of these kids can still barely tie their shoes, let alone "adult".
Case and point, my sons group of friends, most are 18 or older, most, if not all of them, are terrible with personal hygiene. I mean showering more than say, twice a week. And probably then only if family complains. Its just not even healthy to do that. And these kids just can't be bothered with such matters. And they are expected to make big life changing, life altering decisions? Yeah, adulting!
We have had very open communication with both our kids. One thing our family does well is talk, communicate, share. They both know their shortcomings on adulting. My daughter is 20 and still slow to manage some adult matters. She is getting better, but still calls us to help almost every time. I am okay with that because she knows she needs assistance. I would rather help and advise than just say here, legally you are an adult and should be able to survive on your own. Go, go take on the world, adult, make big life changing decisions knowing full well you have no clue what you are doing.
My own growing up was different. I was essentially booted out at 18 and said, figure it out. I did, but there were a lot of mistakes. Also, being an only child to two much older adults I grew up in a much more mature world. Mistakes are fine as long as you are safe. But a little advice and a little financial assistance at times might have been nice. Its not quite as extreme as it sounds, but essentially when I hit 18, my mom stopped being my mom, wasn't my friend, and just really didn't know how to deal with me. So instead she was mean. She would get really nasty when I would not make the best decisions, but give me no advice what I could do better. Or something like that. She may be gone, we may have had a bad relationship, but I still miss her every day.
Back to that adulting thing. We have done what we can to teach our kids how to guide through some of the muck of early adulthood. We are still there for them. We check in with them. We make sure if they need to just talk and vent, we are there. We make sure they are safe. We know they will make mistakes, and they know it too. But hopefully they are minor lessons to be learned and nothing that makes them unsafe or risky financial issues. So far, so good!
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I made this page using the Project Life App from Becky Higgins LLC. The app, if you haven't heard about it, what rock have you been living under? He he. It is the answer to scrapbooking on your phone you didn't know you needed but now you do!
And the app is now FREE in the App store on Apple and Google Play. FREEEEEEEE! Yes there are in app purchases for additional kits and fonts and a new shiny toy in the app.
The shiny new toy is FFT or free form text. It is an extra $2.99. Peanuts in cost. Thats half of a coffee shop latte! What FFT for free form text, allows you to create text boxes over your photos, over the fancy designer cards, over title cards and many other cards in the card collections in the app. It just doesn't work on the plain journaling cards.
I filled in all the stars on the page with using the FFT and the "It's time to adult" text. The other text on the page was done using normal means. You will see a pencil in the upper left corner of card pockets that allow the FFT. It is just that easy. Becky has some great tips on how it all works too. You can add multiple boxes to a card pocket. You can rotate text. You can resize it. You can have them going in all crazy directions. Did I hear subway art? Yup! You can do that too now.
To add multiples to the card pocket, just tap the + button on the lower right screen once you are in the FFT section. When editing it will default back to the last box you created. Yes, you can change the fonts and colors and sizes. Change the sizes two ways, by either dragging the lower right corner of the text box or by using the normal font size slider tab. The default font is set to a certain font and is white. They decided on the white thinking many will likely do the FFT over photos and other colorful card pockets. Makes sense.
Supplies used: Project Life App on iPhone 8 plus, Super Boy themed card collection
I use the Project Life App for more than just scrapbooking. I make a lot of my business signs, class advertisements and more using the app. It just works for me.
Thank you for stopping by. I would love to hear what you think on the "adulting" at just 18 and what you have experienced yourself or your children.
Keep being your creative best! ~Sandy
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