fine line

When I was younger, folks seemed pretty comfortable with telling me I was "an old soul", or, "acted like an adult". I was a sharp kid with a large vocabulary who spent a lot of time reading quietly, so I guess the perception was that I was therefore more "grown up" than other kids my age.

Which, you know, made an otherwise lonely and isolated child feel pretty important and special, so it was easy for me to feel flattered when it signed me up for extra responsibilities.

I was six when I was first left alone to take care of the baby. I was seven when I got my first summer job. I was eight when I was put in charge of my own chicken coop; feeding, cleaning, buying feed and all.

I was special, I was different, I was "treated like a grown up". I was proud of that.

Then I got older, and more tired, and the limitations stayed the same while the responsibilities and expectations kept piling up.

No, I couldn't stay home while my family went on an overnight trip, I was too young for that.

But the adults were both out somewhere overnight? Sure, I could take care of two younger kids, cook dinner, put them to bed by 8 and have them off to school in the morning.

I remember, once things began to decline, repeating rather often: 

"Either give me adult responsibilities and adult privileges, or child responsibilities and child privileges. Don't give me child privileges and adult responsibilities- either I'm an adult or a kid. Make up your mind."

It turns out that "adult responsibilities" isn't quite the same thing as "adult respect".

But even if it was, though- even if I was treated with all the benefits and freedoms of adulthood alongside all the work, I was still a kid. 

Kids need free time. Kids need sleep. Kids need to *not* have to lay awake at night wondering what they're going to make for school lunches, or how they're going to cook dinner for six when the stovetop burners went out.

And it's not necessarily because they can't handle the pressure, but because there should be Actual Adults in their life doing those things. If not for the labour aspect, but for the respect and security of it.

My parent says I can't wear shoes in the house? Why do they care? I'm the one who mops the floors.

I'm not allowed to stay home alone? What, you trust me with your baby but you don't trust me with your house?

The family pet died and I'm tasked with burying it? Cool, grief is isolated and nobody cares, and when I'm scared or in pain, the authority figures in my life will be distant and emotionally unavailable. I have no reason to believe anyone will support me through emotional hardship in the future.

When it comes to responsibility, its not so much a question of, "can the child handle the work?", but, "what precedent is this setting for their perception of the future?", and, "What is this teaching them about actual adults?"

A child who sits quietly and draws is no more an adult than a child who eats glue and sticks pens up their nose, but both deserve to be respected as people, and both deserve to feel as though the adults in their lives are stable, reliable, secure, and have their best interests in mind.

cooking dinner with the one you love while they wrap their arms around you. taking quick kiss breaks in between folding fresh laundry. washing each other’s hair in the shower. giggling and rolling around in the fresh sheets you both just finished putting on. dusting while showing off your latest dance moves and having your sweetheart show off their vocals.