Grow up

Grow up

Today’s expression is a little bit of a joke—it’s a real expression, but I used it in a way that’s like a joke. The expression is to “grow up.”

The classic definition of “grow up” is to advance to maturity. When we’re talking about people, we’re talking about that part of your childhood that lasts until you’re about 18 years old. So here are some ways to use it.

Where did you grow up? That means, where did you spend your childhood? Where did you live in those years where you advanced in maturity to age 18? For example, I was born in the U.S. state of New Jersey. But I grew up in Connecticut. What does that mean? I was born in New Jersey, but at a very young age, my family moved to Connecticut. And I lived in the state of Connecticut from about age 6 until age 18. So I say, I grew up in Connecticut.

Here’s another expression. Kids grow up fast these days. That means that kids are exposed to adult themes earlier in their lives. Kids are required to process adult themes earlier and earlier in their lives. This could be violence, sexuality, divorce, eating disorders, technology, whatever. What a fifteen-year-old experiences today is a lot different from what a fifteen-year-old experienced half a century ago.

So you can say kids grow up fast these days because they’re exposed to mature themes earlier in their lives. You can also say kids in the city grow up faster than kids in rural areas. This is a generality, obviously, but kids who grow up in big cities will experience adult themes earlier than kids in a quieter location. Speaking in general, of course.

But none of this is how I used it today. You can use this phrase ironically, or tongue-in-cheek to describe a person who’s an adult—a fully-grown, fully-formed, mature adult human being—who nonetheless needs to act more like an adult and less like a kid, in some way.

I don’t know how it is in other places, but in the U.S., kids, as they get older, need services. They need health insurance. If they drive, they need car insurance. They need a cell phone, with a cell phone plan. They need Spotify and Netflix profiles. “Need,” of course, is relative. But you know what I mean.

And as those children grow up, they may leave the nest—they may go live in their own place. And everyone does this at their own pace, but eventually they will grow up and have their own accounts. They will mature, they will transform from being someone on another person’s account to being someone who has his or her own account and pays his or her own bill. The cycle of life, right?

Some adults in their twenties, thirties, or, I can personally attest, even older than that, and who make good money, still share passwords as if they were children in another person’s household. I’m not judging, I’m just saying. And with the new Netflix rules , some of those people will decide to grow up and get their own accounts.

Now this is a half-joke. These people are not children who need to reach maturity. Even I share passwords. I give passwords and I receive passwords. We are all adults who do this. But in this one respect, we may decide that we need to take this step into maturity, from being added on one person’s account to having our own account. So in this one respect, we decide to grow up.

This is not a criticism! This is just saying, the person decides to take one step toward independence or maturity.

People say this about themselves. “I think I just need to grow up and…” then say something you have to do to mature.

Here’s a personal example. I don’t have a will. There’s no excuse for that. For a long time, I just thought I was young, I wasn’t going to die, and even if I died, I didn’t have enough assets to make having a will worth it. And I didn’t give it any thought. But now I have more savings, I have property, I have a storage unit in Chicago full of furniture, and…I’m not old, but I’m at the age where I really should have a will. Let’s just leave it at that. I need to grow up and take care of that. I need to take that step toward maturity.

Sometimes we say “grow up” if we know we need to confront a problem. A confident adult handles problems head-on. A child runs away from problems. So let’s say you’re in a fight with your best friend and you’re not talking to each other. You guys just need to grow up and work out your differences. You need to act more maturely.

JR’s song of the week

This is a long lesson, so let’s do the song quickly. JR has selected “Try” by P!nk as the song of the week. The song asks, “Why do we fall in love so easy, even when it’s not right?” It’s about disappointment in love. But, the song says, “just because it burns doesn’t mean you’re [going to] die. You’ve [got to] get up and try.”

“Try” by P!nk is the song of the week, thanks to JR.

See you next time!

I told you I password share. And both directions, too. Mostly one direction, but there are one or two places where I use another person’s login. So that example about growing up and getting your own account—that’s not a criticism. It’s just an example of how to use “grow up.”

That’s all for today’s lesson. If you want to let me know what you think about the topic, you can always share that in our free Facebook group. To get there, just visit PlainEnglish.com/Facebook and you’ll be taken right there.

We’ll be back on Monday with a new topic—see you then.