An Open Letter to the Kid who wants to grow up,

I have some advice: Don’t. I was you once, watching television and thinking, “The life of grown up is so exciting.” Well I’m almost at that magical age of being considered an independent and it’s horrible. It is nothing like Disney makes it out to be. No one is willing to hand you a card with unlimited amounts of freedom. Instead, there are strings of responsibility attached to this string. Responsibilities and expectations begin to consume your life. Standards begin to develop and realization hits that you must live by a set of guidelines to follow in life.

Rules of how you should conduct yourself are laid out in front of you. When you are young you worry about not waking up on time for your Saturday morning cartoons. When you become an adult all of a sudden you have a house and bills to pay. Suddenly people expect you to do work, work for yourself to pay off your bills. No one wants to make you dinner or give away money. Being an adult means having to work for money and use that towards yourself efficiently. The fun of recess is over, traded in for a cup of coffee to make you feel alive. The break we once had is now used to try and regain any form of sleep and energy once missed from the night before. Now, professors and teachers expect you to do homework.

There is no such thing as "I forgot it at home." If you forgot your homework your professor will forget your grade, you will eventually realize it's what you deserve. It is no longer cute to play dumb. You are now in a ball park with educated individuals that want to have educated discussions. If you are not on that intellectual level nobody understands, in fact they start to treat you differently. When you’re young everyone is on a equal ground but as you grow up you start to see lines that divvy people up.

Unfortunately in today's world it is common for people to look at you differently because of your race or socioeconomic status. No need to scare you though. The responsibility carried does have it's perks and sometimes it is like a TV sitcom. As you grow in your years you also gain experience which will make you wiser. When you’re Enjoy being young, it only lasts so long. You have a solid eight years of being young before responsibility takes you away. Be youthful, be happy.

Sincerely,

A grown up