Adulting

I have to deal with adulting in two ways: writing about adulting, (and that should really be the second way) and adulting by myself. 

Obviously, I'm never going to say, in a book, OK, this is all about adulting; there might be no quicker way of turning off my audience.  In my opinion, what we call 'adulting' in this century is being considerate, and taking responsibility.  Most of us don't mind doing those things, but we probably hate to be asked to do them.  I know I did, and still do.  When I'm looking after pets, though, I don't mind; the little furry people are—usually—not a chore to take care of; in fact, I have to constantly restrain myself from torturing them with too much attention.  But in all other cases, I'd rather do adulting on my own volition than to do it on request.

Helen—I started writing with a book entitled Helen, which I chopped up into about ten books, which are the Helen stories that have been published—started out with Helen being just a kid, but soon, having fallen in love with Janet, she begins to take care of Janet in the cutest way.  Unfortunately, I took most of that out, which really destroyed the character development, but I sort of hoped that readers would know people like Helen, which would help them interpolate (a math word for joining up the segments) between the various stages of Helen's character.  When Cindy appears in the story, again, Helen's sense of responsibility leaps forward. 

Jane, the main character in Jane, starts right off being very much an adult, which is her main charm, in my mind.  Actually, her character is much more interesting in Jane—The Early Years.  In that story, she becomes responsible for Maria and Zuszanna, and, well that's the nucleus of the story.  In pretty much all my stories—and this is embarrassing—all the main characters gradually become more adult in each story, because love, and sometimes loss, makes you an adult.  And parenthood, I suppose, though I know of that last thing only through books.

There is another aspect to being an adult, which is at the heart of our national concept of adulthood: cynicism.  Many people regard the aspirations of the extreme Left as impossibly naïve.  "We've got to feed our own families, before we take on feeding the widows and the orphans."  They look at Bernie Sanders and see someone who doesn't live in the real world.

But that's the way adulting is.  To a baby, only its self and its mother matters; and gradually, as you age, you're concerned about more people.  When citizens begin to be anxious about public education, that's an aspect of concern for the community.

So, some aspects of politics is about adulting.  Other aspects of politics are about protecting your interests, and many conservatives are more concerned with those.

Kay