Back in the day as young parents, many among us find it amusing (and overly cute, as moms term it) whenever our toddlers imitate us by pretending to do the common chores we do in the house.
In the family, among the antics of perhaps two or three-year-olds include awkwardly walking around wearing mama’s high heels or the dad’s loafers. As such for some, Christmas gifts have graduated from cuddly teddy bears and fluffy pillows to either a box of mini-tea sets here for the daughters or a complete set of plastic of tools for the little man.
Some success stories (if you could call it that) gravitate around these little tyke tales. We might have heard of some of the kids who have developed penchants for building blocks turning out to become great engineers later in life. Then there are those who have been given tiny laboratory sets and later turned out to become medical technicians and doctors.
We often hear about this. And even though there’s no definitive study that this is true, it’s nevertheless, a fine plot that one can wrap your head around in. In this day and age, sharing cute tales and photos about the antics of babies imitating their parents is taken to greater audiences because of the web and particularly social media.
However, for many among new gens and millennials today, unlike babies imitating adults, theirs is portrayal and actual delving into adults’ roles. Katy Steinmetz in a TIME article in June 2016, explains that through no fault of their own, these younger gens have “gone through life stages that other older generations have experienced much later in life,” such as young pregnancy, working early and raising a family and owning house.
Largely skipping most of the adolescent years, this generation coined the jump as “adulting”, largely about actual engagement in adult behaviors. Here in our country, we could say it’s a distant cousin to a similar coinage of more adult portrayals when the younger ones assume the ‘tito and tita’ role. But just like our shifting definition of what a nuclear family is, these new roles by the younger set are accepted as the new reality today and that’s that.
Nowadays, even as I still find unfathomable amusement in the aping antics of babies everywhere on social media, complaints of adulting by millennials always prove to be a downer. Complaints on how hard it is to be working when they could be out on weekends, or rants on being under the weather and still going to work ‘for the family’ tickle a wrong note. Sure, deep down, this may perhaps be silent cries for attention or worse, help… but on any day, I would still rather hear about their little tots donning their shoewear, learning to rap like their pop, or strut dancing like their crazy nanas.
