Psych question: is your core identity that of a child no matter how old you are?

Though, if I do, when I'm by myself, I don't think that the notion of age or child-ness is particularly attached to it.

(Then again, I was never a child, even when I was young. Sigh. I got "younger" and more irresponsible as I got older, hah.)

xpost Dan made Ken chase geese around an abandoned mill?

i think i feel a lot more grown up than i was say 3 years ago. maybe that means i'm "decoding reality" in some way more than before. but still there's a little bit in me that is still learning.

but i don't feel like i'm a 'child' anymore, definitely not. i don't feel 'old' but you know. i feel like i'm at the right stage of mind for a 'young adult'.

I'm 25 and I still feel as mature as I was when I was 17. I mask this by wearing a tie at my job and pretending I know how to look after myself.

Am I going to still feel like I'm faking adulthood when I'm 60?!

I dunno, we get older, maybe its just our toys and games that change. I'm sure this wouldn't be the case if I'd grown up in a warzone or something though.

I mean, I felt a bit "hah! if only they knew!" when I got my mortgage, but then I've been paying it steadily for 6 months now, and really, have been paying rent steadily since I was 22 so whatever.

I guess I'm just used to SUCH disparity in whatever part of life I'm in (indie musicians aren't supposed to be this old, people in finance aren't supposed to play in bands, etc. etc.)...

And perhaps I had such an extended adolescence for so long (hey, I turned 22 every year for 11 years) that now I feel like I've earned my adulthood. I feel like 102 sometimes, with all the lives I've packed into my years.

Maybe if I'd got married and had kids and bought a house in my 20s I'd have felt like I missed out on something in terms of growing up too fast.

Maybe I should feel more botherd about it. But I've NEVER acted my age, so why should it start bothering me now?

My recurring nightmares are about turning up for GCSEs without having been to the lessons... that sort of thing is embedded.

OK, one of these days they'll tweak how much time I spend on the internet, but that's nothing to do with feeling like an imposter. that's my shitty attention span.

I've felt like a grown-up since I was his age, but aside from having a lot of hard-earned independence & a lot more responsibility I try not to act all hard & streets like a lot of people I know who grew up quick. That's just my personality, though. If I can't just joke around or laugh at things, I feel like I'm asphyxiating. Also making it a personal point to really actually grow up, ie sort out all my mental shit & start making enough money, before I have kids so they don't have to deal with all the things I did.

Yes.
Well, maybe.
I just talked with my mother about all this, and she says she doesn't feel like a child. She's 87, but thinks of herself as middle-aged. So there's a lag. It's funny because she has never held a job, has always been dependent on others, and has very needy childish traits (she would differ with this assessment). At any rate, I assumed she'd admit to feeling like a child deep down, but nooooo. I'm not sure she really got what I meant, though. She might have confused it with the physical self-image thing. A lot of people have that dis-connect. They're shocked by photos, etc. I'm not. I know I'm this stringy sloppy graying artsy-fartsy. I have adult children, I have arthritis, I'm quite clear on the external realities.
But when I think of the essential me—the entity that is cloaked in these external realities—the me that's amazed that I got here—I think of an amorphous bundle of appetite and confusion. And I am a reasonably well-functioning person.

haha I do wonder this.

A couple of times when I truly felt my age:

-returning from a very juvenille road trip with my brother, where it had all been about the dynamics we had growing up together, back to his wife and four children. Seeing him interacting with his kids made me realize that he was no longer so much my little brother as he was these people's father and husband. They were a unit now and our little two-against-the-world unit was just a plesant memory for the two of us.

-my grandmother dying and me realizing I no longer had anyone or anyplace to fall back on in this world. There was nobody left who would treat me like a little girl and indulge me. That was it.

But of course the self-insulated life I lead limits those type of experiences and most of my consciouness is wrapped in a cocoon of iPod, interweb and tv. childishness = selfishness?

-- beanz (beanzil...), July 6th, 2006 4:02 PM. (beanz) (later)

Truest thing ever said on ILE.

i get very annoyed when women around my own age put on a "little girl" act

Oh, absolutely! Can't abide it. I don't (I sure hope I don't) indulge in any of that winsome baby-doll crap. I just have a part of me that's standing on the sidelines, wondering how I got here. The part of me that gets to the party and looks around to see if there are any dogs. Not that I don't have people skills—I do. It's an area where I do feel grown-up. I'm great in retail. Not great at parties, though. Unclear at what my job is there, perhaps. I have compartmentalized social skills.

I'm still waiting for a portal to another time/place to open up and bring me magical adventures.

I think my core identity for a long time was late adolescent/early adulthood, the point where everything seems possible and postpone-able. As a kid I was always childish (the opposite of JBR), more immature and over-protected, and as soon as I left the nest I consciously tried to shed that brat and catch up w/my peers.

But some medical events in my mid-40s (non lifethreatening)made me "feel my age" on the internal level. By some miracle I don't look like I'm pushing 50 so maybe that makes it all easier to accept.

Mentally, self-wise, I feel stalled at about 21. I'm with Rock: I still lech after 19 year olds, but I'm getting to the age now where that's starting to be rather inappropriate, which is quite the disconnect!

Last night it was my baby brother's 30th birthday. I rang him up to chat and congratulate. He sounded so tired and quiet and a lot older than usual - he's just recently had his first kid. He spoke about it with a quiet awed respect, as he's loving being a father. I suddenly felt younger than my brothers (and I'm the oldest!). It was a bit odd.

the only thing that makes me feel my age is the fact I am totally out of the loop with whatever ver kids listen to these days. I'm all "what is this emo shit anyway? AFI? Who the fuck are they?" and I feel like such a reactionary old wanker.

*Yes, I know someone made a chick flick out of this concept, but it really happened to me.

I always though I was 'getting on' in years from 23 onwards (mainly because there was the mindset in music that if you hadn't made it by 25, forget it. (I blame "In the City" the Jam, anyway...)

But when I had my 30th, down the pub, no-one believed I was that 'old'. Until then, I hadn't realised I look young for my age.

Anyway, that's more bcos of the prednisolone but whey...

Certainly your daydreams and role models change: these days at 41, I hanker after a kind of George Harrison type reclusive retirement from the world on a nice estate with only a bit of gardening to do if I really feel like it.

Still, only another 19 years to go till in retire in real life.

90% of my dreams still take place at my parents home (ie where I grew up). Not only that, but it always looks like it used to when I was there - before they added the extension. Interesting.

Trayce, I have these dreams too!

This goes back to my first idea that these things—self-image, idea of home, etc, get into your brain early and are stuck there. They're burned-in there. Imprinted—your own personal archetypes. Everything else is in a different compartment, in RAM, a place where you file things once you learn that nothing is absolute, that things are subject to change.

Is that why my sense of self is so fragmented, that I don't have any one particular idea of what my core age, or personality is?

I feel this too. My little brother is meek and sweet-natured and reactive rather than proactive, though I think he's growing into himself (he bloody well should be, he's a 29-year-old doctor). Similarly, I'm sure a lot of my bossiness and bullying tendencies and controlling personality is due to being the big brother with a rod of iron for the best part of 15 years (basically until he got bigger than me).

I'd be a bit freaked out if friends started quietly taking me to one side. They're only allowed to do that if I have a drink problem or mental health issue or something serious.

Thinking that your entire core identity is formed by childhood is a bit too heavy on the nature bit.

x.p.

Ah, Beth! I am 51 and, although I have my bright and playful moments, I suppose I more than qualify as your stained-to-the-bone adult. No kid I. It's turtles all the way down, and as far as the eye can see.

That said, I usually look to ILE, ILBooks or Ask A Drunk as a distraction from all that, so I really ought not to be confessing my more dismally adulterated qualities in this place. They don't belong here.

My core self is probably about where I'm at now - '20s, few or no adult responsibilities (for others) and no desire to take them on. I've never been able to see myself with a family and a career (or even a real/office job), it just isn't a track I can comprehend following.

In my family, I'm the eldest sibling, cousin, grandchild, great-grandchild, WHATEVER. This gives parent-aged types a lifetime of reminding you to set a good example, and the recipient of the advice gets the opportunity to build up an almighty headful of steam about not always wanting to be this person. Mental age varies, though.

But it only forced me to grow up in certain ways. Keep track of my mom's meds, argue her out of driving, etc.
I still find it hard to get going in the morning (self employed). I waste a lot of time. I could be making a lot more money than I do if I would manage my time better. Also, I should make more to-do lists and fucking DO the things on them. But I have a lot of resentment that I even have to work for a living. What the FUCK? Why doesn't someone just GIVE ME A BILLION DOLLARS!!!!!

i think my problem with how its conceived is this: i'm not sure we have a "core" identity at all. our identity is probably "reconceived" in some essential sense with every new encounter or thought. and so i do think that it's likely that for many if not all people, there are ways in which their childhood identities or even a kind of "childishness" stays with them throughout life, i'd be hesitant to suggest that this represents their "core" identity.

THE TRUTH, IT BURNS

Beth, I have pondered this question for a long time (not the money one - the core identity one) and had come to my own mental conclusion that everyone must feel like a child inside. But Kate does not! So there goes that theory.

I will be 40 in October. I thought having kids and owning a home would make me feel grown up. It makes me feel responsible and secure and scared but not grown up. I'm not likely to dive drunk and naked at night off a pier after a beach bonfire like I would have a mere 5 years ago (thoughts of "what would my kids do if I hit my head on a rock -- and who's watching the kids anyway?" would prevent it), but if anything, I feel like more of a kid now, because I have little kids to hang out with and with whom to indulge that side. I'm not imposter in front of toddlers. When I really feel like an imposter is when I make small talk with other parents dropping their kids at daycare who seem to have their shit together more than me. Not that I don't have my shit together. I feel competent and confident in my job and all that, but still feel like I can't bring myself to drive a respectable car and make enormous car payments. I notice that I'm wearing a Metallica t-shirt and they notice it too.

But, nothing makes me act all fuddy-duddy on someone's shit like seeing pretentious youthfulness. The "watch me click my heels, I'm acting like a kid" bursts of enthusiasm that seem to mostly come from people approaching 30.

So when is your birthday and are you celebrating? And will you be at Bob's party for his 59th on Saturday? Skot's working; I'll bring the kids (which includes me).

That's pretty much an exact word-for-word of what she said because I remember thinking, "Wow, so it never goes away?!" Yes, I feel the same way.

One thing I notice is that the older I get outwardly, the younger old people seem to me. Sixty-three used to sound ancient. Now 80 is ancient.

that's one thing that makes me feel older sometimes - feeling unmotivated and dispassionate. but at least i don't usually dream about monsters anymore.

Which is a horrible feeling, because I never wanted to grow up and lose my childish sense of wonder. Which I do feel kinda like I've lost.

The only thing that restores my sense of wonder is books about theoretical physics.

I don't think at any point in my life I've felt like I had a core identity.