To My Fellow Baby Adults

March 22, 2024

Let me begin by saying, you’re enough. You’re doing enough, thinking enough, feeling enough, and being enough.

You’re right where you’re meant to be. And I know we hear that constantly; you’re probably sick of hearing it by now, but regardless, it remains true.

I, like many other newly-adulting people, feel continuously wrong. In the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong form. But I’m here to tell you that you can only ever be correct.

Whether you’re going to college, working a job, living at home, making millions, struggling to be happy, or in any state in between, you’re correct. 

They say that identifying with anything can be harmful, which I agree with most of the time, but in the early stages of adulthood, please know that it’s okay to identify with being a literal baby.

I am three years old in adult, post-teen years. I am a toddler. 

Society doesn’t expect toddlers to do everything perfectly; they’re simply happy with a wave or a high five. 

Even the geniuses of toddlers aren’t expected to do much, so why are we trying to figure it all out.

Obviously, baby adults have a little more life experience, consciousness, and accomplishments under their belts than actual babies do, but we’re forgetting that despite being a little older, we’re still just babies. 

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Now, to my American baby adults: we grew up in a time where peace wasn’t known. The highlights of our childhoods have been 9/11, recessions, wars, division, racism, homophobia, riots, active shooter drills, and don’t even get me started on the rise of technology, social media, and the inevitable threat of our dying planet.

Then we began our adulthood in a pandemic. Seeing poor people and minorities die above all other groups because the government politicized a health crisis. There was the added bonus of three years of our adult lives blipping from existence and we then awoke to find multiple wars around the world, our rights being threatened by boomers in office, our future financial statuses looking grimmer than ever, and the constant feeling of being behind from the expectations placed on us by older generations because, “at our age, they already owned a home and had two kids with one on the way"—so obviously we must be doing something wrong.

Our generation has been critiqued, targeted, and discredited at every possible chance. We are beginning our adulthood with no understanding of true peace, no trust in our thoughts or opinions, a trauma-tainted worldview, and a government that refuses to choose our safety over monetary gain. We are fighting wars we had no part in creating. 

So, please, can we just give ourselves some grace? For once, can we not overanalyze everything and just breathe into the fact that the world we grew up in is different from the ones before us?

Every generation has had its issues and struggles; I don’t want to negate that. But we are one of the first generations to have daily terrorism in the news, social media manipulating our dopamine, and fear as the main part of a complete breakfast.

It's surprising that our brains aren’t complete mush at this point, but somehow we’re still trying. Fighting even, to balance and bring peace to our world. 

In our daily lives, I know many of us feel like we’re not doing enough. Like there’s always more work to be done and things to experience because we know the impermanence of life and that all hell could break loose at any second. 

We’re burdened by so much more than how well we’re doing in school or what career we want to have. We’re expected to solve the world’s problems, and we hold ourselves to that standard.

So the next time you feel anxious, afraid, and overwhelmed, just know that it’s a byproduct of the world you grew up in. We were basically bred to be warriors, and we have been waiting for our call to arms ever since. 

With these experiences dictating our reality, it’s understandable that daily life wouldn’t make much sense to us. That the day in and day out of waking up and going to work isn’t enough for us, because we were meant for so much more. 

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My fellow baby adults, please know that none of this is your fault; you’re not responsible for everything all the time, and it’s okay to not have it “figured out.”

Chances are, we probably never will.

In the coming years, many things are bound to happen; bubbles will be popping and realities will be changing. 

Throughout our adulthood, let's remember that we always have each other. We always have our connected experience of growing up before gentle parenting and spending our childhoods distracting ourselves from the horrors of the world with any entertainment we could find.

If you’re breathing, you’re doing more than enough. And please remember that the older generations telling us what to do grew up in a very different world, affecting them in different ways, whether that’s more positive or negative. They have life experiences to share for sure, but they can’t dictate our lives, actions, or the truths we claim to be our own. 

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Although much of this post was negative, let’s not forget that this world is so beautiful. The more we focus on the beauty in our daily lives, wherever we can find it, the happier and more at peace we’ll feel. I want to make sure we remember how constantly beautiful our childhoods were. Filled with the simple joy of playing day in and day out. 

When life overwhelms, breathe into your current present and feel how peaceful it likely is. Bathe in the sun, feel the wind dance around your body, drink water, and hug yourself. Put on your favorite music and float through your life. Our childhoods brought us to where we are now, and for that I’ll be forever grateful.

I’m proud of you, I love you, and you’re capable of anything you set your mind to. Now go into the world and make a difference…isn’t that what we’re supposed to do with our lives? 

Thanks for reading :)

xoxo, Ayla