When I was a kid, my mom told me I had no idea how hard it is to be an adult and I needed to be grateful that I was a kid. I remember thinking, yeah right. Adults get to decide when they go to bed, what they wear, what they eat, and how to spend the unlimited amount of money that they keep getting each month. And there I was, just a kid, with someone else always telling me it’s bedtime, I must wear this, I must eat my vegetables, and my allowance never covered every mechanical pencils my heart desired.

After some years of practice of being an adult, I have to say, my mom is right. Being an adult is hard.

I’m not whining about my life being hard. In fact, I am very grateful for how awesome my life is. What I still couldn’t come to grasp with is the responsibilities I have.

The responsibilities came when Josh and Savanna showed up. But honestly, it was pretty easy when they were little. I was pretty good at making sure they are fed, their diapers are changed, and they had somewhat of a sleep schedule. Luckily for me, they are healthy little humans, so I managed just fine.

Now they are bigger. They now have their opinions about things, and their little heads are always trying to make sense of the world around them. They ask a lot of questions, and they observe everything I say and do. How do I explain the swear words they learn from kids at school? How do I explain I use those exact same swear words regularly myself? How do I explain savings, investments, and not spending all your allowance on shitty toys? How do I explain that the adults in their lives aren’t perfect?

At work, it’s pretty easy for me to work hard and do extra things to get ahead. I was raised to keep my head down and work my ass off. As a young practitioner, I always had one of the highest billable hours, and faithfully worked weekends and evenings. I’m happy to be responsible to get files out the door because I can do what it takes.

Then I became responsible for other people, even when I have no control over their ambitions and work ethics. So what happens when they don’t hand in the file by the deadline? What happens when they seem to park their brains at home and give me half-ass files to review? What happens when they sleep in and miss meetings, or take time off without approval?

It’s probably to my detriment that I’m on social media at all. Seeing everyone else on social media with clean houses, well dressed and athletic children, successful careers–I wonder if I’m the only adult who isn’t very good at being an adult. I try very hard to put that thought out of my mind. It’s just that some days I really wonder, am I the only one who is just winging this?