You didn’t grow up — you just got mean.
There are two kinds of adults in the world:
the ones who kept their inner child,
and the ones who interrogate everyone else’s.
The second group walks among us like volunteer hall monitors of joy. They hear laughter and reach for a clipboard. They see color and call it immature. They treat enthusiasm the way airport security treats shampoo bottles — suspicious, unnecessary, probably illegal.
I’ve met them everywhere. They look like regular civilians. They pay taxes, drink lattes, complain about traffic. And yet the moment someone enjoys something a little too loudly, they transform into emotional bouncers at a nightclub called Adulthood.
“Are you, like, twelve?”
That’s their favorite password.
Exhibit A: The Shoes
Years ago I bought a pair of shoes I loved — canvas flats printed with Betty and Veronica from the Archie comics. Blonde ponytail, dark-haired femme fatale, black-and-white panels like a tiny museum for my childhood.
I showed them to a guy I was seeing while we sat in his parked car performing the sacred adult ritual of doing absolutely nothing and calling it a date.
He looked at them and said,
“What are you, twelve?”
Not teasing. Not playful.
Just a small, mean little verdict.
I remember folding inward like a lawn chair. I remember feeling embarrassed for liking something. I remember, later, throwing the shoes out without really knowing why — like I was disposing of evidence that I had once been a person who enjoyed things.
He wasn’t sophisticated. He was just bitter with Bluetooth. But shame is a very efficient editor.
Exhibit B: The Squidward
In honor of Squidward — patron saint of misunderstood adults.
Fast forward to now. I’m at the pet store buying supplies for my fish tank — gravel, a silk plant, and a ridiculous hippie Squidward ornament I had decided was essential to my emotional infrastructure.
At the register I said, triumphant, “I got the last Squidward.”
The cashier smiled and told me a kid had come in yesterday and bought all the others.
In the moment it felt cute. In the car it grew teeth. I heard the old echo: Are you twelve?
Maybe she meant nothing. Maybe it was just small talk. But it reminded me how quickly joy gets put on trial. How often adults are expected to file their interests under “age appropriate” like we’re renewing a passport.
The Great Lie About Growing Up
Somewhere along the way adulthood got rebranded as emotional beige.
Neutral colors. Reasonable hobbies. No exclamation marks after thirty.
We were told maturity meant:
• stop liking cartoons
• stop decorating your life like you plan to live in it
• stop being excited in public
• stop naming things
But real adulthood was supposed to mean:
• pay your bills
• be kind
• don’t text your ex at 2 a.m.
• learn how to apologize without choking
Everything else was optional.
Instead we got a generation that confuses seriousness with depth and boredom with wisdom. They didn’t grow up — they just got mean and called it development.
The Moral Hall Monitors
Every culture has its own joy police. In my neighborhood they often wore hijab or were too into yoga (it’s just stretching, get over yourselves). Somewhere else it’s Bible verses in bios, wellness influencers with superiority complexes, or crystal girls who think owning a candle qualifies them to judge your soul.
The uniform changes.
The attitude doesn’t.
They treat happiness like a contagious disease. If you’re too delighted about a sweater, a song, a cartoon squid, they rush in with a bucket of adult-approved beige.
And they usually come with a business partner: the male morality accountant — the guy who tracks women’s behavior like expenses, leaking photos, rating bodies, handing out “wife material” certificates he printed at home. These two never meet but somehow share the same office.
Trauma Does Not Require a Uniform
I’ve had a hard life — the kind that sounds exaggerated when you say it out loud, so you stop saying it out loud.
But I don’t walk around handing out grief pamphlets. I don’t audition strangers to play supporting roles in my suffering. I don’t turn every conversation into a fundraiser for my pain.
Some people climb a hill and start a religion about it.
Others climb mountains and still stop to admire a cloud.
I’m suspicious of the “woe is me” professionals — the ones who turn hardship into a personality brand. Not because their pain isn’t real, but because bitterness is a lazy form of identity.
Healing isn’t a medal. It’s a chore list you keep rewriting.
Joy as Rebellion
Liking things is not childish.
Refusing to like anything is.
There is something quietly radical about being an adult who still plays, still decorates, still names the fish, still buys the cartoon ornament and carries it home like a trophy.
The world already tries to sand us down into reasonable shapes. The least we can do is stay a little inconvenient to the furniture.
So yes, I bought the Squidward.
Yes, I would wear the Betty and Veronica shoes today.
Yes, I will continue to enjoy things at a volume that irritates the emotionally constipated.
If that makes me childish, then adulthood can keep its miserable little membership card.
Closing Argument
To all the so-called childish adults:
Keep your stickers.
Keep your cartoon mugs.
Keep your themed bedrooms and glitter notebooks and playlists that don’t match your age bracket.
The people who shame you for liking things aren’t mature —
they’re just afraid of looking soft in public.
And fear has terrible taste in décor.
Editor’s Note
In the photos:
• Pirate Patrick hanging off my oversized red Guess bag. I found him at the convenience store while grabbing rolling papers — yes, OGs still roll their own. Some traditions are sacred.
Pirate Patrick, patron saint of impulsive joy.
• A tiny black kitty coin purse that holds ID, lip balm, mints, and the illusion that I am organized.
• A vintage Coach bag handed down from my aunt, leather softened by real life instead of influencer unboxings.
• An artificial flower I found on my grandparents’ driveway and adopted like a stray thought.
None of these items asked to be cool. I asked them to make me happy.