Should you be grown up at 22?

So something has been on my mind lately. Should you be grown up and know how to behave by the time you are 22 years old? My feeling is yes. Here is my situation.

In my family, i'm the eldest child, i have 2 younger sisters and then the youngest is my brother - who has just turned 22. He has recently moved out of home for the first time, but until then still lived with our parents. He has a funny relationship with most of our family - except me. I don't know whether it's an eldest/youngest bond, or whether he speaks to me normally because he respects my husband (who has been around since he was a kid really), but whatever it is, he has problems relating to the rest of the family.

A couple of weeks ago for his birthday sister 1 and I sent him a package with some tshirts in it - i got a very nice thankyou text and then a phone call. She got nothing. The football team i support won the Grand Final last week - i got a phone call, everyone else - nothing. I went to visit them recently - he came and had dinner with us 5 nights out of 7 - normally my mother says she doesn't see him for dinner in weeks.

Perhaps living at home so long soured his relationship with the parents. They gave him their whole self-contained downstairs area at home which was promptly turned into a bachelor pad. There were girls coming and going all the time, also this said area also faced onto the pool and there was often night swimming/drinking occurring. Parents are perhaps done with raising 'teenagers' and had short temper with him and his friends.

It is clear to me that he knows how to behave when needed, he is the perfect little brother when it comes to me. He holds down a job with higher importance, authority and salary at 22 than i have now at 27. He works extremely hard and long hours so it's not that he's lazy.

I guess what i'm wondering is - could he really still be behaving like a bratty teenage boy at 22 or is there some deeper problem that is just going to make things worse?

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

gp OZI AND PBJ!

Anonymous said...

thats not totally fair. some kids just dont relate to their parents. That's all.

Anonymous said...

yeah, i have to agree. GP Ozi - you just never know

Anonymous said...

No, you should not be. You should not be grown up until 30. Too many people grow up too fast and they end up regretting it later.

People getting married before 25? Come on now.

BD said...

Man, I didn't move out until I was 26, and I had a cush deal at home too. I doubt that's it.

Anonymous said...

B.@.D are you writing tomorrow?

GP Ozi.

Anonymous said...

GP Ozi!

BD said...

No, I am not. I'm once a week now. I have another writing gig on the side. Also, that'll give everyone else here an equal chance to write, and with 9 writers no one needs to worry about doing so if they don't want to. I'm pretty sure Monday is gonna be my unofficial scheduled day.

But good news - I got a message from B-Rush last night, who has an article to go up tomorrow, so I doubt my absense will be missed.

Anonymous said...

GP Ozi!!!

where else do you write BAD???

Anonymous said...

GP OZI AND PBJ!

B-Rush said...

My $.02 - You're wrong. Your brother doesn't know when to behave when needed. Because he doesn't know that his parents and other family deserve as much respect as you do.

On that note, while I think he could be more respectful to the rest of your family, 22 IS still pretty young. Hell, my wife tells me all the time not to act like I'm five ;)

Mary and Craig said...

Thanks for your thoughts guys,i hope all is not lost with him... i'll keep trying where i can to get him to re-connect to the fam, but B-Rush i do agree with your point on respect. Maybe i'll speak to him about that.

I'm off for a long weekend of camping - have a good one guys!

Anonymous said...

gp ozi! have fun camping..... in october

Anonymous said...

gp Ozi!