The Sad Truth: By 20, You’ve Spent 90% Of Time With Your Parents
But perhaps that truth is not as sad as you think.
Several years ago, I read a post in the blog Wait But Why that said roughly: “By the time you turn 18, you’ve already spent 90% of your time with your parents.”
Tim Urban then illustrated his point using stick-figure men and childish drawings (as he always does), showing that compared to our childhoods, we spend very little time with our parents after we’ve grown up. We spend about 90% of the time until our twenties hit and the remaining 10% is spread out across the next several decades.
I remember feeling sad reading about it.
When you’ve grown up, each moment spent with your parents could be one of your last. (Or one of your many lasts.) Nobody wants to think about it in these terms but it’s true.
This happens not just because people age, get sick, and die but also because people grow apart. The older you get, the more you become engrossed in your affairs, and the less you need your parents to be involved. Your parents too might want to get retired and live “for themselves” too — we all tend to treat our parents as creatures designed only for our well-being and pleasure, but they are people and men and women too.
