Let us imagine an ordinary workplace situation. A manager promised a client that the project would be finished by Friday. The employees warned that the deadline was unrealistic, but he brushed them off. On Friday, the work is not ready. At the meeting, he says: "You let me down. Why should I have to think for everyone?"
The person has a position, experience, and grown-up children. He knows how to give orders. But right now, it is difficult for him to do one simple thing: acknowledge his part in what happened. Everyone is expected to answer to him, while his own decision seems to have disappeared from the conversation.
It seems to me that situations like this particularly clearly show the difference between being an adult by age and taking an adult position.
What I call a childlike position
This refers to the habit of expecting someone else to take care of the unpleasant parts of life: solve the problem, guess what one wants, fix the mistake, or cancel out the consequences. And if they do not, they become the one to blame.
For a small child, dependence on adults is natural: they are still learning how to deal with feelings, limitations, and the consequences of their actions. But when an adult repeatedly shifts responsibility they are capable of handling onto those around them, it can become a painful situation for everyone involved. One can get used to it. But I would not consider it a harmless norm in relationships.
Let me clarify right away: "childlike position" here is a colloquial term for a way of behaving, not a diagnosis. In Eric Berne's transactional analysis, there is a model of the Parent, Adult, and Child states, but this is a broader theory than dividing people into mature and immature. The International Transactional Analysis Association has a brief description. Joy, play, imagination, and the need for warmth do not in themselves make a person irresponsible.
Escaping responsibility and escaping reality
The first sounds like this: "I didn't decide this," even though I did. "I was forced into it," even though there was an opportunity to refuse. "Deal with it yourselves," even though I was the one who made the promise.
The second is even rarer. Not opening an unpleasant letter. Not checking how much work remains. Not noticing that someone close has already spoken directly about the problem several times. Convincing oneself: "If I don't think about it, somehow everything will work itself out."
Avoidance can indeed temporarily ease unpleasant feelings. Problems begin when it becomes the main way of coping and prevents us from dealing with things that can be addressed.
At the same time, leaving a dangerous situation or taking a break to recover is perfectly reasonable.
In everyday matters, the cost of constantly running away is easy to see: a missed deadline turns into a derailed project, an unkept promise into a loss of trust, and an unspoken grievance into months of estrangement. Consequences do not disappear just because a person does not want to look at them. Sometimes they have to be dealt with by people who did not make those decisions at all.
What It Looks Like in Real Life
All the examples below are hypothetical. I would not judge an entire personality based on a single episode.
1. A manager’s mistake. In the project scene, the childlike position manifests itself in looking for someone to blame while refusing to discuss one’s own promise. The adult version might sound like this: "I approved the deadline without checking the calculations. That’s my share of the mistake. Today I’ll talk to the client, and we’ll revise the plan with the team." After that, the employees’ mistakes can also be addressed. Acknowledging one’s own responsibility does not relieve anyone else of their share.
2. Expecting a loved one to guess. "If they loved me, they would have understood on their own. Now I’m not going to explain anything." The person is hurt, but turns silence into a test that the other person must pass without being given the conditions. The adult version: "It was important to me to spend this evening together. I didn’t say that directly, and now I’m upset. Let’s make an arrangement for next time." The feeling remains, but a conversation becomes possible.
3. A promise that became inconvenient. The person took on a task, realized they would not finish in time, and stopped responding. Later they explain: "Well, you can see how much I have going on." The adult position is to report the difficulty before others discover the failure: "I won’t finish by the deadline. I can hand over the completed part today. Let’s decide how to treat the rest.” It is an unpleasant conversation, but at least people still have time to make a decision.
4. Living while waiting for ideal conditions. “I’ll start studying when all my worries disappear. I’ll talk when there is definitely no conflict.” Sometimes circumstances really do not allow us to act. But sometimes the demand for complete certainty becomes a convenient condition that will never arise. The mature step here can be very small: find out what is available now and set a time for one specific action.
5. Spirituality as a refuge from everyday life. Suppose someone talks a lot about acceptance but fails to honor an agreement with a loved one for months. When reminded, they reply: “You are too attached to material things.” To me, this is a troubling contradiction. Accepting reality also includes acknowledging the fact that a promise was made. Practice can help calm us and see the situation more clearly; afterward, one still has to call, acknowledge the delay, or honestly revise the agreement.
Why a Position Does Not Guarantee Maturity
Grown men and women may be excellent at their profession while still finding it painful to admit a mistake. This can happen to a director as well as to someone in a high-ranking position. Professional knowledge does not automatically provide the ability to endure shame, disappointment or refusal.
Power sometimes allows one to avoid consequences for longer: subordinates will do the unpleasant work, failure will be blamed on someone else’s incompetence, and an inconvenient report will be removed from the desk. But the potential cost to those around them is all the higher. In our hypothetical example, employees gradually learn to tell their manager only pleasant things. The manager has less reliable information, and the next decisions may turn out to be even worse.
I think many people are familiar with examples like these. But it is especially useful to notice them in our own actions: can I acknowledge a fact that damages my view of myself? And what do I do after acknowledging it?
An adult position does not require omnipotence
There is another trap: calling the habit of putting up with everything, refusing no one, and taking on every problem belonging to someone else maturity. This, too, can easily lead to losing touch with reality—first and foremost, with the limits of one’s own strength.
Asking for help, acknowledging fatigue, refusing what is beyond one’s capacity, and leaving dangerous relationships can all be perfectly adult choices. Responsibility has limits. A person is not responsible for someone else’s violence and is not obliged to fix another person at the cost of their own safety. Disagreeing with a manager, parent, or teacher is not, in itself, a sign of a childish position either. Otherwise, the word "maturity" becomes a convenient demand for obedience.
I understand an adult position this way: seeing the available facts, distinguishing my and someone else’s responsibility, take circumstances into account, and take the next manageable step. You can still be afraid, angry, or uncertain. Feelings do not cancel out adulthood. The question is how we deal with them and what we do next.
A small self-check
You can choose one task that you have been putting off for a long time and write down four brief answers:
What is actually happening?
What in this situation depends on me?
What unpleasant feeling am I trying to avoid?
What specific action can I take, and when?
For example: "I am late with the response I promised. I feel ashamed, so I am staying silent. Today, by the end of the day, I will write to the person and give a realistic deadline." It is a small act, but it already represents a way out of waiting for the situation to resolve itself without my involvement.
I would like to discuss this topic without competing over who is the most adult here. It is easy to label someone else. Much harder is to catch yourself at the moment when you are ready to explain everything through other people’s shortcomings, just to avoid saying: "Yes, that was my decision. Now I have to do something about it."
The person has a position, experience, and grown-up children. He knows how to give orders. But right now, it is difficult for him to do one simple thing: acknowledge his part in what happened. Everyone is expected to answer to him, while his own decision seems to have disappeared from the conversation.
It seems to me that situations like this particularly clearly show the difference between being an adult by age and taking an adult position.
What I call a childlike position
This refers to the habit of expecting someone else to take care of the unpleasant parts of life: solve the problem, guess what one wants, fix the mistake, or cancel out the consequences. And if they do not, they become the one to blame.
For a small child, dependence on adults is natural: they are still learning how to deal with feelings, limitations, and the consequences of their actions. But when an adult repeatedly shifts responsibility they are capable of handling onto those around them, it can become a painful situation for everyone involved. One can get used to it. But I would not consider it a harmless norm in relationships.
Let me clarify right away: "childlike position" here is a colloquial term for a way of behaving, not a diagnosis. In Eric Berne's transactional analysis, there is a model of the Parent, Adult, and Child states, but this is a broader theory than dividing people into mature and immature. The International Transactional Analysis Association has a brief description. Joy, play, imagination, and the need for warmth do not in themselves make a person irresponsible.
Escaping responsibility and escaping reality
The first sounds like this: "I didn't decide this," even though I did. "I was forced into it," even though there was an opportunity to refuse. "Deal with it yourselves," even though I was the one who made the promise.
The second is even rarer. Not opening an unpleasant letter. Not checking how much work remains. Not noticing that someone close has already spoken directly about the problem several times. Convincing oneself: "If I don't think about it, somehow everything will work itself out."
Avoidance can indeed temporarily ease unpleasant feelings. Problems begin when it becomes the main way of coping and prevents us from dealing with things that can be addressed.
At the same time, leaving a dangerous situation or taking a break to recover is perfectly reasonable.
In everyday matters, the cost of constantly running away is easy to see: a missed deadline turns into a derailed project, an unkept promise into a loss of trust, and an unspoken grievance into months of estrangement. Consequences do not disappear just because a person does not want to look at them. Sometimes they have to be dealt with by people who did not make those decisions at all.
What It Looks Like in Real Life
All the examples below are hypothetical. I would not judge an entire personality based on a single episode.
1. A manager’s mistake. In the project scene, the childlike position manifests itself in looking for someone to blame while refusing to discuss one’s own promise. The adult version might sound like this: "I approved the deadline without checking the calculations. That’s my share of the mistake. Today I’ll talk to the client, and we’ll revise the plan with the team." After that, the employees’ mistakes can also be addressed. Acknowledging one’s own responsibility does not relieve anyone else of their share.
2. Expecting a loved one to guess. "If they loved me, they would have understood on their own. Now I’m not going to explain anything." The person is hurt, but turns silence into a test that the other person must pass without being given the conditions. The adult version: "It was important to me to spend this evening together. I didn’t say that directly, and now I’m upset. Let’s make an arrangement for next time." The feeling remains, but a conversation becomes possible.
3. A promise that became inconvenient. The person took on a task, realized they would not finish in time, and stopped responding. Later they explain: "Well, you can see how much I have going on." The adult position is to report the difficulty before others discover the failure: "I won’t finish by the deadline. I can hand over the completed part today. Let’s decide how to treat the rest.” It is an unpleasant conversation, but at least people still have time to make a decision.
4. Living while waiting for ideal conditions. “I’ll start studying when all my worries disappear. I’ll talk when there is definitely no conflict.” Sometimes circumstances really do not allow us to act. But sometimes the demand for complete certainty becomes a convenient condition that will never arise. The mature step here can be very small: find out what is available now and set a time for one specific action.
5. Spirituality as a refuge from everyday life. Suppose someone talks a lot about acceptance but fails to honor an agreement with a loved one for months. When reminded, they reply: “You are too attached to material things.” To me, this is a troubling contradiction. Accepting reality also includes acknowledging the fact that a promise was made. Practice can help calm us and see the situation more clearly; afterward, one still has to call, acknowledge the delay, or honestly revise the agreement.
Why a Position Does Not Guarantee Maturity
Grown men and women may be excellent at their profession while still finding it painful to admit a mistake. This can happen to a director as well as to someone in a high-ranking position. Professional knowledge does not automatically provide the ability to endure shame, disappointment or refusal.
Power sometimes allows one to avoid consequences for longer: subordinates will do the unpleasant work, failure will be blamed on someone else’s incompetence, and an inconvenient report will be removed from the desk. But the potential cost to those around them is all the higher. In our hypothetical example, employees gradually learn to tell their manager only pleasant things. The manager has less reliable information, and the next decisions may turn out to be even worse.
I think many people are familiar with examples like these. But it is especially useful to notice them in our own actions: can I acknowledge a fact that damages my view of myself? And what do I do after acknowledging it?
An adult position does not require omnipotence
There is another trap: calling the habit of putting up with everything, refusing no one, and taking on every problem belonging to someone else maturity. This, too, can easily lead to losing touch with reality—first and foremost, with the limits of one’s own strength.
Asking for help, acknowledging fatigue, refusing what is beyond one’s capacity, and leaving dangerous relationships can all be perfectly adult choices. Responsibility has limits. A person is not responsible for someone else’s violence and is not obliged to fix another person at the cost of their own safety. Disagreeing with a manager, parent, or teacher is not, in itself, a sign of a childish position either. Otherwise, the word "maturity" becomes a convenient demand for obedience.
I understand an adult position this way: seeing the available facts, distinguishing my and someone else’s responsibility, take circumstances into account, and take the next manageable step. You can still be afraid, angry, or uncertain. Feelings do not cancel out adulthood. The question is how we deal with them and what we do next.
A small self-check
You can choose one task that you have been putting off for a long time and write down four brief answers:
What is actually happening?
What in this situation depends on me?
What unpleasant feeling am I trying to avoid?
What specific action can I take, and when?
For example: "I am late with the response I promised. I feel ashamed, so I am staying silent. Today, by the end of the day, I will write to the person and give a realistic deadline." It is a small act, but it already represents a way out of waiting for the situation to resolve itself without my involvement.
I would like to discuss this topic without competing over who is the most adult here. It is easy to label someone else. Much harder is to catch yourself at the moment when you are ready to explain everything through other people’s shortcomings, just to avoid saying: "Yes, that was my decision. Now I have to do something about it."
Ideally, someone usually emerges in a team who can explain to the boss, without making it personal and skipping the part about “this is the boss’s fault,” that perhaps the deadlines need to be estimated more accurately, providing as many arguments as possible—that this will help avoid missed orders and, consequently, increase profits, improve the company’s reputation, and so on. This person should have the boss’s respect and be experienced enough. At least, a successful company should have someone like that; otherwise, if the problem is not addressed, it could eventually lead to losses for the company. That is, if there is a desire to improve something. Alternatively, you can just give up on everything and let things take their course. That’s an option too; everyone has to decide for themselves whether they have the desire, energy, and reason to deal with it or not.
