Adults don't know everything

We typically think that adults know everything, they have solutions to all problems.

Adults don't know everything



When I was ten, I thought adults were built out of answers.
My father could make broken things work again -- the toaster, my bike chain, even the hinge on the old wooden gate that squealed like a ghost every night. My mother could calm any storm, from thunderstorms to tantrums, with a cup of tea and a quiet hum. To me, they were the architects of the world -- steady, sure, and unbreakable.

Then came the night the power went out.
The house felt different without its electric hum, every shadow stretched long and uncertain. I wandered down the hallway, guided by the faint orange flicker of candlelight from the kitchen. My mother was there, sitting at the table, her shoulders bent toward a stack of unopened envelopes. The candlelight carved tired lines across her face I'd never noticed before.
I hovered by the doorway, not wanting to interrupt the strange stillness. But when she sighed -- that deep, aching kind of sigh that sounds like surrender -- I asked, "Mom, are you okay?"
She looked up quickly, her smile ready, automatic. "Of course, sweetheart."
But then she paused, the lie catching somewhere in her throat. Her eyes shimmered, and for the first time, she didn't hide it. She reached for my hand and whispered, "I just don't know what to do anymore."
The words hung there, soft but heavy.
I didn't understand everything then -- the loneliness, the quiet exhaustion that comes from being needed all the time -- but I understood enough. The world tilted slightly, the curtain fell, and I saw her not as an adult, but as a person.
That night, I learned that grown-ups aren't made of answers. They're made of the same fragile stuff as the rest of us -- hope, fear, and the courage to keep pretending they know the way.