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Life's gonna suck when you grow up
When you grow up, when you grow up
Life's gonna suck when you grow up
But it sucks pretty bad right now
"Go on! Go back and grow up! But I'm warnin' ya: once you're grown up, you can never come back. Never!"
"Darn it! No one told me being a grown up would create more suckiness."
In Ye Olden Days, cartoon characters were immortal. Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse would never have to worry about paying a mortgage, raising a family, or collecting their pension... except for the odd one-shot gag, where the Reset Button was immediately pressed at the end.
This is no longer the case. Many modern kids' shows, and some books, insist on reminding the viewers that childhood doesn't last forever. Not only will this be implied throughout the show's narrative, the Kid Hero themselves will probably be all too aware of this fact, and refer to it openly, with varying degrees of acceptance or dread.
In addition, this will probably feature as a plot point. The concept of "childhood's end" will probably be clearly illustrated, with the now-grown up character losing something that was fundamental to their happiness as a child. On shows based mainly in reality, this will probably take the form of the protagonist's group of friends going their separate ways after graduation.
In more fantastic shows, the metaphor may be even more blatant. The child may lose his guardians, Mons, or even his powers, if these all come with a time limit or are directly linked to his status as a child. For example, children are assumed to be wide-eyed, curious, innocent and trusting; adults are usually portrayed as pragmatic, cynical and set in their ways. The supposedly inevitable loss of their adaptability, or belief in magic, can mean even the most bright-eyed Kid Hero can become just like all the other generic adults just by reaching a particular birthday. Most of these former protagonists will end up just like the parents they were so determined not to grow into. Truth In Television, perhaps, but a bit heavy for a cartoon.
On an even more sombre note, Wistful Amnesia is often part of this growing up process as well. To maintain the Masquerade, various magical/scientific agencies will ensure that the hero remembers nothing of the adventures he had as a kid...or of the allies he made and The Mentor/guardian who looked after them, often delivering a less than idealistic moral on the transience of friendship.
Attitudes towards this vary. Some see it as a rich source of Character Development, and allowing more scope for Story Arcs as opposed to the formulaic shows of the "immortal" characters. Others see it as pessimistic and rather sad — it can be argued that cartoons are meant to be an escape from reality, and bringing up the nature of time is enough to depress most adults, never mind children. Even more, becoming an adult is supposed to be a good thing, making you a Real Person who can Do Stuff; why are we telling kids to avoid it at all costs? It's also breaking to the story; by implying the characters were not real, but not wanting to flatout admit it because it was All Just A Dream tends to irritate people. So they were... sorta real; but not anymore, and abandoning them now is growing up, really.
It might be said that actually this trope is not directed at kids at all, but instead to and from adults, a wistful longing for the ideal of childhood as seen most clearly in movies like Big and Freaky Friday.
This also includes adults as well, who are made to give up magical things in order to live in the "real world".
In some works, this is invoked as the reason why Adults Are Useless; they have forgotten how hellish being a child can be, and blithely ignore all the attempt by the child to tell them, because they have convinced themselves that it was better then.
If the episode/chapter/title is "Growing Pains" that's your warning this trope is in full effect.
Occasionally a child character will get to live as an adult for a while, Freaky Friday style, taking full advantage of their increased power and ability to make their own rules. Inevitably the Aesop emerges that adults can't do whatever they want and have responsibilities that children don't.
May result in a viewer having a "Screw that!" moment, leading to selective Dis Continuity.
Compare Virgin Power, where possessing easily-lost innocence of a different sort grants supernormal abilities.
See also: Silly Rabbit Idealism Is For Kids, Kid Hero, Coming Of Age Story, Competence Zone, Death By Newbery Medal. Contrast Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday which uses the advent of adulthood as the start of an adventure... unless you just want to be normal — then growing up still sucks. Contrast Can't Grow Up.
Examples
Anime
- In Sakura Taisen, Sakura is reminded that as she grows up, her "spirit power" will fade and she will have to pass her beloved and long-fought-for sword to the next generation. The said reduction in "spirit power" is later the cause of Sumire's retirement, as well as Ratchet's withdrawal from field duty.
- Though in the second OVA (written before Tomizawa Michie's temporary retirement from the franchise) implied it could be 10 or more years for Sakura, and she would be too old to marry at that point... so it's not exactly tied with childhood. Infact it seems to be more about using your powers (as Ratchet was part of the Star Division back in World War I and Sumire was the first to ever pilot a suit of spirit armor in the first OVA).
- Azumanga Daioh does this consistently, starting with the cast's entry into high school and ending with their graduation, when the girls set off for different colleges. It's more optimistic than other examples though — Chiyo-chan notes "Even though we've graduated... we're still together. All of us."
- Older Magical Girl series seemed to imply that their adventures and fantastic powers were simply metaphors to give them the strength to become... normal Japanese women and wives, who naturally shouldn't have powers greater than their husbands so they give them up. This seems to have created enormous cognitive dissonance, and some recent Magical Girls avoid this angle. This would, however, help explain some of the more questionable bits of Mai-Otome...
- Notably inverted by Nanoha who, instead of giving up her powers and becoming a normal person, leaves the planet to become a legend.
- The .hack games and animes have tried to put this Aesop into the mix, in a manner that's somewhat painful. The original series goes into detail how the AIs are people too but then adds that previous protagonists have "grown past The World" and have essentially abandoned them to later genocide. Hey, they had to go to college.
- Simon from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann could undergo an example of this, even though he obviously gets adjusted to the ever-changing world around and the changes within himself. Name ONE instance where someone isn't affected even a little bit by the death of a mentor!
- Luke Skywalker.
- Which mentor? Obi-Wan was his mentor for like a day, and continues to advise him after death. By the time Yoda dies Luke's enough of a Jedi not to let it get to him.
- Besides, name one person who wasn't affected by Kamina's death.
- According to many anime the reward for a young woman "growing out of" the Romantic Two Girl Friendship, a relationship built on years of trust and communication, is that she has become mature enough to be with an Accidental Pervert that she has little in common with.
- A striking example is Mahoraba, where Tamami loses her battle for the affections of Kozue to Shiratori. Sure, Shiratori is not really a pervert, but still...
- Kurau in Kurau Phantom Memory spent most of her youth being taken over by her Rynax entity. After the disappearance of her Rynax, the human Kurau is faced with leading a more sedate life as a grown-up. She doesn't mind that much, but her fond memories of her Rynax-filled past still give it all a melancholic slant.
- In Simoun all inhabitants of the planet Daikuuriku are born female and have to choose their gender when they're 17 years old by going to the "Spring". Since there is a war raging, the priestesses who pilot the Simoun aircraft are exempt from this, since once they have visited the Spring they will lose their ability to fly. Some of the characters take this as an opportunity to stay a "maiden" as long as possible, but in the end everybody has to undergo the transformation. A few manage to escape from it though, but they are likely to suffer bad consequences.
- Only Yun. Part of the point of the Emerald Ri Maajon is to stop that from happening.
- The Korean animated film Mari iyagi (My Beautiful Girl Mari) is about the beautiful Dream Land the main character and his friend would go to to escape their boring hometown as children. There, they meet Cute Mute Mari and a humongous yellow lab. In the dreary, rainy "present" the main character is returning to his hometown to "find something," but he can't quite remember the dream world nor Mari, his first love.
- In Kikis Delivery Service, Kiki loses her ability hold a conversation with her cat, Jiji. She initially takes it as part of the larger problem of losing her magic, but when she regains it, she finds that she still can't speak to Jiji. Evidently, the loss is simply a part of growing up. The Disney translation suggests Jiji is able to talk again after Kiki's magic is revived.
- A fairly common Fan interpretation of the first four (especially the first two) Digimon is that the chosen children must have some degree of innocence, but that they cannot get through the series without losing it.
- In fact, this is pretty overt in the second series - the older children at first drift away from their lives in the Digiworld because they're too busy with things like bands and school that they deem to be more important. In fact, rather heartbreakingly, the villain Oikawa is motivated almost entirely by his all-consuming desire to enter the digiworld and have digimon himself - presented as an attempt to become a child again, or at least reclaim the feeling he had when playing with his friend as a kid.
- on the other hand the series Distan Finale presents all the Chosen Children, now adults with children of their own but still maintining their digimon companions and visiting the Digiworld, and at least the spanish dub sugests that ALL humans have digimon companions, no matter age.
- English dub too. Part of the reason the children were chosen to have 'mons was that they had seen digimon in their past. By the end of the finale, everyone has seen them in one form or another, and so digimon become ubiquitous.
- Used somewhat in an episode of Shugo Chara. After Ikuto breaks an X-Egg (a negative Heart’s Egg), he goes on to say he doesn't feel bad about breaking Heart's Eggs and children's dreams because, as they grow older, children begin to think more realistically about their dreams and deem them impossible to succeed, ultimately giving up their dreams and losing their Heart's Egg (which is the place all people's dreams, wishes, and their 'would-be-selves' are located) and growing up to be dull, dreary, and tired faced adults who are living unhappy and unfulfilling lives.
- And another example of this series that is hinted at, but not explicitly stated: once a child whose Heart's Egg has given birth to a guardian character grows into an adult who will be able to reach their dreams, their guardian character will go back into their Heat's Egg and back inside them to slumber because now the child has the ability and encouragement to become who they want to be on their own. While not 100% negative, it is sad to see a guardian character, who most kids become very close to and grow to love, say goodbye.
- Not just hinted - a later story arc has Amu face this prospect after meeting Nikaidou's chara again. When asked if she doesn't want to grow up, she states that she doesn't really know.
- The full version of the song
 included in Bleach's Ending 18 seems to indicate that growing up can be difficult and isn't the most important thing, but it has to be done.
- In the filler arc, Momo Hinamori inverts this. She looks forward the day she grows up, because that's when she could stop being naive and prevents herself from getting crushed in case someone dear to her betrays her.
- Naruto plays with this trope. Shortly after Naruto returns to Konoha in Part II, when Konohamaru shows him his perverted ninjutsu, he tells him that he's not a kid anymore and that he shouldn't use jutsu like that. Sakura is impressed, but also a little sad that Naruto is not the same person he was before... until Naruto then suggests that he's developed more effective perverted ninjutsu. While Naruto and many of his friends (especially Shikamaru) appear to be growing up in Part II, Naruto is personally determined not to grow up in a way that requires abandoning his ideals, like his commitment to bring Sasuke back.
- Subverted in Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni,Rika really wants to grow up.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena is basically one big metaphor for growing up. Said "growing up" apparently includes enduring terrible pain, sacrificing yourself for your best friend, then being erased from existence. Or something.
- MAYBE subverted if you look at it from the angle that the reason all of these characters suffer so horribly is because they won't grow up and face their emotional problems. And when Utena does, she Ascends To A Higher Plane Of Existance and is shortly followed by her best friends. Or something.
- Generally the entire third season of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is about this, at least in the original version: most of the bad characters initially tell Judai that he can't win because he doesn't have the "darkness in his heart" associated with growing up and facing pain and loss. Judai goes on to win anyway, but when his games result in the loss of friends, he has a Heroic BSOD and becomes the Supreme King, and he's never quite the same. Some of these character arcs are retained in season 4, where a Darker And Edgier Judai shies away from his friends, but is eventually forced to battle again when his friends' memories and, eventually, entire existences are erased. We then get it hammered home in his final duel with Yugi, where he remembers to always have fun dueling no matter how old you get.
- In Honey And Clover, the main characters go through a lot of spiritual growing pains throughout their late adolescene and early adulthood, having to make tough decisions along the way. Most of them appear to wind up rather well, but the main character is left with bittersweet feelings about having to let go of the last remains of his youth.
- After the girls in Hidamari Sketch start watching part of the new version of Lovely Chocolat, their old favorite TV show, Sae notes that they're still watching it even though they're in high school. (and are therefore supposed to be out of the Fleeting Demographic). Upon hearing this, Hiro's hair falls flat, and she laments about how growing up is no fun.
Comic Books
- Played straight at first in Ultimate Spider-Man in which the fifteen year old Peter Parker is told by Nick Fury that he will belong to him once he turns eighteen. For some time he assumes this means he will be a prisoner but when he later confronts Fury, he learns that the man actually meant he will be a member of The Ultimates, a famous team of government funded superheroes, which obviously means Peter will have a well paying and exciting job waiting for him that will also allow him to keep his personal vows. Although the implication remains that all superheroes are being strictly regulated and have fewer civil rights than nonpowered individuals.
- Every Christmas, Archie and friends get a visit from a fun-loving elf named Jingles whom only they and people younger than them can see. Because the grown-ups don't believe in Santa Claus and other such creatures, they can't see him.
Film
- Baby Geniuses does this by turning the babies-becoming-toddlers into not-geniuses but... *shudder* let's pretend we don't know anything about those movies, okay?
- The most extreme example would be in Logan's Run, where upon reaching your 21st birthday (30th in the movie), you are sent to your death.
- Toy Story 2- A touching scene from the film shows this trope from a different angle when we learn the past of Jessie, a toy cowgirl. She started off being her owner's best friend, but as the girl grows up, Jessie is abandoned and eventually forgotten.
- Woody decides he prefers a different ending to the story-possibly because Woody is based on a show from well before Andy's time, implying that Woody was a beloved toy to an earlier generation of Andy's-Last-Names, and coming around again to be a beloved toy to this one has taught him that growing up isn't bad, just an inevitable change that you should embrace since you can't stop it.
- Indeed, Andy's mother says at one point that Woody has been in the family for years, implying that he was something of an heirloom. Considering how old he would have been, and his relatively good condition, it seems likely that Woody was well maintained for the sake of being passed down the generations.
- And how can anyone forget Toy Story 3? With Andy going off to college, that means the toys are now homeless. And then by a cruel ironic twist they are left at a day care center, only to be abused by children.
- Subverted in The Land Before Time 2. Throughout the film, Littlefoot is constantly seeking respect, trust and freedom from his grandparents which is denied because he is too young. He then tries to raise Chomper, a baby T. Rex as a parent would. After doing this, he of course learns why his grandparents sometimes forbid him to do things, but he still remarks at the end that he cannot wait to grow up.
- The Matrix has Neo choosing to "give up" the world we live in for the "real world". Later, Cypher betrays the resistance in order to return to The Matrix, reinforcing the trope that it is wrong to try to keep "childish things".
- More likely a subversion. Giving up real, adult life with such mundane things as a job, in return for magical powers and the worlds greatest computer games? Sounds like a rejection of this trope to me. Cipher tries to return to his 'adult' life, essentially giving up his magical childlike fantasy life for a more 'mature' dreamworld of riches and fame.
- In The Purple Rose of Cairo, Cecilia finds love with a film character who leaves the movie to enter the real world. Later, the real actor who plays the character shows up and convinces her to dump the magical character for him. Then, he leaves her as he faked his interest in her just to get her to leave the magical character so as to avoid any harm to his career in having the magical character around.
- In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, John Connor starts to see the Model 101 as a friend / father figure but in the end, has to give him up so the technology needed to make SkyNet can be destroyed.
- Subverted in Labyrinth, where Sarah puts away her childish things... which do not include the magical people she met.
- Another Disney Channel Original Movie, Don't Look Under the Bed, showed abandoned imaginary friends turning into boogey men. Boogey men with mouths full of fangs and long, yellowed fingernails that dragged children under the bed and trapped them in the underworld. So...yeah.
Literature
- It's Older Than Dirt. The expulsion from Eden in the book of Genesis is a Growing Up Sucks story, as Adam and Chava/Eve take on new knowledge and freedom, but lose the childlike state of being eternally babysat. And it's been suggested the tale is actually a metaphor for humanity's shift from the animal-like hunter/gatherer life to settled agriculture.
- In His Dark Materials, the changeover from childhood to maturity is marked not with a loss of the child's powers, but that of their daemon — they lose their Shape Shifting ability and remain in one form for their rest of their life. Given that the daemon is an anima/animus of the child, however, this development is directly linked to their bonded human rather than the daemon. Most likely a metaphor for "becoming set in your ways", the lack of prejudice and adaptability children are supposed to have being sacrificed for the reassurance of a firm identity - and this is treated as a joyous occasion by the two main characters.
- If anything His Dark Materials subverts this hard. The entire theme of the series is pretty much "Growing up has its compensations." If You Know What I Mean.
- Although Lyra does lose the ability to read the alethiometer, and of course only grown-ups are vulnerable to the Spectres.
- Narnia: Children eventually outgrow permission to visit Narnia, because, according to Aslan, the point of meeting him in Narnia is so they may grow to know him by "his real name" on Earth.
- Everyone gets to return in the last book, however, because they've died in an accident in their world and arrived in Narnian heaven. Everyone, that is, except Susan, who refuses to believe in Narnia any more, and wasn't with them when they died, though she'll probably join them once she does.
- Not likely Susan wasn't a 'friend' of Narnia anymore because of the infamous 'lipstick and nylons' quote, suggesting that CS Lewis wanted to punish her for entering sexual maturity. Or just because she'd become shallow, vain and attached to material things.
- Interestingly, in a Truth In Television subversion, C.S. Lewis is credited with having said, "When I became a man, I put away childish things, such as the fear of being thought childish." This was supposedly said to address his love of fantasy.
- The first part of that quote is a paraphrase from Corinthians, btw.
- Peter Pan is the proverbial boy who refused to grow up. His Lost Boys remain young and immortal as long as they're with him. (And as long as they can keep from regaining any memories of their former lives in the real world.) At the end of the story, Wendy returns to the real world, grows up and has a family. When Peter Pan comes calling again, he informs her that she is too old to go back to Neverland and whisks her daughter away instead.
- Gender-specific Growing Up Sucks - almost every Pony Tale in existence had at least one female character who "grew out" of her love for horses - usually, gender bias is in operation and only the male characters actually make a career out of equestrian sports, while for the girls, their pony is just a "child substitute" they'll get rid of once they discover boys.
- K.M Peyton was one writer who did this to death, with the heroines giving up horses to become wives and mothers. Generally, the horse is seen as a substitute for a boyfriend. The Pennington/Fly-by-Night series is pretty blunt about it as well - one character reflects that she preferred horses who were wild and unpredictable, and that's how she likes her men. Thanks for that image, Ms. Peyton.
- A specific example of this is "Jill", a series of pony books written in the 1950s and definitely a product of its time. She's portrayed as a highly capable, intelligent girl with a gift for dealing with horses. Once she leaves school, though, her mentor Captain Cholly-Sawcutt (yes, that is his real name, honest) sternly informs her that she's too old to be playing with horses all the time, and as a girl she'll never make it in the competitive field. To which Jill replies that he's absolutely right, and she'll get stuck in at her typing classes so she can be a "top notch" secretary, the only proper job for a woman. Sigh.
- A rather melancholy entry in the "Adrian Mole" diaries has Adrian pass by the field where his on-again, off-again (very much off at that point) girlfriend Pandora used to ride a pony she now scarcely visits. The implication is not just that Pandora has left behind her pony Blossom, but also her adolescent first love Adrian.
- Some Truth In Television here, as plenty of girls do give up (or are forced to give up) horses for boys, college, or marriage and a family of their own. Many of them return to the sport later if their time and resources allow it. Some wind up moving to a city and cannot keep horses any more, but go back to riding in midlife.
- In the Mary Poppins book series, everyone in the world is born with the ability to communicate telepathically with animals and to remember the strange spiritual journey which led them to their moment of birth. People lose this ability and forget everything that happens to them in their early infancy once they begin talking. (Mary Poppins has somehow managed to retain both her early memories and abilities, which is how she communicates with both animals and with the younger, pre-toddler-age Banks children.)
- Joyfully subverted in Good Night Opus where the story ends with Opus returned home after his fantasy journey and telling about it to his Granny. Thus informed, Granny finds a Pegasus coming to her bedroom to take her on her own trip.
- Partial aversion: "Robbie" a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov has young Gloria, who gets a robot nursemaid named Robbie. When publicly available robots were the newest craze, her mother basked in the prestige of owning Robbie. However, anti-robot sentiment quickly rises throughout the world and suddenly Mrs. Weston becomes concerned about the effect a robot nursemaid would have on her daughter, since Gloria is more interested in playing with Robbie than with the other children. She eventually badgers her husband into returning Robbie to the factory. Gloria refuses to forget about Robbie, constantly badgering her parents about him. Finally, one day during a tour of the factory, Robbie saves her life. Her mother gives in at that point and agrees that Robbie can stay "until he rusts". It is a partial aversion because the story mentions that many years later Gloria had to give up Robbie as privately owned robots were outlawed on Earth, but by then she was grown up and was supposedly not as attached to him.
- This is often added as an Anvilicious coda to adaptations of Alice In Wonderland and such.
- JK Rowling gave this as the reason for killing off Hedwig in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
- Piemur, a boy soprano in the Dragonriders Of Pern series, finds that growing up sucks for fundamentally biological reasons — his voice breaks and he loses his central position in the Harper Hall choir, and is transferred into the drum tower (basically the communications centre for the then-technology scarce Pern) until the Master Harper, Robinton, can decide on his future. While Piemur does remain critical to Harper Hall operations, it's mainly in his later role as an adventurer/spy, rather than as part of the sheltered, music-centred life he'd enjoyed until then.
- In A Coming of Age by Timothy Zahn, people are born with powerful telekinetic powers, and lose them at puberty. Adults keep them in line by controlling all technology and knowledge (even reading), but kids can fly under their own power, so it's clear who has the better end of the deal.
- At first this is thought to be played straight in The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke, where two of the main characters desire to become adults so they can have more "power" (in society) and two of the "villains" want to become children because they didn't have a happy childhood. But this suffers a radical subversion at the end, when one of the children becomes an adult and live happily (even having some years of his life skipped) while the adults who become children found childhood "boring".
- Partially (and grimly) subverted in Günter Grass's novel The Tin Drum. Three-year-old Oskar deliberately stunts his growth, by hurling himself down the stairs, in an attempt to avoid the horrors of the adult world. He also uses his titular toy drum to shield himself from these horrors. In the end, a blow to the head causes him to age instantly.
- Pippi Longstocking doesn't want to grow up, and eats "krumelur" pills to remain a child. Whether or not it works is never revealed.
- Pretty much the main theme of Stephen King's IT, along with The Power Of Friendship.
- A staple of William Wordsworth's poetry and philosophy, especially "Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood." He takes Plato's idea that the soul pre-exists the body and says that at our birth we know and understand everything, but we forget it all as we grow older, which results in losing our sense of wonder at the beauty of the world. Sounds depressing, but actually the way Wordsworth presents it is pretty hopeful, since he believes that it is possible to retain childlike innocence and wonder.
- The Catcher In The Rye is another classic example. The title refers to the main character's urge to keep kids, especially his little sister, from growing up and losing their innocence. He mishears the words to "Coming through the Rye" by Robert Burns and imagines himself standing by a cliff at the edge of a field of rye where children are playing, and if any of them get too close to the cliff, he catches them. Of course in the end he realizes that you can't protect kids forever — but he must not have handled it well, since he's narrating the story from inside a mental institution.
Live Action TV
Music
- The song "Puff the Magic Dragon" ends with Jackie Paper growing up and abandoning his imaginary? friend, leaving Puff alone and in sorrow.
- The official book adaptation by the songwriters addresses the downer ending by the adult Jackie Paper introducing his daughter to the dragon.
- The Filk Song "Omoide wa Okkusenman" ("Memories are worth 110 million;" based on music from Megaman 2) is about the singer's childhood memories, from specific events (eating curry) to more general nostalgia (pictures of him with his friends, and the name of his first crush written in a faded and lost diary), and how they're fading away from him as he settles into the monotone routine of adult life. The animation depicts him as a desk-working salaryman.
- "Still Fighting It" by Ben Folds
- "The Logical Song" by Supertramp
- "Back in the day" by Ahmad
- "Playground in my Mind" by Clint Holmes
- "End of the Innocence" by Don Henley
- "I Wish I was a Little Boy Again" by Lynn Anderson: contains the line "But girls grow into women, and boys grow into men, and the world of make-believe all to soon must end, and I blame that awful change for the shape my life is in..."
- "Green Green Grass of Home" by Porter Wagoner/Tom Jones
- "This Used to be my Plaground" by Madonna
- "That Was Forever Ago" by Charley Pride
- The song "Photosynthesis" by Frank Turner has an interesting twist on this kind of subject; the song basically goes into how the singer has accepted that he's getting older and watching fads pass by and friends grow up. However, he doesn't see what's so great about all the things that come along with being an adult, like morgages and ditching all your dreams. Although he thinks it's fine if you like that stuff, he'd rather stay a kid at heart. The title of the song comes from him telling the listener that, if all you do with your life is sit around and photosynthesize, then you deserve every moment you waste, just thinking about when you're going to die.
- "Photograph" by Nickelback.
- "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" by Tom Waits, also covered by The Ramones.
- "Life's Gonna Suck (When You Grow Up)" by Dennis Leary. It can either be taken in rather humourous way, or a slightly depressing way.
- "Field Of Innocence" by Evanescence.
Tabletop Games
- In Changeling: the Dreaming from the old World Of Darkness, for changelings, growing up means losing touch with one's faerie side, and inevitably succumbing to the cold, cruel, dull grip of Banality. Never mind that the world of changelings isn't all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows, and that with all the other supernatural creatures out there, life in the World of Darkness is anything but dull for mortals...
Video Games
- The Kokiri forest of The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is entirely populated by children living with their fairies, watched over by the Great Deku tree, and free from monsters and the issues of the rest of Hyrule, making it practically a metaphor for childhood. Naturally, Link has to leave fairly early on in his adventure. This trope is featured to some degree in the ending, where Zelda sends Link back to the past to give him back his childhood years, but Navi, his fairy companion for the entire journey, leaves him.
- ... This troper always thought this was because everyone who played OoT found her extremely annoying, so this was just Nintendo putting her on a bus.
- In Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories' Neverland level, Wendy faces the same issue of wanting to go back to London that she did in Peter Pan. While Peter is upset about the prospect of never seeing her again, he's even more concerned about her forgetting about him as she grows older, but Sora suggests that the most important memories are never gone for good.
- One of the recurring themes of Kira Kira, and the cause of the Genre Shift in the third chapter in some routes.
Web Comics
Web Original
- Done fairly subtly in lonelygirl15: Bree is initially seemingly obsessed with her stuffed toy animals, to the point where they're treated like characters in their own rights. They feature less and less as the series goes on, with Bree eventually admitting that she's probably getting too old for them in "Training Hard".
Western Animation
- The Fairly Odd Parents: Timmy will automatically lose Cosmo and Wanda — and his memories of them — when he reaches his eighteenth birthday... if he doesn't screw up before then. This adds a melancholic note to the series by underlining the fact that Timmy, while clearly loved by his godparents, is not unique but rather just one of a long list of godchildren they've cared for.
- In the Trapped In TV Land movie, Timmy is shown to grow up to be almost exactly like his cheerfully oblivious father, turning the care of his kids over to an insane, Vicky-esque robotic babysitter, though the memory wipe may be to blame for his failure to learn from his father's mistakes. On the bright side, guess who his children's godparents are?
- Kids Next Door: Especially ironic is the fact that not only do they grow up and out of their roles as KND operatives, they turn into the enemy (teenagers/adults). If they submit to the mandatory mind-wipe, they become harmless and lose their Competence Zone pass; if they don't, they do an automatic Face Heel Turn and join the official, antagonistic enemy forces. There are some exceptions, however, as seen in "Maurice."
- In the series finale, one of the characters even equates adulthood to being a disease. To hammer the point in even further, the adult versions of Sector V are portrayed as live-action actors rather than animated characters. However, towards the end of the episode, the show begins to imply that growing up may not be so bad after all.
- The premise for Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends is that Bloo, Mac's imaginary friend, can live there and won't be put up for adoption so long as Mac keeps his promise to keep visiting Bloo. In this case the sword hanging over Bloo's head is that, should Mac ever stop coming and/or grow out of needing an imaginary friend, Bloo will be given up for adoption. As fates go, this isn't especially cruel since adults can still see and visit their old imaginary friends (there's even a "class reunion" day for it!), but pretty much every adult has eventually put their imaginary friend up for adoption, and since imaginary friends live at least(?) as long as real people, they can end up seeing many different owners. The only exception is Madam Foster, owner and founder of Foster's Home.
- Though Madam Foster and Frankie both seem to believe that Mac may possess the qualities to stay with his imaginary friend forever as well.
- At least he won't dissolve into thin air once Mac gives him up, which is often used in series with premises like this.
- The fifth season of Daria featured lots of this. Both Daria and Jane explicitly stated in "Prize Fighters" that they were growing up and as such, were worrying about things and doing things they never used to. "Is It College Yet", the movie which ended the series, also featured Daria, Jane, and some of the other cast members graduating and leaving for college, though they had a bright outlook for the future.
- Futurama episode "I Dated a Robot" where Fry finds happiness with "dating" a robotic Lucy Liu. Although he is happy, his "friends" are determined to stop this. In the end, the real Lucy Liu's head convinces him to destroy the robot by implying that he can find love with real people...and then she immediately dumps him for Bender.
- In Johnny Test, Dukey precisely says "growing up sucks" while explaining pimples.
- Kim Possible really wants to make sure we're depressed about growing up judging by how both Series Finale address the issue. "So The Drama" deals with Kim and Ron growing up and apart. Ron even starts to go into a monologue about how "Maybe I don't want to grow up". Their Relationship Upgrade at the end makes for an optimistic upswing though. "Graduation" deals with... graduation, and the uncertainties of the future. While dealing with some rough patches there is still an optimistic ending plus positive points from the Word Of God.
- Teen Titans Beast Boy has to let go of childhood in the Series Finale appropriately titled "Things Change".
- When the Winx girls and their pixies sneak off to Earth in season two, they discover that only children can see pixies. The 4Kids dub added the layer to it that humans are born with magic and eventually grow out of it.
Real Life
- Many people, especially men often lose vocal range while passing through puberty, This troper ultimately lost 3 octaves of vocal range.
- For boy sopranos, who can become genuine celebrities if they're good enough, this truly does suck, as relatively few manage to make it as singers in adulthood.
- Well there is one method that has been employed to allow boys to keep their sopranos voice as they grow older. I wouldn't recommend it though, as the process...well lets just say the unfortunate soprano won't have any children following in his footsteps.
- The Golden Compass briefly references this process. The process is compared to the process of separating a child from their daemon, which leaves the child an emotionless husk, the two processing designed to physically and emotionally prevent a child from growing up respectively. Neither process is pleasant, but are not examples of Growing Up Sucks so much as "adults attempting to artificially prevent growing up" sucks. One could also note that while both processes involve a knife neither are very subtle.
- An entire ad campaign for Toys 'R Us was based on this. "I don't wanna grow up, I'm a Toys 'R Us kid!"
- The transition from student to educator. Many interests with a childhood or teenage bent are taboo for public school teachers in the United States and are suppressed. Some teachers have been forced to remove posters of bands popular with students from their rooms, and been told not to share musical interests.
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