Growing Up or Growing Old

When I was just a little child
    I never was really wild
Yet my mother often said,
    (I tried to get it in my head)
        "When will you ever grow up?"

Now children they did not despise
    Yet, somehow, in their eyes
A child is a child and nothing more.
    What did the future have in store
        "Whenever they grow up?"

I did not smoke nor did I drink beer.
    I never did what some parents fear.
I did not take a girl to bed
    Until the night when I was wed.
        Is that when I grew up?

Does one grow up when the calendar's page
    Says he has reached a certain age?
Does one grow up when he has a wife?
    Does one grow up when a baby has life?
        "When will you ever grow up?"

No, those signs just mean that you've grown older
    And maybe now your heart has just grown colder.
For age only records the passing of the years
    The time one spends with foolish tears.
        Let me tell you when you grow up

When one makes plans and follows through
    When one does what he said he'd do.
One who determines never to be tardy,
    When one stops living for each party,
        It is then when he's grown up.

When he can see life as it really is with joys and pains,
    When he takes responsibility for losses and gains,
When he takes a risk not hurt by fear
    Nor needing courage from a bottle of beer
        Then maybe he has grown up.

When he can take rebuke and not be bitter,
    He can feel discouraged and not be a quitter,
When he can refuse his feelings both day and night,
    When he does what he does because it is right
        Then, then he has grown up!