Well, I Guess This Is Growing Up

Susan Orlean’s profile of Colin Duffy in “The American Male at Age Ten” showcases the complexity of growing up in an age of vast technological expansion and cultural changes. This essay gives a glimpse into the rapidly changing definition of the American childhood by giving us readers a preview into the life of a “typical,” middle-class boy growing up on the east coast. In this essay, Orlean gives us a profile of what it’s like to be stuck between childhood and adolescence  in a time and place where no one, not even “grown-ups,” know what the future holds.

A strong feature of Orlean’s profile of Duffy is the way in which she showcases the juxtaposition between his innocence and his growing knowledge of the world. One section where this juxtaposition is very successful is the paragraph in which Orlean begins describing Colin’s first day of the fifth grade. Leading into the end of the paragraph, she discusses a conversation in which Colin asks her a few questions, including if she wants children someday. After answering that she would rather have girls than boys, Colin bluntly asks her if she would have an abortion if she found out she was having a boy. Here, his childlike innocence is highlighted in both his curiosity and his confident response. However, his knowledge of abortion, a heavy-handed topic even for people much older than ten years old, and his openness in discussing it show us that he will grow out of his childhood sooner rather than later (whether he, or we, like it or not). His growing awareness of the world around him is both awe-inspiring and terrifying.

This juxtaposition shows the two dueling sides of Colin that he cannot see himself; the war between his childhood and his impending adolescence become apparent to us as readers and it leaves us curious as to what the future holds for a boy growing up in this age of both great discovery and great fear. We’re left asking, “Can he handle this?” and, perhaps even more importantly, “Can our future handle this?”