Older not wiser

      I never understood why people were afraid of growing up. What is so scary about being able to do more of the things you want to do. Even though there would be more responsibility surely it can't be that bad. How could something so exciting be "scary". Now I'm not a little kid who looks at a high school student like an alien creature. I realize now that its not the fear of getting older, its the fear of being older.
       When you're younger nobody expects much from you. You're expected to be your age and that's all. When your parents leave you with a baby sitter you expect the sitter to be able to handle anything. Whatever emergency that could possibly happen would be easily taken care of. However now I'm the babysitter and I realize I have no idea I'm doing. If someone gets hurt the best I can do is apply a Band-Aid and hope the parents get home fast. When you're younger you assume that you'll figure it all out when you get older but the scary part is when you realize you're older and you're still waiting to figure it out. When you reach a certain age you're supposed to have a plan. When you're six you don't see any issue because you'll have time before you have to figure everything out. The scary part is when you're sixteen and you still don't know what you're doing yet everybody still thinks its their job to remind you to figure it out.  The scary part isn't getting another year older, its realizing that you're not any wiser.