A Leader’s Coming of Age

Samantha Smith, Editor-in-Chief

At an age earlier than most, I started to experience my coming of age moment, the psychological and moral growth from youth to adulthood. It wasn’t something cliché that you see in the movies such as happily-ever-after’s or fulfilling a prophecy that would consume that character, but more along the lines of developing a leadership role in my family, and in life. When I was 9, my little sister Shelby was born and after my mother spent some time at home for maternity leave, both of my parents decided to continue working to provide for our growing family. Since I can remember, I was not offered the same that other children were. Being the second oldest but having four other siblings and living a low-income life, my parents gave us what they could. Even though it was not always what we wanted, I eventually started to realize they were preparing us all for what adulthood would be like. Adulthood is losing your mother in the grocery store for your whole life; knowing exactly what to do, but in a much more real sense, feeling completely lost and not knowing how to do it. I continued my leadership role in my family, but also started to come out of my shell when I reached high school. Starting this year, I was the leader and delegate of something enormous – the JTC Journal. Being Editor-In-Chief brought out my self-realization and helped me understand the concept of “coming of age”. With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.