Parenting & Family Quote by Wendy Wasserstein

Adulthood, in Wendy Wasserstein's hands, isn't a triumphal arrival; it's a slow accretion of obligations you didn't apply for. The line works because it punctures the Hallmark version of growing up and replaces it with a more modern, urban dread: the sense that independence is real, but it comes with an invoice. The dash and the stage-whisper aside - "here's the big curve" - is pure playwright craft, a comic beat that doubles as a warning. It's funny the way bad news is funny when it lands too accurately.

The intent is to reframe responsibility as a generational loop, not a straight line. You're trained to expect adulthood to mean separating from your parents, maybe even outgrowing them. Wasserstein flips it: the true test isn't moving out, it's moving back in emotionally, financially, logistically - becoming the person who schedules the appointments, makes the calls, manages the fear. "Curve" evokes school, scoring, competitiveness: you can do everything "right" and still get blindsided by the exam nobody prepped you for.

Subtextually, it's also a feminist and middle-class American observation. Her work often tracks educated women navigating careers, family, and selfhood; adding parents to the roster exposes how gendered caretaking persists even as women's public roles expand. Context matters, too: late-20th-century longevity and mobility mean parents live longer, kids live farther, and the caregiving burden arrives in the middle of already-crowded lives. The joke is structural: grownuphood isn't freedom from dependence; it's learning you'll always be inside somebody else's.