Hurry Up to Grow Up

At the beginning of ATL, Rashad shares something his father used to tell him. "Dreaming is the luxury of children. I should enjoy it." But when Rashad's parents die in a car accident, Rashad's own childhood ends, and he forgets his father's advice.

When we met Rashad, he is dealing with school by day and cleaning offices and stores with his uncle by night. He is also trying to watch out for his younger brother Ant. Rashad is saving his meager wages for Ant's future. He plans to send Ant to college with what he is saving.

At the same time, Rashad is forced to remain a child. He must heed his uncle's rules at home. He must attend school and do well. He is not grown yet.

Rashad's brother Ant doesn't seem to have heard his father's wisdom. He isn't waiting for some undefined future. He is eager to be grown. He wants to get his and now. To Ant, that means getting paid and getting laid. In the early part of the film, Ant approaches several girls and women with no luck. And in one daydream sequence, he swims after floating bills in a pool. He resorts to selling for a drug dealer. It gets him the girls (at least one that we see), but not much money. He gets arrested. And worse, when he doesn't have enough to pay his boss, he gets shot. His rush out of childhood comes at a high cost. In the end, he backpedals to regular teenage life.

Another character in the film who doesn't know Rashad's father's good advice is New New, aka Erin. She is Rashad's pretty, mysterious girlfriend. No one has told New New about childhood and dreaming. She is eager to define herself on her own terms. But she is subject to her parents' terms. She lives two opposing lifestyles at once: upper class glamor with her parents, ghetto fabulousity with her friends. She attends the private academy of her parents' choosing, but plans to attend a Historically Black College or University of her choice instead of the Ivy League school of their choice. She tries to live the "black" heritage her parents now deny. (Though glimpses of her parent's backgrounds seep through. In a heated discussion with Erin, her father yells, "Keep talking to your mother like that and your lips are going to beat you to the hospital!") Eventually, New New's façade of urban culture is revealed and removed. It nearly costs Rashad's love.

Remember your teenage self. How often did you ache to be older, grown, making your own choices? What were your plans? Who were you going to be as an adult? What job were you going to have? Where were you going to live?

Odds are that few, if any, of your plans and dreams came true. It's more likely that you have wished, on occasion, to not be grown just yet. To have your basic needs and more met through no stress, worry, or effort on your part for a day or two. Of course, you can't go back again. But you can remember those days with more fondness than when you were living them. After all, they have made you who you are today.