By the way, in case anyone was curious, the fact that I needed braces was not related to thumb sucking. I wasn't doing it at the time my permanent teeth came in, around 8 to 10 years old. Back then I chewed my hair, bit my fingernails, nibbled on pieces of paper, or sucked on fabric, but I didn't suck my thumb until later. My protruding front teeth were the result of a "tongue thrust" when I swallowed. That meant I was pressing my tongue against the back of my upper front teeth, causing them to grow in seriously bucked. It was pretty extreme, making it impossible to chew with my mouth closed. I finally got braces when I was 13. A school counselor who had noticed the personality problems I was developing because of the bullying organized a drive to raise the funding. I'm glad she did, because my parents never would have paid for them. Beer and cigarettes came first, children's health needs last.

I've been researching. For one thing, I've just found this gem by C. S. Lewis:

"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

I also discovered that there is actually a website devoted to adult thumb suckers. It seems to be pretty old though. Some broken links, and the last chat mentioned was in 2002.

And, in articles and comments where other adults admit to either sucking their thumbs until a late age, or still doing it, one lady remarked, "I sucked my thumb until I was 14 or 15, then I started smoking. Strange how the latter is more socially acceptable than the former." In fact, when my siblings and I were teenagers and beginning to smoke, my father ridiculed it by stating that it has been called, "the adult form of thumb sucking." His intent was to illustrate that smoking did not, in fact, make us cool or grown up. But that was lost on us. When he said "adult form of thumb sucking," he meant the emphasis to be on "thumb sucking," conjuring up images of babies and toddlers, so that as teenagers we'd be repulsed and think of smoking as an immature thing to do. But our minds placed the emphasis on "adult," confirming our idea that it made us grown up, and the result was the opposite of what he'd meant. Besides, he smoked at least 3 packs a day himself.

He was lecturing us so angrily, and the fact that between these two sentences he didn't even pause for a breath ("You kids are NOT going to smoke cigarettes! Eric, hand me the ashtray.") is still a family joke. And, it was so effective that all four of us smoked for many years. I have quit. My sister had quit, last I heard. One brother quit for a while and then relapsed, I think. The other brother, at last check, doesn't even care and hasn't tried to quit. (As you can tell, we don't keep very close track of each other nowadays.)

Sadly, another comment on the article, responding to the adults who admitted to late thumb sucking, was, "You people need a cigarette. It looks more mature and way sexier." Well, been there done that. Have the asthma to prove it. I'll suck my thumb, thanks.