My age says I’m an adult but sometimes I think other people know more about being an adult than me.
I used to genuinely worry as an 8 year old that I’d get older and just lose all sense of fun and silliness.
Turns out in my early 40s I’m just that very same 8 year old but I know a few more things and like boobs more than I used to.
I know when I first hit my 30’s it dawned on me in a panicked rush that people expect me to be a mature knowledgeable adult. I have accepted that truth but also know that I am still just as “adult” as I’ve ever been
- I have adult aches and adult bills and sometimes adult hopes I won’t wake up in the morning… but I’ll still laugh at fart jokes.
Nobody knows how to be an adult. Everyone is posing.
As someone pushing 40, this thread is full of people who sound like fun.
“When do I start feeling like an adult?”
That’s the neat part! You don’t!
what does adult mean anyway?
like the traditional markers of adulthood as in home ownership, family, etc. ?
or just a self of responsibility?
If we strip the externally-imposed milestones and accomplishment domarisons, we’re left with basic stuff like the skills required to cope in a society with other individuals, make decisions and be responsible for those decisions, and manage (not achieve, but manage) basic needs.
It’s bullshit, but that’s close, right?
when I ask myself whether others - or me too - are achieving these intrinsic requirements, I’m not often impressed. But that’s a target to work toward, anyway.
No it’s not bullshit. I just don’t see those skills as adult. i had them at like six years old.
but i will admit most people probably didn’t have the level of self-determination i had from a very young age. and i meet people regularly in my 30s/40s now who still lack a lot of basic life-skills like understanding the consequences of their actions, and who seem to be eternally seeking some sort of parental figure to do their executive functioning for them. Whether it be a partner as a parent, or a self-help guru who has the ‘answers’.
You’re fine, some days I barely feel human let alone adult. I imagine the overwhelming majority are faking it till they make it. It’s one of those clichés that’s cliché for a reason.
I’m about to hit 49. We’re just older kids, that’s all.
I feel like an adult, but I feel like very few others actually are
It’s right around the time that you realize your parents were just doing the best they could and didn’t know how to “adult” either that you start to understand that you’re destined to do the same thing. We’re all just making it up as we go and hoping to do better than the previous generation. Generation after generation built upon the knowledge of iteration.
So yeah, mentally, I don’t feel significantly different than I have at any other time in the past twenty years, aside from knowledge and experience, but I also realize that I’m viewed significantly different by others, so you kind of have to act the part and fake it till you make it.
the difference between my parents and my siblings and I is that we learn from our mistakes. we try different things, we defer to experts to gain more knowledge and guidance.
my parents didn’t. a lot of people actively don’t and refuse to do so and live with the assumption their their assumptions and instincts are ‘correct’ and others are not.
Well I mean, we’re all just mostly LARPing this whole adult thing, right?
No. I’m not.
but i like and enjoy my life. i don’t regard it as a burden to escape from.
Neither am I, I just think I shouldn’t be allowed to but a house or rent a car or use a chainsaw or raise a child unsupervised. That’s something grown-ups do, not me (40yo).
that sounds like a massive lack of self-confidence.
none of those things are difficult. most people do them on auto pilot. you are thinking way too much.
you also falsely assume there is a ‘correct’ way to do these things and you will do it ‘wrong’. there isn’t.
i used to teach. biggest thing most people have to get over is their pre conception of a ‘right’ way to do things. there is only really what works for you, it only doesn’t work if you aren’t able to attain your goals.
like i meet people who think the only ‘correct’ way to have a child to make sure that child gets into Harvard… otherwise their child will be a failure at life. those people are idiots. the kid will be perfectly fine going to a state school, and maybe even not going to college at all…
Yeah but there’s also a massive subset of people making horrible children because they shouldn’t be parents in the first place. Its unfortunate but it happens.
according to who, you?
the thing about other people’s actions is you don’t get to police them. plenty of people probably think your actions are horrible, stupid, and wrong.
According to me, for one. You seem to not understand your own privilege, or you’d be aware of the countless unwanted, unloved children born to parents who do not give a fuck that the world then exploits relentlessly until they manage to remove themselves from the abuse cycle or are dead. The foster system is full of them, and so are the prisons. Ever heard of the school to prison pipeline? It’s a thing, and while many of those parents are simply disadvantaged but otherwise loving, many others are worse. Far worse, apparently, than you can acknowledge.
So according to me, a person with skin in this particular game, if a parent is unable or unwilling to see potential offspring as vulnerable little humans in need of protection, nurture, and provision until such time as they can manage on their own, they should not be parenting. And honestly, if a parent or would-be parent sees children as means to an end, things to use or worse, to sell, then “judging” them is quite frankly the least bad thing that should happen to them.
I’m glad you enjoy your life. But your kind of life is not the only life being lived. You are privileged beyond your own awareness.
You said it better than me.
Apparently Tubular has not seen the massive amount of horrible parents and by result, children.
Not judging anyone, people can do what they want. But a lot of people do not step back to take in the gravity of the situation when discussing bringing new humans into this world.
so what do you propose, sterilizing people who dont pass your litmus test?
frankly, i’ve had people scream at me my parents should have never had be because my parents were not rich and could not buy me nice things and pay for my college and graduate degrees for me. i had to pay for them myself. where i live people think that is child abuse and horrible and wrong. should we require that only people with massive wealth be able to have kids then?
wow yeah, what a loser i am. i should have been lucky enough to have parents that beat the shit out of me who were also poor. i’d be such a better person!
my point is your argument is stupid and draconian, and ultimately unenforcable. it’s merely a product of your own self-righteousness and need to control how others live their lives. if i had kids i’d force them to get jobs, just like i did. in your world that would be abusive parenting, probably. and i’d judge the shit out of them if they refused to work or were losers who didn’t contribute positively to society.
Pretty sure I was born LARPing being a kid too. I never made the very common presumption, when most(?) people are young, that adults (or my parents for that matter, religious indoctrination immunity) knew what they were doing. Perhaps I came across older than I was, and now the opposite is happening the more grey hair I get!
Lighting bolt, lighting bolt!
I’m out of mana!
I’m in my 50s and actually still LARPing, and playing TTRPGs, and MMORPGs. No need to grow up for anyone else’s sake as long as you’re not harming others.
When I was little, I thought I would grow out of playing video games, as in I have a very specific memory of sitting in my 1st grade math class and just making that observation to myself. I was a 90s kid surrounded by baby boomer adults who largely were not gamers, so I just assumed one day I’d grow out of it.
On the positive side, I learned that you don’t have to give up your imagination when you grow up. I came up with elaborate make-believe worlds as kids are wont to do, and merely started adding lore and continuity and documentation when I got older. You don’t need to be writing a sci-fi novel or DMing a homebrew D&D campaign to do it, either. I worldbuild for the mere joy of pretending, or to dignify it with Tolkien’s words sub-creation.
I’ve been GMing “Tales from the Loop” lately and having an absolute blast with it! Everyone in the group is 40s-50s, but totally gets into it. Never stop “playing,” whatever that means to you.
I only really feel like an adult when I spend time with kids and young people. Even though the students I teach are at university, and thus technically adults… I’m always struck by how often they seem ‘immature’.
And to be clear, I don’t even really mean that as a criticism. Sure, at times they don’t pay attention and forget to do things and seem akward/nervous. But "adults’ do all those things too. The difference is the adults have generally accepted these flaws and come up with coping strategies (both good and bad) like avoiding those situations, or blaming other people.
So, what makes me feel like an adult is not that I’m on top of things, or that I’m no longer a mess. It’s that I know I’m a mess, and I no longer hope that one day I’ll get everything sorted, and tbh, that’s fine.
the ability to delay gratification and think through the long term consequences of an action is a skill most human beings don’t have until they are in their mid to late 20s. biologically speaking.
but i totally get it when my 13 year old nephew thinks his parents are ruining his life by not letting him buy more fortnite money. because in his brain all that matters is there pressing urges of the here and now. to him the future is no more than a week away, he doesn’t think in terms of months or years and he won’t until he’s apply to college probably.
No one ever truely grows up, some people are just better at hiding it.
I’m almost 50 and had to look up DAE 🤷 It turns out that it is an abbreviation for 48 meanings!
I figured it stands for Does Anyone Else but what I had clearly changed as I grew older is, how tired I am of abbreviations
I totally agree with the abbreviations.
Last night I ate two bowls of knock-off cinnamon crunch at 23 o’clock, simply because I hadn’t had cereal in a while. My parents would have sure been like “why? Just wait for breakfast.”
I’m 40.
