My age says I’m an adult but sometimes I think other people know more about being an adult than me.
As someone pushing 40, this thread is full of people who sound like fun.
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.
idk, i do a lot of joking around, but i pay all my bills on time
you’re doing better than like 60% of other adults then.
No one ever truely grows up, some people are just better at hiding it.
I’m in my 40s and I still don’t get it. I keep asking myself when my life as an independent adult who has my own place to live and access to decent transportation will begin.
why don’t you have those things?
i’ve had those things since i was 18.
- I have a disability that prevents me from driving and makes it difficult to find employment without strong inside connections or outside of a few very specific niches.
- I live in a very large, pedestrian-hostile city.
- While my grandfather, who lacked a college education, could afford to buy a house and feed a stay-at-home wife and 8 children, I, who have no dependents and have two college degrees, cannot afford an apartment in a location that fits my needs.
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sure. any city that would be friendly do you would be ultra expensive. i have a two bed condo that would get me mansion in some other cities. but i would never give up the walkability and public transit.
not sure what your grandfather has to do with it, but OK. COL will only continue to skyrocket the next couple of decades.
not sure what your grandfather has to do with it, but OK. COL will only continue to skyrocket the next couple of decades.
The cost of living is exactly why I brought up my grandfather.
We (millennials and younger) were sold a bill of goods by our baby boomer parents.
“Go to college,” they said, “and you’ll get a good job that will put a roof over your head and food on the table.” We looked at them, with their bachelor’s degrees and owned houses and car-filled garages and hope for the future, and we believed them because everything we experienced during the halcyon days of the 90s reinforced that idea. But just as we were getting ready to graduate, the great recession hit, pulling the rug out from under us.
Do I blame them? No. They said that because it worked for them and they honestly thought it would work for us. But that doesn’t make me feel any less bitter.
ladies and gentlemen… “The problem”
There are two types of adults; old teenagers and grown-ups. I’m definitely an old teenager.
“Being an adult” means doing all the things your parents did when you were young with the confidence and determination you assumed they had at the time.
Also doesn’t help that much of modern management culture is suffocatingly paternalistic. Bosses want you to continue getting an education, they want you to dress a certain way, they’re out assigning you work after hours, they’re harping on you for showing up late or leaving early without regard to traffic conditions or life events. There’s HR policy around shaming you for being overweight or diabetic or pregnant that’s pitched as “how you can save some money!” but mostly revolves around saving the company paid sick leave and benefits. You’re told to save in a 401k, but forbidden from managing your money independent of a brokerage. You’re told to live independent of parents or roommates, but without the income to afford a home or an apartment convenient to your workplace. You’re constantly subjected to reviews and milestones that only ever seem to monopolize your time and never result in career advancement.
You get the same attitude from businesses you interact with - everyone from salesmen to bill collectors to DMV officials have a way of talking down to you and using shame or disappointment to manipulate your behaviors. TV is increasingly just a series of jangling keys. Social Media is just 40 year olds who act like they’re still in High School. PTA meetings feel like the blind leading the blind, as you meet with people who are just as infantilized as you’ve been, trying to convey why this month’s deluge of standardized tests is more important than the last in a way you’ll believe more than they do.
And that’s before you get to the fucking Police. An entire multi-billion dollar bureaucracy dedicated to being America’s abusive stepfather.
It sucks out there, man.
it sounds like you have a shitty job. my job doesn’t expect any of that.
i also don’t watch TV or hang out with immature people.
that’s the great thing about being an adult. i get to choose who interact with, where i work, where i live. in childhood you had no choices.
i also don’t watch TV or hang out with immature people.
:-/
Okay, buddy. Say hi to everyone in your Proust reading group for me.
i get to choose who interact with, where i work, where i live.
And yet you choose to be down in the muck with us shitposters. Curious.
I just had a nice chat with my friend about Proust literally last night. It was really fun.
You choose to be in the muck man. Your life is what you make of it. If you want a better life, go out there and get it. You’re an adult and your actions are entirely your own. I don’t regard using lemmy as being in the muck, but i don’t view the internet as a socially negative space. Why do you?
The idea of “growing up” is bullshit and probably stunts a lot of kids growth and development.
Adult is just being 18+ years old. What you may be looking for is how to mature as an adult. That’s done by trying, failing, and learning over and over again. You’ll always have some fear of new things, but you eventually learn how to bounce back from failure to reduce the fear. As you get older, you’ll lose the support of family because they die. As that happens, you’ll learn to fend for yourself. You will not mature if your are doing the same old stuff because it’s comfortable.
yeah. trying new things and failing and getting better at them… has been really great. i recently was taking language and writing classes, and it’s been really interesting experience. it’s forcing me to interact with people outside of my bubble and it’s rewarding when i study and make an effort and punishing when i fail to do that.
I worked for a guy in his 90s who felt this way.
I’m about to hit 49. We’re just older kids, that’s all.
I feel like adding a positive experience to contrast the more negative comments (including my own). The summer I graduated high school was perhaps one of the best times in my life. I really, truly felt that I had my whole life ahead of me.
I spent all of June training with my first guide dog. The clearest memory I have of realizing I was finally an adult was when we were flying home after training. I was sitting at the gate, my new dog lying quietly under my chair, my feet resting slightly forward into the walkway to accommodate her, my head filled with future plans and possibilities. I thought about how I would provide a loving home for this carefully bred, meticulously vetted, and rigorously trained canine that this organization had entrusted me with. I imagined our first semester of college together. I hadn’t gotten into my first choice school or major but that was OK; I had a backup plan and was looking forward to it. A kid ran past me, pulling me out of my thoughts, then I heard his mother say “Watch out for that man’s foot.” That’s it. I was a “man” not a “boy” or a “kid” or a “child”. The world saw me as an adult. The future may not have turned out how I thought, but in that moment, I was exactly who I wanted to be, doing exactly what I wanted to do, exactly where I was supposed to be, and man it felt good.
feeling you are responsible for something other than yourself is a huge motivator that a lot of young people lack these days, and probably a huge disconnect why so many people are unhappy and anxious.
but then again when you propose people get involved in a deeper way with something outside themselves, like volunteering, they tell you to f off they don’t have the time. and yet they whine about how all they do is sit at home.
you can’t have the rewards without the responsibilities. I’ve always wanted children because i know that would be a lot of work/responsibility, but it would also make my life more than about my own personal goals and achievements. sadly i have never found a partner who felt the same way, mostly just people who thought children would detract from their own personal hedonistic fulfillment. which made we realize we were not compatible, because my life is and never was about personal hedonistic fulfillment.
Being adult is highly overrated. Look at all the “serious” people ruining the world with their greed and selfishness. Never let the inner child die. Children inherently understand morals that adults corrupt with religion and over-thinking.
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.
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
