My age says I’m an adult but sometimes I think other people know more about being an adult than me.
I just realized the other day that one sure fire mark of adulthood is buying a vacuum. Nobody makes you buy a vacuum and you’re not going to die without one. Nobody really wants to buy a vacuum. It’s just something you have to do at some point. It’s a willful decision to spend your hard earned money on something that’s essentially a chore. Because that’s what a responsible adult does.
When I started saying “I can’t do that, I’m an important guy with shit to lose” I became an adult.
I know I’m mature. I know I’m put into positions of responsibility. I still feel like a teenager.
I started feeling like an adult at about age 30. But 20 years later I still don’t feel that different than I did in my 20s.
No, I don’t feel like a real adult 😅
But I suppose I try to remember lessons I’ve learned and avoid the same mistakes where possible.
I have kids myself, but I don’t feel ashamed of letting them know that I don’t always have the answers or that sometimes I like to jump the trampoline for fun.
Adults who seem like they know everything and act responsible all the time actually seem “juvenile” in my opinion.
They don’t really get it, you know? Like they got to that level of life by following expectations and then stopped developing past that and just keep trotting along. Some people get stuck there while others “soften up” when they get grandchildren and less responsibility or whatever.
People mature in different paces, but the whole “being grown up” is definitely just an optional phase.
Im not quite there yet, but literally everyone feels this. You know what you know and you don’t know what you don’t know. Being an adult is figuring out how to distinguish between the two. If you’re able to recognize that something isn’t in your breadth of knowledge and you’re able to consult with someone else who is more educated on the subject matter OR you’re able to self-educate before applying your ignorance, then that makes you an adult in my eyes. Or at least is a large part of the bigger picture.
I worked for a guy in his 90s who felt this way.
Yes, definitely
Our parents were faking knowing what they were doing, just like we are.
Yup, everyone in the world is just winging it. Everyone.
Adults are just large children. Accept this and move on. You will never understand anything, really. Those that seem to are just pretending.
There’s a reason terms like “man child” exist. And sayings like “boys never grow up”. 😂
When I was a kid, my family made fun of my uncle pretty often with the expression “the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys”. I’m in my 40s now and holy shit were they right…
Well I mean, we’re all just mostly LARPing this whole adult thing, right?
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.
Lightning bolt, lightning bolt!
I’m out of mana!
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!
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.
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.
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.
“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.
About that whole “the skills required to cope in a society with other individuals, make decisions and be responsible for those decisions, and manage basic needs” thing. I would submit that that is very different from many years ago when people who maybe are our model for what an adult is used to live. I think our world is increasingly out of step with how humans are evolved to live, and so we feel increasingly uncomfortable trying to cope with it.
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’.
Being an adult in the sense of being responsible, feel pretty good about. Pay the bills. Feed myself. Go to work.
Being an adult in the sense of having no fun, or tightly restricted fun, not so much. Still go see live music and play video games.
This is a good and a bad thing.
There is no dividing line between when you’re young/middle aged/old. It doesn’t exist. I remember being 10. I remember being 20. I remember being 30. I remember being 40. I am still the same sentient entity I was at all those ages.
There is no reason to assign any “age group” to yourself. Be the age you feel inside.
