Did anyone else become an adult late in the game?

About yo turn 52, and still not there.

To add, I’m currently watching my DS be a huge success - amazing GCSEs, A levels, exceeding at uni work, straight into a high paying graduate job. I’m so excited and relieved for him.

I said to DP there’s a part of me that feels like a huge loser for not having managed the same. He pointed out that mine and his situations at that age were very different and we had very different parents. DS has been encouraged and supported and is naturally academic. I just about passed my GCSEs, his mum let him bunk off enough that he had left school by the time GCSEs came around.

Between then and now, life hasn’t been easy. Turns out we both have classic ADHD brains which explains a lot. DP had an injury that causes him too much pain to work. I have a very small start-up business that may or may not work out. I’ll never catch up with those who have it all together at this point as I’ll have to earn enough for DP too.

It’s shit. Mid-life crisis club. My observation is that it’s actually worse for those who had kids late and now look at their lives and think they’ll be over 60 by the time uni etc. is done. I’m kind of glad I’m not in that position, though I do envy it too.

Yeah, I did. Sorry, I can’t say I’ve got my shit together yet but I’m a few years older than you and have bought a flat and retrained! On the downside I looked at my daily planner today and realised I started it about 5 years ago and have only done a few to do lists in it. Perhaps that method doesn’t work for me, right?

I did write a five year plan and I’ve done most if not all of it, I’d recommend that actually, broadly, what do you want your life to look like in 5 years?

Me.

It used to be a lot easier to be a bit of a bohemian and not worry about such things. Now at 40 I’m a bit scared. The days are slipping by so fast too.

Yes I’m very much one! Need to find a career and job and pension and all of that. Fun innit?

No family of my own, no career, can't drive and don't own my home. It's too late for the first two and I don't care that much about the latter two.

I suppose I was pretty late. I qualified into my profession in my late 30s, and it’s going well; prior to that I kind of flitted around various different office jobs. I was single for most of my 20s and early 30s. Met DH at 36, and now married with one kid. Always rented, bought for the first time a few years ago. Although I had a great time in my 20s and 30s, when I hit 35 I did start a conscious move towards “sorting myself out” by the time I reached 40. I was ready to move on.

I remember a cousin who used to be on here a lot referring to me and my brother as 'failed adults' in one post. News to me. I must have been about your age at the time.

It ws objectively pretty daft, but it's true I had some significant issues in my life. Newsflash: so has everyone else. It's just as reductive to think of your contemporaries as a collective bunch of sorted professionals as it would be to think you 'haven't grown up yet'. And it's damaging you! Give them ten years and see if they still look quite as sorted then. Life is long and complicated.

I bet quite a few of them think of your life as a dream scenario. Having said that, it's clear that you're ready for a new direction. It's definitely not too late to retrain (I started a second degree at 39 and a new profession at 42). I'm glad I did as it has meang I have interesting work and a pension etc. All good things. I wish you the very best.

Me!

I lived abroad for years and was still clubbing three nights a week into my mid-30s. I am only a homeowner because my husband already had a house when I met him. I had a kid at 40 (surprise pregnancy), started my pension at 42, and started training to be an accountant at 44. I am now part-qualified and work as an accounts manager for a small company.