What moments have made you feel like an adult?

[pontipinemum]

I'm married, have a house and a beautiful baby. But a full matching set of plates/ bowls/ cups and even a tea pot a few days ago made me feel very grown up 😂
Have you had an 'I'm a grown up moment'

(Yes I am bored and just about to make my afternoon coffee at work)

Kids thirties, three kids, professional job, mortgage but nothing makes me feel more grown up that getting on a flight alone.

Spending money on boring shit like microwaves and new taps and fences for the garden and paying for tradesman ie plumbers and electricians

When people tell their children to "mind the lady" when they try to get past me in the supermarket. I'm always suprised when it turns out I am the lady they are referring to.

Nothing yet! I'm single and no children and I never feel like a proper adult

When my mum died I was "but I'm a kid, I need my dad, he's the adult" but he couldn't face being there

Getting up in the middle of the night and dealing with a projectile vomiting baby. Husband bathed them, I washed all the sheets and put new ones on (for the second time as we always double up). It wasn’t the marriage or the mortgage or the baby, it was more the stuff you have to deal with because you have to - the buck stops here! We had to do this 4 times in one night, I definitely felt like an adult then.

I just bought a non-disposable barbecue for the first time and I feel very grown up. Also saying “my son” to people like the doctor’s surgery reception, feels way too grown up every time.

The first time I flew long haul by myself. I must have been mid-late-30s, I went premium economy as it was quite a long flight (which i know is not a patch on business or first, but still felt like a treat), and I had smoked salmon and champagne on my own at the seafood House or whatever its called in Heathrow T5. I remember looking around and thinking "yup, proper adult now doing this all by myself'.

My life is considerably less glamorous now and I've barely flown at all in the last 10 years or so!

Aside from getting married, the thing that made me feel ‘grown up’ was when I started worrying about my parents. It just felt like the parent/child role was shifting slightly.

Miscarriage

I bought my very own Araldite glue instead of taking everything to Dad to fix

When DS first held up a little pudgy hand for me to hold

Cleaning up vomit in the middle of the night that is not from a wild night out but a poorly child

Taking my Dad to register his Dad’s death. And having to step up because he wasn’t up to it.

Having a baby looking at her and wondering what I had done. This person depends on me.
Covid lockdown when the kids expected me to have the answers.

Flake in one hand - wine in the other - listening to radio 4 …. In the bath because I could.
My first home on my own!

When I was standing with my baby daughter in our first studio flat that was all ours. Looking at the unfurnished rooms and bare walls and knowing we were properly on our own (and safe) for the first time ever.
All the choices I got to make in that flat made me so happy and feel so adult.
I had never been able to choose thing for myself before or buy things without permission. But in that flat - I bought a bed and a warm orange duvet cover. I painted the bathroom yellow and put an aloe vera on the windowsil. As she got bigger she loved to paint and draw and I pinned her rainbow coloured paintings all over the walls.
I bought a purple silicone spatula and a purple frying pan and some food colouring and we made purple pancakes. I bought her colourful clothes and toys and books from charity shops and filled our room with them.
Our towels were bright blue and I could buy pink soap and flowery smelling washing powder.

Every decision I made in that flat felt excitingly independent and very adult- even if it was an objectively childish choice (like using the spre bathroom paint to paint a massive sun on the ceiling in the main room)

Getting the most dreaded phone call in the world, my mum had died and I was abroad. I grew up in an instant, aged 26 with a newborn in my arms.

Sadly, a miscarriage was a clear 'adult' turning point for me, I grew up so much after that.
But on a more lighthearted note, I can still remember my first credit card arriving all shiny and new, that felt very grown up!

@Simonjt did you adopt the child you found on the night out or are they separate incidents? Intrigued by your story!

Watching my 20-something partner have his heart stopped and restarted on a cardiology ward... The first of many medical dramas, it turned out. More pleasingly, getting on a big plane alone to fly across the Atlantic when I was 21.

I'm surprised by the flights but that's probably because I've flown alone lots of times.
M/C didn't make me feel grown up either.
My home house being sold was one of those moments too like the security was gone.
Lots of funny/ sad and interesting ones on here.

Lots of the things already mentioned!

But for me the defining one was losing my parents when I was 35. Organising their funerals and meeting solicitors to sort out their wills made me feel suddenly very grown-up in a way I didn’t like at all! I wanted a real grown-up to come and take control of it all 😂

@SpiritedSneeze that has just made me feel all warm and fuzzy, sounds absolutely wonderful (despite presumably difficult circumstances leading up to it) ❤️☀️🌈

Nagging my son to revise for his upcoming GCSEs makes me feel like a proper adult!

I recently reported a pothole to my local council. Downloaded the app and everything.

Buying a house. I already had 2 DC and had been married and divorced by this point but looking at houses was the thing that made me feel like a proper grown up.

A sad one, like PPs when my Mum died and I realised that my Dad and siblings were looking to me to organise the funeral. I was only 30 and didn’t feel ready for that at all.