What is your middle age like compared to expectations of it when you were a kid?

[Echobelly]

I'm 47 now. I think when I was under 18 the general idea of middle age was sensible clothes, grey hair (women's always short), definitely no clubbing or watching rock bands live, probably having teenage kids, owning a house. I knew the sensible clothes things was't necessarily true, as my mum always had interesting and unconventional hair and clothes.

I think the going out thing has changed a lot as people have spent more time doing things like clubbing and going to gigs before they 'settled down', so they become a big part of your life, they're not just a thing you do for a bit while you're young and then stop. Also more people being single and not having kids and you're more likely to have friends who never stopped going out. Not that it's a massive part of our lives, and certainly dialed right down during our 30s when kids were younger, but we're rediscovering going out a bit more now our kids and our friends' are older and we're not just doing 'grown up' things.

It's funny how our generation is still wearing stuff that signifies the pop culture of our youth - at a friends' party at the weekend and spotted a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy bag and a Ghostbusters hoodie (and funnily enough, someone's teen in a Ghostbusters t-shirt). You can't imagine our parents going around in their 40s in Lone Range t-shirts and Muffin the Mule bags or something.

We do own a house, but we are pretty lucky, especially in terms of not having a mortgage any more. My mum had 3 teens by the time she was 40, I was at the stage of having two teens at 46, and that's relatively young by my peers' standards.

I’m older than what I thought old was. I only remember mum being 40 and older. She had me when she was 29. I dont remember her ever being young. Maybe it was cos it was the 80s, she always had a perm, wore make up and perfume on to go “out out” with step dad every Saturday. Never wore make up or perfume to work

My (only) sibling was born when I was 16... i was horrified that my parents were STILL having sex. Mum was 36😂
Now I'm 57, and yes still wearing jeans and band t shirts some days, and I still have not grown up enough to ever wear a dress. I love going to live bands, have recently taken up a new sport and am learning the bass guitar. My hair is still quite long and I have no intention of getting a sensible shorter cut even though it's quite grey...and I like my grey.
I remember as a teen thinking I'd never marry or have kids... been married 35 years next week, and have four adult kids and two grandchildren... that is still a bit of a surprise...and I'm mostly quite happy.
Bloody love my middle aged obsession with growing veggies, mind!😂

I think a lot of it was due to what was perceived as middle aged from films. For example Father of the Bride, I remember watching it thinking god they are old but they weren’t. Most people in the 80s/90s dressed older which made them look older. Not the case now days. Even kids in high school in the 90s looked in their 30s 🤣

Much more fun and more laid back. I’m much iller than my parents were but much more active.

I thought I’d morph into someone that looked like they had it more together- am 45 and still wear jeans/ tracksuit bottoms and hair is in a ponytail. I met a lady I went to school with recently and she was like a poster for someone who has it together- the jewellery, the hair, the clothes… and yet it didn’t look out of place on her. I would have looked like I was playing dress up!

Far more fun and not bleak at all.

Liberating in many ways

This is definitely true. There's a thing keeps popping up on my Facebook feed at the moment with photos of two actors at age 36 - one is Sean Connery, the other is Thomas Brody-Sangster (? - Liam Neeson's kid from Love Actually). You'd think Sean was old enough to be Thomas's dad, they look more like 50 and 20.

Ah yes I have seen that 🤣poor Sean, he was still hot. I think fashion obviously changes, look at the Sex and the City actors, the characters were early 30s-40s throughout the seasons, all dressed amazingly for their figures compared to other shows with women of the same age. Middle aged is not old at all.

Sadly I feel older than I expected to.

I was expecting perpetual youth I think, but every single one of my vices (drinking, smoking, sugar) has had to be given up, and oof is now my favourite word. Dh is worse, he can't even eat takeaways. 😩

I have even gone more right wing lately, which as a child of a Northern Labour voting household in the 80s Thatcher era I thought I'd never do.

All in all I feel about the same as my parents in every way except clothes. They did let themselves go a bit more, I reckon. 😁

Health wise, I feel pretty good. Sadly my mum began a chronic illness at 36 that she has had ever since.

I don't actually relate to people saying stuff like 'Everything hurts every day' about middle age, and I do have a congenital joint problem. I was told I might need a hip replacement in my 40s but have made my way through most of my 40s and no sign of it getting that bad yet. I actually have fewer headaches than I used to have (TBH I think that is down to there not being fluorescent strip-lighting everywhere now) and I do exercise more than I did in my early 20s. I can't pull an all nighter like I could in my 20s, but I wasn't even great at that back then.

I am 46, married, have a mortgage, a career I really enjoy and in all honesty it’s what I expected to go into after the age of 10!

I have one teen and one 10 year old… but inside I don’t feel any different to when I was 19 years old! I just have lots more responsibility!

My parents (there are photos) looked old by the time they were my age, and had settled into middle aged life… mostly at home, not adventurous, lots of grey and beige clothes… dated haircuts.

I am really short, and buy my clothes from ‘younger’ shops like new look, top shop for their petite ranges! I haven’t had Botox or filler, I have started going grey so a few years ago I went blonde to hide them.

I don’t think that I look particularly old, or have settled into a mindset of aging! When I was 40 I joined a political party that’s absolutely pro liberal values, and I have in the last year joined more protests than I did at university!

I make an effort to go to gigs and comedy shows… I can’t fight time, but hopefully will continue to age as disgracefully as now!

Obviously my kids joke and ask me what WW2 was like!!!!

I’m also 47.

I find I’ve actually mellowed out a bit more as I’ve got older.

I’ve always been a major stress head, but the further into my 40’s I got the less I cared about others opinions and have less tolerance for people and bullshit in general.

I’ve gotten a little more selfish about my time and have realised life is so busy, I need, and want, to take that time out for myself to do my (photography) hobby and things I enjoy (having no kids kinda helps I guess! 😁).

My dress sense hasn’t really changed. I’m still a T-shirt, hoody, jeans and converse girl. Will probably still be wearing these in my 80’s - if I make it that far! 😂

I don’t go out clubbing anymore. I can’t be arsed. Just the thought of it makes me feel tired 😁 Got all of that out of my system between my teens and my 30’s. Quite happy with a bottle of wine, comfies and the sofa these days! I can dance around my living room after a few vino’s and crash straight into bed. No waiting in the cold for taxis or eating dodgy kebabs 🤣

The perimenopausal weight gain has been kicking my arse though!! 😩 No longer can I just skip a meal and loose 3lbs! Now I can put on 4lbs just looking at a glass of wine 😭😤😂

I’m 64. My grandmas and my mum at 64 had short, grey permed hair and sensible, comfortable clothes, whereas I’m still wearing the same kind of clothes I’ve always worn… including my Dr Martens.
My children are grown up and happy and I’m just working two days a week. Which is all great. But. The thing I hadn’t filtered in is having a 96 year old parent for whom I have to do everything (not personal care - I am not going there!), from 100 miles distant.
My plan was to retire at 60 and buy a house in Greece. I can’t do that whilst I still have dad and now thanks to Brexit i couldn’t live there all year anyway.
I’m not trying to be bitter.. it is what it is and I’d never scarper and leave dad, but it’s not what I planned.

I think I’m fitter and healthier than my parents were and have a more zest for life. I more or less wear the same type of clothes too as when I was younger.
When I was younger I would never have listened to the same music as my parents but dd has same taste. In last couple of years we’ve seen AC/DC, Foo Fighters and the Killers in concert.
However I didn’t expect to get osteoarthritis at a youngish age, I had both hips replaced by the time I was 51, thankfully my new hips have given me my life back. HRT has been a God send too

I was discussing this with a friend recently when we were on a bike ride together. We're both nearer 60 than 50 and we were saying how at the same age there is absolutely zero chance that our mothers would have been seen in public with lycra shorts on, and on bikes with crossbars too! My Mum seemed like an old lady by the time she was my age and her hobies were knitting and gardening, but I have loads of friends my age and older who run, cycle, climb, sail and all kinds of other stuff. I don't recall many of my parents' peers being so active in middle/old age either, though the men were more likely to be so than the women. And all the women seemed to have the same hairstyle and wear very similar clothes. I think there is a lot more individuality now.

As a teen in the 80s my mum
always looked like a ‘mum’ -
perm, makeup everyday, skirts,
blouse and sensible shoes. She was mid 30s!
I’m now mid 50s and apart from
embracing my grey hair, I live in jeans and trainers. We go out 2/3 times a week -
pub, restaurant, gigs etc.

I'm the same age as Blanche was supposed to be at the start of the Golden Girls....

Horrified, defo not in the place I'm looking for a retirement home.

Blanche & the other GG slll had jobs , hobbies, boyfriends & fashionable clothes for the time?

my mother at my age, 56 was waiting for people to bring her places or do things for her. I’m at the stage that I feel I’m running out of time & if I want to do something or go somewhere I’d better get on with it.

My mother was still extremely involved and active in her 50s. She opened an art gallery and hosted concerts (very good acoustics at our house) and so on. A lot to live up to. I was widowed at 47 with a 4 and 6 year old so the start of my middle years was a bit difficult. But really I suppose what still amazes me (now 63) was how I feel pretty much the same inside as I did in my 20s/30s. Yes I’m wiser and much more confident (much less self conscious), but still feel like the world is before me and possibilities are endless. I barely recognise my contemporaries (not my friends who I feel haven’t changed in the last 40 years) but if I meet some people I know are in their 60s I don’t really think of them as from my generation but much older. They probably feel the same about me!

I thought I’d enjoy cooking and entertaining, and I would only work part time, if at all. My mortgage would be paid off and I’d have sensible adult children in “sensible” careers like teaching or engineering.

My life is the complete opposite of that, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing! (Apart from the mortgage not being paid off).

Better in most ways. I own my home, have a degree and a career, control of my finances. I have money for clothes and occassional luxuries. I drive, I have travelled extensively.

I expected to have a husband, but having lived with two men, and dated plenty of others, I don't see the lack of a husband as any great loss.

I have a gorgeous son, something I did not plan when I was a child. I was focused simply on escaping the bleak drudgery of my mother's life, and to a teenage me, that meant no family and a well paid full time job.

Now at 60, I work full time, I run, swim, cycle, practice martial arts. I am fit and healthy, eat well, have friends and an active social life. DM at my age had white hair, wore tweed skirts, nylon tights and court shoes, and seemed to do very little, except read historical romances and watch soaps.

I am thankful things have changed, every day.

Yeah there's been weight gain, it's not that I'm fat, but 'stout' feels like the right word
I'm not surprised as my mum wasn't inclined to slimness from midlife so I've actually put on less than I thought.

No grey hairs, but since mid 40s I've stopped looking significantly younger than my age, but that's fine.

People can look very different around this age - DH and I were a bit shocked the other day to find a guy we assumed was about 10 years older than me was actually my age.

I genuinely never thought about being middle aged. Just couldn't see it, at all. Definitely wasn't going to be in the career I ended up in. Wasn't going to have children (2!).

At my age, my mum was permanently frazzled and angry. I have avoided this by choosing a better dh. She dressed well, within her age and was always very slim. But I now suspect she hid an eating disorder v well. I've met women with her tricks.

I've gone the opposite hair colour to my mum. I'm slim, but have a slight thickening around the waist. My body skin sags gently, so even though i am slim and have good posture, you'd knowI'm not young. Even though my thighs are like steel, they don't have that pumped look younger women have. My mum was not running or lifting weights at my age. She didn't drink though.

I’m 54 and I’m obsessed with growing my strawberries and cherry tomatoes lol. I’ve always said I had brown fingers and my gardening skills were to cut grass.
Maybe my obsession is knowing how good food tasted in Ireland in the 80s

My parents were very laid back liberal people and still are.

we went to the pub with them when we were kids and went to many of their friends bbqs and parties that went on into the early hours of a Sunday. Then we would all go to the pub for one and bak home for a roast.

we used to get takeout from the local Chinese on a Saturday night on the way home.

when they went to restaurants on a weekend we went with and were around the drinkers smokers and potty mouthed friends of theirs which is probably why I’m a potty mouth myself but in all honesty we learnt social skills from a very young age

my dad had long hair for years as I recall.

I used to go with mum on a Saturday morning every now and then for her to have her hair coloured and permed it was great fun.

my parents although in their early and late 70s now are still people we really enjoy spending time with and my dc also love to go out with them so for me I am how I thought I would be.

I wear band t shirts,hair extensions,take my teenagers on the odd evening out to a pub garden and out for food.
the eldest dc are adults and don’t live at home but they all congregate here most weekends and we do something or other together as that’s how it’s always been.

we also often congregate at my parents for a catch up and drinks.

I hope to still be doing it all for years to come