Are you a proper grown up?

[notapropergrownupat49]

I am just realising there are many ways in which I don’t feel like a “proper” grown up.
I can’t cook well
I don’t manage to keep all my toiletries together in one place so always scrabbling for them
I can’t handle a job for long
I don’t have a good wardrobe
My car is never clean
my garden has plenty of weeds
Don’t get me started on my lack of pension.
what else do you consider grown up behaviour?

There are lots of things I CAN do but I am failing so many

How old are you OP?
I have a house, a long term, fairly demanding job and the pension that comes with it, but I’m definitely not a grown up at 57.

Some people are born organised and responsible, some people aren’t. I have accepted this, but sometimes wish I was better at the adult stuff 🫤

I am 49
I also realised at the super market I don’t know how to choose a good joint to make a roast

I am, in fact, a proper grown up, though my car is not clean. I blame that on children and horses though.

The moment Dh and I realised we were proper real grown ups was sometime in our late 30s when, for the first time ever, we remembered to order heating oil before the tank got so low that we had to prop one end up on a brick to get the dregs and heat the house. 😂 We were so proud of ourselves.

Although I felt like a Certifiable Adult when I arranged for a window cleaner, a chap to cut the grass (I have hay-fever and freshly-cut grass is the worst for it!), a private pension and subscribed to a monthly compost delivery, I still regularly fail at adulthood.

I mean, sure, I can keep myself and my pets alive (you need a pet that will keep the weeds down, OP). I aspire to have chickens and ducks one day. However... I get bored of toiletries and knitting patterns, then rediscover them six months later and wonder what on earth I was thinking/doing, so I end up with lots of half-finished things around. My wardrobe is a 'cube shelf' system... because I find coat hangers a faff. My car is Not For Guests (it is not clean, and sometimes gets used as an unlikely farm vehicle) and I didn't get the ironing gene. I can, however, cook!

I did manage to arrange, and go on, holiday this year. For the first time in my life, I went on planes all by myself. That felt terribly grown-up!

Most people I meet seem like proper grown ups. I don't feel like a grown up. I assume that all the people I meet who appear to be grown ups feel the same as me inside.
Although I have just organised my dads funeral and be the executor of his will and this made me feel grown up.

I always feel like I’m really, really not a proper grown up!

I have to work really hard at not being messy, I have lots of make up items everywhere, like a teenage girl. I’m still very easily influenced by the latest trend, again like a teenager.
My music taste hasn’t changed since the 90s.
I don’t have savings I’m a bit of a frivolous spender (although I do run our family finances and I think I do ok)
I can’t sew even basic stuff
I’m crap at DIY and gardening
I still get the feeling sometimes on a Friday and Saturday night that I’d love to go to night clubs
My favourite food is the same as when I was a child
I don’t drink hot drinks

However…
I have a degree
I’ve had responsible jobs
I’ve raised 4 children including 2 with disabilities and one with medical needs

The aging process really bothers me. I hate getting older a lot and am offended if people aren’t shocked when they find out my age 😂

Growing old is inevitable.
Growing up however is optional....🤣

Nope. I still enjoy playing with Lego and being silly. Silliness is extremely important to me.

I don't think anyone feels like a proper grown up, do they?! I certainly don't 😂

No, 46 and I don’t think I am. I have a lot of responsibilities and so have to adult but amn’t a grown up-

I’m the mess at the parent teacher meeting that had to run/ fly in the car from work

look younger than I am,

mw job because all my skills are pretty obsolete now

clothes are very basic and very plain

don’t really travel so have no clue what to do when I do

house has lots to be done with it because dh is sucked into his work (and now we have marriage issues) and I’m bad at cleaning (dsis can tiny for minutes an do a better job than i’d do in hours!)

Also it takes me time to figure out the right way to do things

but it doesn’t bother me often to be honest (it hugely bothers me sometimes) , I try my best, my kids are turning out to be nice sensible lads and in general I think I get on with most people

Ah my people, at last! I can't keep a streak of cleaning going for more than 2 days, the car is terrible (although not my doing, it's my passengers) I can cook but not more than a couple of days in a row. Think I do a reasonable job with my kids and manage to pay all my bills. But at 45, once again have completed yet another qualification and starting a job below what I qualified as, but really hoping this is it now and I can work up a bit of the ladder and get a pension etc. One day I'll feel like a proper adult.

I don't consider that list that you've given to be a sign of being an adult. Most of them apply inu case but I am certainly to probably 99% of the population, an adult.

Just checked the list again and I can handle a job for a while if I get on with the people..My bedroom floor is a bloody health hazard. Always will be..I also wear the same pair of socks for days on end- that really upsets people on Mumsnet

Apparently not, because I can’t drive, and am hence mired in eternal childhood according to another current thread.

Same!

I’d say I basically am but my house could be more organised (working on it) and finished (working on it) my car is gross (I’ll never change), my clothes aren’t great quality (low priority)
But I have an established career, my kids are turning out well, I have a good pension and the mortgage is gradually shrinking.
I’m more together than lots of people I know my age or older. It could be worse.

I finally fet like a proper adult when I bought a sideboard. Such a serious piece of furniture

According to a certain family member, I'm not a proper grown-up because I don't have children. Having a long career in a demanding profession does not count, apparently.

I feel like I'm pretending to be a proper grown up and marvel all the time how I seem to be fooling people and getting away with it.

I do have a degree, a professional job, house, car, marriage and children but I still think of myself as young and clueless (I'm 52). I'm a solicitor and sometimes when I'm advising a client and they are listening intently I think "oh my goodness they really think i know what I'm talking about". I actually DO but I can hardly believe it myself. Imposter syndrome?

Though in other ways I'm really not grown up at all. My husband complains that I have the sense of humour of a 12 year old boy and I also find slapstick hilarious. Crap at time management and not great at cooking - find it difficult without a recipe though my mum could cook a huge repertoire of dishes from memory. I can drive but really struggle with directions if I go somewhere new and will try and avoid it. Love driving around with my music blaring. One of our neighbours said to our son "your mother drives around like a teenager".

I still have the same style/fashion sense as I did in my teens (gothy/rock festival) that my parents used to say I'd grow out of.

But it's fun to feel young. I just wish my knees didn't feel 100 years old!

Excellent.

A few years ago I bought some fish which I realised when I got home I would need to gut myself. I did it (yuck) and remember thinking "I must be a proper grown up now!"

Yes on paper I am.

I’ve had two proper jobs that straddled my stay at home mum stint, both of them for over a decade, both full time and am always up at 5am to manage early starts.
I handle all the bills, mortgage and (when it was necessary) children stuff, they’re both fairly self sufficient now!
I buy my own cars and can do minor fixes on them.
My home is always visitor ready including an extra spare room that’s unofficially my mum’s when she comes up to visit.
I cook, bake, and I can see the bottom of my dirty washing basket.
I exercise-ish. And eat fairly sensibly. Don’t drink to excess and only occasionally bum a cigarette on rare times I’m out drinking with my friends.

I still feel the crippling anxiety of not being enough.

😃I felt very grown up when I gave away my last piece of flat-pack furniture and replaced it with an item that had to be delivered in one piece.

I wasn’t expecting you to say that
How do you manage at 49 if you can’t keep down a job for long?

According to MN, no. Because I don't drive

I’m a proper grown up with a husband kids dog and a house. My personal finances however are an absolute mess after a summer of over spending so in that respect I’m most definitely not a proper grown up!