To ask what you feel a Real Grown Up should have under control, but you just....don't (lighthearted)

[ocelot41]

The whereabouts of the feather duster. Parking (of any sort). An accurate record of the dates of the birthdays of every member of my gloriously massive and sprawling extended family. Knowledge of my blood type.

The state of my loft, filing cabinets, sex life, toe nails. The ability to fix a leaky overflow pipe or bake a cake (either would do).

Does anyone else have this kind of internal ticker tape of things they think they should have cracked by now but just...don’t? Please come be a bit useless with me...

I turn 50 in the summer. At age 23 this was my expectation, by now I expected my hubby to be retired out of the Navy with a naice job, to have a 'little' job myself, the three future DSs to be married/living with partners. foreign holidays each year and the mortgage to be paid off on my clean, tidy and well decorated house by the endowment in a couple of years.

Reality- hubby ran off with a Wren that he was teaching shortly after the last Ds arrived when I was 28, I've worked full time to support them ever since (taking them to work with me for the first two years-in the days before regulations lol), none of the Dss are married although two have wonderful girlfriends and I'm hopeful, DH number 2 has been around for 7 years and we do holiday most years, my house has seen the boys grow up in it-enough said and let's all have a laugh about the endowment paying off the mortgage.

DS1 was 26 last week-how on earth can that be possible when I'm sure I'm only in my late twenties myself.

I want to have nice nails. Have bitten them since, well, forever. About once a fortnight I say to myself right this is it, start treating them, filing them, generally looking after them, lasts about two days. Am in awe of people with nice nails, they look so Grown Up.

Ironing. I just don't.

Parking. I just can't.

Meal planning. Impossible.

However, my house is always pretty clean (except the blinds: how do you clean them??), I do 90% of the childcare, work part-time and washing is always under control. Its taken a while to get this organised, but now I realise its worth it.

Eatdessert, put socks on your hands and wipe them!

My bedrooms have always been a mess since my teens. I like it that way... it's my cave of me-ness. The rest of the house is tidy, just not my room.

I can't plan; I perform best under pressure .

I'm hopeless at deferring gratification; if it's in the cupboard, I eat it, if it's in the fridge, I drink it, if it's in my purse, I spend it.

I often wonder what I'll be when I grow up.

I'm 48.

Oooh whys that been deleted???? What did she say?????

I think it was spam. She/he has been deleted on another thread too.

It was a spammer linking to surveys on child development as research for a game

Inability to tolerate other humans
Complete lack of interest in my, or other peoples fingernail decor or hair.
Leaving a supermarket with lucozade, magazines, crisps, wine and rum-nothing else.
Never hosted a dinner party, never want to.
Can't open the wee door where the electric meter is, so it remains unread.
Killing weeds by pouring boiling water and bleach on them.
Never been in a gym.
Car maintenance in:putting petrol in it and paying someone to wash it.

I have plenty:

Dressing in anything other than jeans, hoodies and pyjamas without feeling like a complete fraud (and secretly wondering if I look like a lazy transvestite)

Drinking tea and coffee - always thought I would grow into liking them, but haven't managed it yet and I am now 34.

Not staying awake till ridiculous hours even though I KNOW I have to be up in the morning with early bird toddler.

Getting to 4pm and then racing to have a shower before getting son his dinner.

Working out some coherent system of managing photos and videos so that I don't just have half a million folders on my PC labelled 'To be sorted'.

Procrastinating. My job is basically a series of deadlines, for which I have ample time to complete the work, so why am I always thumping away at my laptop in a panic with only minutes to go before I need to send stuff off?

No no no no, you poor deluded souls.

All this stuff is what we tell children being grown-up is like. This is meant to inspire them to want to learn to clean a bathroom / tidy their room / go to bed "like a grown up."

Once you're actually a grown-up you can eat pic 'n' mix for breakfast and go to bed when you like.

I do.

PosyFossilsShoes (love the name btw) those are wonderfully sage words!

My parents (or rather my mother) gave the air of being uber grown up - dressed by 8am on a weekend, clothes all ironed immediately after being washed and put away in drawers, socks matched, car washed, beds regularly stripped, meals planned and all eaten at the table at set times with appropriate crockery and cutlery etc. I used to feel like a fraud waiting to feel like a proper grown up who did all that and more to the point gave a toss about it, then my fab MIL said "Oh FFS, Ruby! I still feel 18 years old and haven't a bloody clue what I'm doing, and I'm pushing 70. Only dull women clean under their fridge!"

So, as far as I am concerned, my house might be a bit of a tip with piles of laundry (and a cat on top of it all so it has to be rewashed) and dinner might be a bit of a last minute scramble but my life is a damn sight more interesting and fun than the drudgery my mother martyred herself to!

A slattern and proud of it!

I still buy sweets (in my mid 40s) like I did when I was 7 - flying saucers, jelly snakes, pink shrimp, blackjacks and fruitsalads etc.

Guilty secret: grown ups prefer posh chocs - I prefer Haribo.

Also can't organise laundry. Blitz washing at weekend and then ironing pile of 4 feet depresses me so I buy new stuff to get us through week.

Don't know how to clean oven.

Can't stop reading trash.

Avoid turning on light in loo as I don't want to see the state of it.

Never know why people balance cheque books or check receipts. (Blank face)

Can't sort out photos since we got a digital camera. None of kids after 7 years old and they are teenagers now.

Always remember birthdays ON THE DAY. Too late.

This is great!

I LOVE Haribo. If I offer a packet of Starmix around and someone takes a fried egg I am (secretly) seething.

I also have chewed fingernails, have never plucked my eyebrows and have only twice in my life worn matching knickers and bra.

Never have the right shoes. What does one wear with a skirt when weather is mild but damp???? I hover between boots (hot eugh) and sandals (cold, so cold)

Obviously filing crappy bits of paper is beyond me so MOT is always late. And I don't know how to record stuff on our new telly but I can turn it on. (So proud)

Nancy, I love the fried eggs!! Do you bite the hard yellow bit off first? I love the little teddies and all tangfastic.

I am useless domestically and get very stressed out about. My home is a tip and if feel overwhelmed most of the time. I wish I was taught from a young age how to look after a house.

I chew the fried eggs whole but I tear the jelly rings in half and suck them.

Drinking tea and coffee - always thought I would grow into liking them, but haven't managed it yet and I am now 34.

Just re-read this and realised I am not yet 34 - I am actually 33. Now that's pretty grown-up as I remember being absolutely astonished that ANYONE could not know how old they were to the nearest month, possibly week, day and minute.

Filing! God - my desk is just a precariously leaning tower of bank statements, Boden catalogues, empty envelopes, my kid's "art" and ignored correspondence. I work at the dining table now to avoid it... My work papers are all beautifully organised and colour coded etc but personal admin is a bloody mess.

I don't understand tax codes at all, have no idea how to work iTunes and have a bag of odd socks that I just don't know what to do with.

I've got nice handwriting though and I can make a nice gin and tonic!

Am very excited by Haribo discussion and considering a trip to the newsagents. I know I shouldn't eat them as I am technically a vegetarian but I crave them!

still can't believe Haribo discontinued Micromix...