To ask what's an adult problem that nobody prepared you for?

[Midge1978]

For me it's keeping the bathroom clean. I don't think I ever saw my mother clean hers but it was always immaculate and rosey smelling. I can't seem to keep on top of the mould monster in mine!

When I grew up and left home I suddenly realized I didn't know how to cook! I knew food prep like pealing carrots and potatoes and cutting things. But I didn't know how to put it all together and cook something yummy. We were expected to help in the kitchen but stay out of the way and so ended up really unprepared. My first cooking attempts were a complete disaster and tasted disgusting. I even set fire to a saucepan once because someone rang the doorbell and I got chatting for ages and forgot I had left something on the stove. That's when I learnt that metal can catch fire. Buying cookbooks helped and now I can cook a decent meal

Shockers

Being on call before the advent of mobiles and trying to answer the phone while in the bath/shower/toilet

How hard the sheer monotony of adulting would be.

The volume of paperwork and bureaucracy of day to day living and dying.

Also, holidays.

This sounds really special-snowflakey but after school and uni I just got used to nice long breaks.

I'm still not used to 33 days annual leave, it just feels like nothing.

Being ill and just having to crack on and there being no one to cuddle you.

This is a biggy that I have recently been thinking of

I was raised Catholic (no longer practice) and was lectured at at school upon good Christian behaviour

The worst, most mean spirited, cruel and ignorant behaviour I have been on the receiving end of as an adult has without exception been from self proclaimed Christians.

And some of the most decent compassionate behaviour from total atheists

Some of those holier than thou teachers have revealed themselves as total hypocrites over the years also when I've re encountered them as an adult!

I wasn't prepared to lose my religion, and feel a void where it was.

You see nothing but job ads in your field that ask for a masters degree when you haven’t the money to go back to studying. And then looking at your old university’s website and realizing that the exact, same degree that you took all those years ago is now classed as a Masters. Oh, really.

Finding out your husband has terminal lung cancer. That really does take the wind out of your sails. Having to do practical stuff like speaking to the bank, cancelling holidays and claiming on insurance, finding yourself the sole earner at the same time you are dealing with the worst stress of your life. Sorry, I know this was meant to be light hearted

Oh this is a big one as well for me

That you would see childhood stuff with adult eyes and that mature hindsight would reveal fucked up shit you hadn't noticed.

So looking back, I can see quite clearly that my childhood best friends mother disliked both me and my parents immensely all along it was a bit when it clicked it hadn't occurred to me as a child.

Realising that most people really don't know what you are thinking.

How hard being pregnant and raising my own DC would be after losing my DM 2 years prior. Still miss her to this day 10 years on. Now I'm obsessive about keeping information for my DC to ensure any information required in the future will be there.
I have a neuro condition and often wonder how old my DC will be when I pass. Knowing that future pain breaks my heart.

How relentless life / parenting / housework etc is. Boring! Repetitive!

How the bad eating habits I had as a child have followed me into adulthood.

That keeping my friends was more important than always being with my bf. We lasted a few years but by that time most close friends from school had moved on.

Sending big hugs to all of you lovely people also suffering (take your pick)

Tax returns, pot holes wrecking your tyres every few months. Feuding neighbours.

Small boys inaccurate peeing. Pelvic floor exercises.

That my parents wouldn't always have the answer.

I moved abroad to study then got a job and needed to fill in a tax return (it's not taken at source here). I rang my (chartered accountant) dad to ask for help but he knew nothing about that country's tax laws...or even the language so couldn't help.

Agree with relentlessness. I thought it would be with babies and toddlers but wasn't prepared for it still being that way with a 7 year old.

New one for today. I want to buy a carpet and I have no idea what kind of carpet.

SnowOnTheSeine - mine are 12-17 and it's a different kind of relentlessness. I'm certainly more tired than when they were little.

Realising that sometimes situations occur which have no right answer/ best solution. Just two really shit options, which you have to choose between, which will leave you feeling regret either way. And similarly, realising that some decisions are 100% final and can't be changed, taken back, or even made up for in some cases. Those were two really bitter pills to swallow.

On a more lighthearted note, no one prepared me for how ordinary I am. I was always "the bright child" at school, top of the class at college, then went to university and was pretty ordinary. Then went to work and was in many cases a bit below average. But I still have a lingering idea from my childhood that I'm supposed to achieve something great, somehow. I live with a sense of unactualised potential that largely only exists in my head.

How much knowledge I would gain just through life without realising, then looking back at myself 5/10 years ago and thinking I knew nothing. I will look back on myself in 10 years time and still think that about myself now.

I certainly understand now when people always said "I'd love to go back to being 20/my 20 year body etc but only if I know what I know now."

I remember as a child, with all the rules and bedtimes and restrictions, wanting to be 'grown up' so I could do anything I wanted.

And now I am grown up and actually it's not all that really.

It's just all so fucking relentless. All the time. The energy required to work out what to make for dinner every bloody night, the endless washing that needs to be done, stuff that needs fixed, kids that need 'stuff' and to be places.

I think that age between 18 and whenever you get a mortgage/pay rent/have kids is probably the best part of your life, when you have no responsibilities. And maybe when the kids have all left home and you don't have to wash sports kit/find missing homework/think about cooking fucking dinner for kids that don't want what you've made but all that in between stuff is incredibly relentless, tiring and bloody boring.

*Disclaimer: I love my kids, my partner, my life and I wouldn't change it. But fucking hell, it's hard sometimes.

NordicNobody Totally get your second paragraph.

I've always wondered though - does everyone feel a bit like that? Are most of us brought up to feel somehow "special" (by well-meaning parents), when really we're not?

@castasp I think there's a whole generation of young people currently reaching adulthood who have been brought up believing they were special (the "every child gets a prize" mentality), who are going to struggle with being ordinary and having to do ordinary jobs for the rest of their lives.

I have tried to avoid this with my own kids, and prepare them to accept failure and learn how to bounce back, but one still has mental health problems and very little resilience.

It's going to be a big problem for society in a few years, as the older generations retire... I have no idea what the solution is

MycatsaPirate
I was just thinking about the dinner thing today - working out what to cook for every fucking meal every fucking day of your life and trying to make sure you have a healthy balanced diet overall - relentless.
When I was a kid and then teenager I loved being allowed to cook at home - and obviously my DM was getting me ready for independent life, making sure I could cook - but now I just hate it, every bloody day.
Think I'll go out and get a kebab tonight.

being divorced. I never expected it and nothing prepares you for the falling off the cliff feeling - even though I'm happy now, it's been really tough.

Now doing everything alone is a new experience for me, particularly when everyone I know has a partner.

Dealing with death of a parent also.

other than that - it's been an experience dealing with dds first boyfriend and all the issues that have come with that! I've had to be very mature.

Beware of growing up. It's a trap!!!! 😮

This is going to sound really wanky probably but I remember being 12 and watching my single, sick mother struggle so much and my nan ( who we lived with) was a nasty alcoholic who was the first to piss on everyone's chips, and I knew right off the bat that adulthood wasn't going to be 'doing what I wanted' - I saw clear as day that adulthood was in fact being forced into a life you didn't want full of death and finances and heartbreak until you died. I first though about suicide at 12 for this reason.

Losing a parent and dealing with a parent's funeral.