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!

There are some really sad stories and situations on this thread. It's actually made me tearful.

I'm not sure it was the kind of thread the op had in mind

The fact that very few people have everything figured out. The rest of us will forever just scramble around guessing and trying our best hoping we'll be OK.

The school run!

The realisation that the buck stops with you. I was to all intents and purposes a competent adult with a decent job when widowed DM started to lose the plot; I was brought up to pull my weight around the house, but not ultimately answerable. Then the first straw in the wind; the newspaper didn't arrive. I went down to the newsagent to complain, to discover that the bill had not been paid for weeks. Until that day, pottering down to the newsagent had been one of DM's minor "jobs", as I was out at work all day! I apologised, settled it on the spot, and realised that, from then on, I needed to make sure that admin was actually happening, without DM feeling I was "taking over" - tricky, because I was. And so began the shift into the relentless round of life administration that so many PP's have described. My uncle (DM's younger brother) was absolutely brilliant support as she gradually went downhill, but it's still a jolt when you become the person first consulted, the one making medical arrangements for the person who looked after you, all the "grown up" purchases from a house down to loo roll, and nobody to wade in and take things off your hands!

When you study you are working; state that you were working with the institution or group; or state that who you work for is classified by government regulations: there are usually rules about not showing or discussing your work until marked, etc.

To grumpbum, being constant is good. Its when everything goes haywire then you have to worry; like before handing in your essay someone 'borrows' it, photocopies it, claims it was their own work, then you get penalised for it; coming home to find your spouse won't let you in or has used the police to bar you from your home; ending up homeless; being housed in an HMO with murder-threatening ex-jail-birds trying to break in your room. Or going into hospital to find the doctors and nurses don't know what they are doing like injecting water under your skin rather than in your veins, and giving you a pill you shouldn't be taking even though you told them previously, then given sausages when you are vegetarian and being told they are vegetarian sausages when the menu states otherwise. But we must carry on regardless and make the best of things even if we have to start over again.

Playmobilepilot: like doctors and nurses you should read the notes that come with the pack, check on line, or ask a pharmacist.

Tittyfarlah: try the Web. There are many sites, some free, some specialists, some con-artists just like the users. Plenty of Fish is best, try meet me, Meetme, tagged/Hi5, Buttery, Chatgum: all free.

Ideal jobs: programmer, systems analyst, auditing and resolving persons problems, factory manager, Director General of Housing, Director of Quality, etc.

That not everyone cares about other people. That lots of people have agendas that mostly revolve around themselves. When I read The Slap I was genuinely shocked at how the main character thought. Everything he did was done for a self serving reason, if he was nice to someone there was a manipulative motive. I didn’t realise people’s brains worked like that until I was quite old and had properly been taken in by my partner who is actually not a nice person either.

Work politics and stress
Realising I have to work for another 22 years
Realising my babies are turning into hormonal tweens and are learning all our bad behaviours and I don’t know how to help them
Aging parents
Dying parents
Dying friends
Keeping on top
Of my mental health