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!

tax returns

Never yet been responsible for paying bills - not looking forward to that

Also, many of the things twenty-somethings do were a complete mystery to me. My parents were in their thirties when I was born, and so were all their friends, so I didn't know many people who were in their twenties. Also, all my parents' friends were married already, so I didn't see any adults in my life go through the stages of dating, engagement, marriage. I thought marriage "just happened" when you met the right person, I didn't realise that there was a whole process leading up to it.

1Keeping a house clean with young children.

2working fulltime in a 9-5.30 it's boring!

3Working with a nasty loud mouth bitch and alongside another lazy feckless incompetent bloke

4 How hard marriage is and how to keep working at it.

Oh and Yy to all those saying they were told being clever and doing well at school / uni meant you would get a good job. I never thought about career planning and all the adults around me had a “you’ll be fine” attitude. Which frankly all turned out to be total bollocks.

FaFoutis Ha, I'm with you there.
Coming to accept that some people will never stop hurting you.

If I were to put it in a nutshell: being the person who is supposed to be the one who knows what to do.

That most adults never grow up.
That there is not much difference between the playground and the work place.
That all these moral values being instilled in you as a child (don’t steal, don’t cheat, don’t lie, work hard, be fair etc) are being completely disregarded by most adults at any one time in their lives. You grow up with this weird idea that only children do it, that’s why they’re being educated. And then you grow up and have expectations 🤣

Another vote for the bathroom and whole house in general! Ours was always immaculate but I only saw my Mum and Dad cleaning maybe once a week. Turns out Mum used to stay up until 3am doing it!

Pensions. I still have no idea how these work and what I should be doing but feel that I am supposed to. Other financial stuff like mortgages I'm fine with.

The sheer amount of time you have to spend thinking about and preparing food, especially when DC come along.

that it all goes so darned fast ... before it feels time to be here I am staring 60 at my next b/day & I feel inside as if it should be just 30. And having to face up to & make the best of decisions, some made in haste for what seemed good ideas. And all of the above from other pp's ... like Groundhog Day

Keeping the bins clean. Turns out you have to actually clean your bins - who knew?!

The sheer unrelenting-ness of it all.
Laundry in particular. I feel I spend more of my time on that than anything else.
My mum was similar to a pp. Very good at "keeping house" but not keen on letting my siblings and I do a great deal. We'd only do it wrong, then she'd have to come back and do it again, etc etc.
Except, we reached our teens and she suddenly flipped into wanting us to do everything, which we didn't cope well with and made mistakes. She didn't cope well with us making mistakes and it all got rather stressful.
I have had to work on an attitude towards house stuff that I've developed from this - namely that I really felt a little of it was pointless and I'd only do it wrong anyway.
Realising that as an adult, nobody is stood behind me critiquing how I clean a sink or vacuum a floor has helped me relax a whole lot!
A positive things is that nobody critiques my down time either! I've done what I need in the day, the children are out and I'm having an hour playing computer games.

Despite working, being constantly poor.

Having to 'work' on your marriage to keep family together.

That it just doesn't stop and it's endlessly shit and you have no more real control then you did when you were five.

That the people you admired as a junior at work will turn out to be arseholes once you get promoted to work along wit them.

That about 50% of people never grow up and remain utterly fixated on their own drama.

That the nicest people you know will have the shittest things happen to them.

That just because you play by ethical rules doesn't mean anyone else will.

That you will have endless guilt about what you aren't doing no matter how much you do do.

That you're supppsed to clean all kinds of things in your house you didn't know you should. The betterware catalogue will teach you about this.

I tried to explain to a v pissed off DH the other day that there will always be an element of shittiness to our days now that we're adults, and we have to cling on to the fleeting moments of joy instead. This was after him complaining that he 'just wanted a day where nothing went wrong and nobody bothered him' - I think readjusting your expectations of life after having DCs is really difficult.

The realisation that pretty much everything is meaningless.

Realising that marriage is just the start and not the happy ever after.

Realising that most people aren't who you thought they were.

That not everything 'turns out well in the end' or 'karma takes care of it'.

That you have to live with so many burdens, regrets and hurt and find a way to get on with it.

Trying to hire a tradesperson. Why don't they want work? Or if they don't want work why can't they just tell you rather than overquoting or turning up late in an attempt to put you off?

How easy it is to drift away from friends. When you're in school with them every day, it's different. You never suddenly turn around and realise it's six months since you've talked to a friend and it'll be another month before both of you have a free evening to catch up.

Learning what being bullied actually feels like, and that ‘just stand up to a bully ‘ doesn’t work.

That never again would I have holidays! I wish I had appreciated the number of school holidays I got as a child - all that time off, 6 weeks in the summer!

Now I have 25 days a year and that will be it until I die and it's so depressing.

I thought I'd be free to do what I want. Like travel the world.
Having an autistic child. It's so difficult.
That I don't have a safety net. I have to make important decisions without advice from a parent figure.

PlaymobilPirate

That iron tablets after a c section makes you have black poo. I thought I was dying. Everybody seems to know this but me

^ This.

There is so much weird stuff that happens during/after pregnancy. I feel like there should be a checklist or something. So we don't freak out every time something weird happens