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!

Having said that, I would far rather be an adult than a child.

All I remember of my childhood is desperately wanting to do things and not being allowed.

I am almost 37 and still love the fact I can choose my own bedtimes, eat what I want, go where I want, spend the weekends as I want and generally have a very cool and fun life (work aside).

As a kid you wonder why people eat bran buds and prunes and then with no warning you find out.

That you never really know anyone as well as you think you do. Ultimately most people will do what suits themselves regardless of the outcome.

Urgh all of this: for me it’s the constant cleaning, money budgeting and the realisation that my metabolism is not as invincible as it pretended to be in my teens / twenties.
Early adulthood was mint, I remember thinking why do people complain about this, I can do what the fuck I want, bills can be paid on credit cards if needs be, I can go out to eat every day and get shitfaced every weekend, sleep with inappropriate men and spend weekends in bed watching Netflix.
Ten years later and I’m slap bang in the real world!

You know what no one told me? How having a baby completely erases any ability you previously had to keep any sort of information in your head. Oh apart from the information on stuff that’s going to kill your baby- that stuff OBVIOUSLY never leaves

And yes to the cleaning of things that you didn’t realise was a thing. I also never remember seeing mum clean the bathroom or wipe the skirting boards (maybe she didn’t?!) but now I have to find time to do these things or my teeth itch and I’m bad to deal with. It makes me swear that my children will join in with the cleaning when they’re big enough. Hahahahahaahahaha. Yeah. Don’t ruin that illusion for me anyone please?!

That you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.

Having to take care of literally everything, whether it's essential suff, fun stuff, health, finance, running a home - never doing anything without organising it myself, regardless of mood, illness, tiredness, etc.

I don't think I've ever wiped a skirting board? Am I the only one? Is this something else that seem to make me an inadequate adult?

Gardens & how much work it takes to maintain them. Even the simple ones. The airing cupboard . After years of trying to organize it I’ve given up. It’s chaotic looking & now looks strangely like my mother’s !!

Saving money, how to install white goods and how much work it takes to actually clean a house! The odd tasks are fine but keeping on top of everything is difficult.

I would say change a fuse as all our electrics blew a while back and we had no one more 'adulty' to ask but I'd seen my Mum change hers with the old fuse wire a hundred times before to I had a good idea how to do it and managed to fix it. Very proud moment

ADarkAndStormyKnight When I was little my dad was always telling me that life wasn't fair but I thought people would try a bit harder.

FencingWire 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.

YY to these two!
And that others let these people get away with it, and that accepted "truth" is whatever is most convenient for the most amount of people/the people with most social influence. And people dont care about having no integrity.

Could have done with some feminism 101 lessons aged about 15 from the women on the FWR board too...

Parenting.
Childbirth.
It's like there is a conspiracy of silence around these two very grown up things.

Ultimately how to be utterly utterly responsible for another human being, for their well being, happiness, health and future.

how much maintaining a property needs to stop nature taking over. I got that I had to clean the thing, but not how much fixing stuff like boilers, sudden water leaks etc would go on. I'm incredibly grateful to have a home but i really hadn't noticed my parents doing stuff like fixing roof tiles when the wind blew them off etc.

Talking to a teacher who just doesn't 'get' your child.

Ironing, I still don't think I'm doing it right

Making choices that have consequences which will affect your life.

People iron?!

@KettlePotBlack me neither well, I'm not starting now!

Dealing with tradespeople. How do you know whom to trust? What do you do when you suspect someone hasn't done the work they're charging you for? If you end up having further problems soon after having work done, how do you know whether it's because they've done it wrong or whether it's unrelated and is just bad luck?

I don't remember my parents ever hiring an electrician or plumber. My dh, who's a builder, deals with all the straightforward stuff and is fairly knowledgeable. But even he doesn't always know whether he's being led up the garden path about whether the boiler is REALLY on its last legs or whether the house needs to be rewired.

Don't even get me started on car mechanics!

Snobbery

That life's a bitch and then you die.

Another vote for perimenopause. If one more doctor tells me my hormone levels (and thyroid) are still on the 'scale of normal' then I'll punch someone. What's going on with my body isn't normal for me and need to find a solution as I can't cope with another 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 0r 10 years of this nonsense until my periods finally stop.

And that money is hard to come by but so easy to spend hence why I'm always broke!.

Negatively. I hate hate to write this, but yeah I think it is, that life gets tougher and tougher post 30's. That you'll struggle to walk this life alone without your parents, even if they weren't perfect (who is). Probably, like the pain of childbirth, it's best not to know this.

Positively, that children are an unbridled joy, but also take and give everything. That lifelong learning and curiosity is exciting.