To envy 'proper grown ups'?

[RedZebra]

Lately I've been thinking about how I wish I was more of a 'proper grown up' and feeling a bit of towards people who are. Here's my list of what IMHO makes a proper grown up:

People who seem to have their shit together:

• Have good financial plans / approach e.g. stuff like
  • mortgage paid off early in life
  • pensions
  • ISAs
  • second homes
  • homes they rent out
• Seem confident and decisive
• Have some kind of polish / upstanding citizen feel about them (hard to put finger on this)
• Not big drinkers or pot smokers
• Have interests and hobbies e.g. triathlon, cycling
• Have regular holidays planned well in advance
• Have regular idyllic seeming big family meals and get togethers at Easter and Christmas and family birthdays
• Have families that are proper-seeming and not nuts or chaotic
• Have good professions and are well respected
• Have well behaved children with interesting hobbies who get top grades

AIBU to envy these types of people?

How do people who tick most of the above do it? How do they 'know' to do and be all the right things as adults? Do you think it's a kind of family training or do you think you can acquire this approach?

Sorry ^ is your idea of a proper grown up?
And we wonder why there is a gender pay gap? SMH

OP I think you're describing the middle class more than anything else

I tick a fair few of those boxes, but was told on a recent thread I was "a child".
A stable and happy family background is just luck really, so much springs from there:
It makes it easier to study and do well
That makes it easier to get a good job
Having to get up at 5:30 or 6 and be "on it" for work makes hard drinking much les appealing
Planning of holidays was modelled at home, also job insists I plan leave 8 weeks in advance, but realistically to get the weeks you want you need to be thinking 6 months ahead, this all seems natural to me.
I am not sure the dcs are well behaved but I have done my best to pass on my good study habits to them (aged 14 and nearly 12)
The good job means I need holiday care so incidentally they have learnt to ride,sail etc
We don't have a second home, but we are thinking about it.

But really comes down to luck

Mortgage paid off-nopes but wil be in about 13 years when I'm 50 ish

Pension-yes but only because of my work

ISA yes but not a lot in it
Second home-nope

Homes rented out-yes two

Confident/decisive,no idea!

I think people may say I have an upstanding citizen vibe SOME People but I feel they're wrong!

Nope, I love my wine/beer!
No interests but I weight lift and do pull ups every night
Not interested in holidays, like my two day breaks and staying with friends though.

I do the family thing but it isnt always ideal! Usualy ends in me feeling left out and not wanted!
My family SEEM proper until you know things (I feel many families are like this)
Nope, I do have a respectable part time job but I have another very non-respectable one.

I think it can be aquired-are you sure its what you want? DO you want all those things?

Five year plan for the things you do want?

I totally get what you're saying, OP, when I was in my 30s and had young children, I felt like I was a complete mess all the time and just running to stand still.

In my 40s, I run a proper house calendar and we've got the holidays, birthdays and finances sorted, pretty much as you describe above. Now, I'm always a bit envious when I go to a dinner party and someone drives, to me this is the height of adulthood - going to a dinner party and knowing with confidence in advance that you'll be fine to drive home.

Surely what makes a person a 'proper grown-up' is being organised which is a state that can be fleeting due to circumstances anyway - you can't prepare for every single eventuality.

A few of the things you mention concern having spare cash. No matter how mature I may feel, I'll probably never have a spare home I can rent out or a second home - I have to be content with the one I've got.

I cut my coat according to my cloth, I try to prepare ahead, etc but some things you just can't prepare for - life can throw all sorts of things at you and you just have to learn to roll with the punches.

The first half of the list is wealth, the second half is dull dull dull

*Have some kind of polish / upstanding citizen feel about them (hard to put finger on this) UGH

• Not big drinkers or pot smokers YAWN
• Have interests and hobbies e.g. triathlon, cycling YAWN
• Have regular holidays planned well in advance DULL
• Have regular idyllic seeming big family meals and get togethers at Easter and Christmas and family birthdays MEH
• Have families that are proper-seeming and not nuts or chaotic YAWN

I have a bunch of that stuff in my life and that’s the boring stuff I wish I didn’t have

I read that list and yawn

Where’s the fun? Life’s too fucking short

I’m 50, successful & mature and that list makes me curl my lip

I can tick most of those but certainly not all. I am not a grown up. I might come across that way (I have no idea how I come across!) but I'm anything but. I meet 'proper grown ups' and wonder how they do it but it's not something I actually want to be. I have no idea what makes them appear to be grown up!

Most of your list is luck and circumstance too.

Well, I don’t have the extra homes (I have a static caravan in France, if that counts? This also sorts out the planned holidays bit.), I drink too much sometimes and the only hobbies I have are volunteer commitments.

I do have the rest of that list sorted- some by luck (bought a house in 1999 when it was still affordable) and some by design (I work full time in order to pay for holidays and to have some savings). I think there was some element of family training. Financial planning was a big issue for my mum, which has helped her and my step-dad through some difficult times and I guess that has rubbed off. DH was never a wild party animal, but is lovely, intelligent and funny- excellent attributes at 40, I’m glad I saw through the glamour of previous wild child boyfriends.

But much of that is superficial- my aim today is to get my act together on the domestic front as the house is actually a tip, I’d make every excuse under the sun to stop a visitor coming in. I need to arrange some work on my house and think about how I’m going to get a new bathroom on the cheap. I also want to follow up an advert DH saw about new garage doors.

I’d love to be a proper grown up who always had stuff like that sorted out, who had energy to cook from scratch every night, who knew the kitchen was sparkling. I meant to do lots of this stuff yesterday, but it was the first day of the summer holiday, so I had my hair cut and went out for coffee.

I still don’t think I’m a proper grown up!

A lot of mine was luck and being in the right place at the right time. It was also what I did (I have a thread in AMA, many people wouldn't make my choices. Who said ' Be greedy where others are fearful and fearful where others are greedy'? ) However I didn't start to sort things until my late twenties. Most of my twenties were a mess of drinking/partying/messing about.I dont regret it though, I had a lot of fun and I also did a lot of volunteering and made a difference to a lot of lives.Decide what you want though. It took me a long time to realise that I don't enjoy holidays abroad for example. We don't all have to like hobbies. We dont all have to want to be well off! It doesn't make us less grown up, it makes us different and that makes us who we are.

Hmm so if someone rents out their first home, mortgaged it to the hilt so the mortgage is bigger than the value of the property (negative equity) relying on the area to be become attractive and desirable to increase the value of the home to cover the cost of the loan. What if they can't afford to repay the capital? What if the monthly rent provides a healthy income, is it a tax able income? What if they have several credit cards maxed out?

To you they sound like proper adults, I agree but you never know what is going on behind the scenes

Good to have goals, just don't forget to live on the way to achieving them. To me a proper grown-up is someone with defined goals but who knows that things happen and you need to be ready to re-evaluate and re-set your goals based on experiences - everything from job loss, health issues, or winning the lottery.
I think you set goals based on your experiences, friends' experiences and family's experiences and seeing what you want to achieve. I think you can acquire the knowledge and framework for achieving what you want y educating yourself on your individual goals (but don't get taken in by "systems" that tell you they can show you how to do it all!).

Those aren't proper grown ups over and above someone living in a rented home who's survived tragedy or challenges the people you describe have never faced. Or indeed someone who has chosen a lower paid job through a sense of vocation and neither had family money behind them nor married someone who chose a career based on money and social standing.

It's possible to tick all the boxes you list and be in utterly selfish, emotionally immature, superficial, materialistic knob who scares along on the surface of life caring about nobody but those whose achievement reflects on them.

Being a proper grown up is about taking and accepting responsibility. Financial responsibility is a small part of that, but social and emotional responsibility are deeper signs of having genuinely "grown up"

The terminally selfish are eternally emotionally immature Peter (or Petra? Paula?) Pans no matter how many homes they own and how many iron man competitions they complete.

I have worked very bloody hard all my life, ditto DH, we still cannot buy a house.

It was more difficult deciding to get a dog than have a child

I'm reliable and trustworthy, i'm not materialistic. I can sew (self taught via youboobtube) and can make a child's fancy dress costume in an hour (see previous poster!), not that i have ever had to. I can also repair clothes rather than replace (hemming, cool patches on DS' trousers etc) and make basic clothes (skirts and tops for me, tshirts and shorts for DS, i personalise his bought tshirts with pockets and other fripperies). Anyway i digress!

I emigrated at 23 and have never lived back in the UK, only visited. I am fluent in 2 foreign languages and have a smattering of Italian and French. Thst doesn't make me superior or grown up, just means i had to leave UK for my sanity and took language classes when i got here.

Well-behaved dc - doesn't everyone think the sun shines out of their children's bums? DS is a livewire Duracell Bunny. When he was 3yo i described him as a giggle covered in skin - he is 7yo and hasn't changed. Well-behaved? Well... Not always, no. Polite - yes.

I'd advise getting off social media as comparison is the thief of joy. I sometimes google €1million flats in Barcelona for the lolz but don't want to live there.

I think it's more being happy in yourself, happy with your lot, that's properly grown up.That's who I envy. Life seems too frenetic these days to be like that.

I have all of these except a second home. I still don't really feel like a proper grown up. Does anyone feel like a grown up?

I tick most. I struggle with infertility and have been depressed several times throughout my life. Tbh I'd rather have four kids with a great husband.

A lot of your list has to do with money. I used to be poor but I made a few decisions that got me further (like buying a little apartment even though it meant having no money for an ironing board or curtains, only having second hand furniture or hand me downs (30 year old used to be white sofa, table was an upside down box etc), no nights out, only the cheapest food, no new glasses for six years although my sight had changed, no luxurys like a bottle of wine or a hairdresser, second hand clothes, not having money for a train ticket to see my family etc). I really felt it necessary to own a property though and am glad that I made the sacrifice. I do remember not having money and it felt shit. However, not having children when you want them is much, much worse.

I think a lot of the above comes down to privilege really - if you were raised in a wealthy home, went to university, had connections etc it's much easier to get a well paid job and a second home etc etc. YANBU to envy that kind of life but don't see it as a negative reflection on yourself - it's not that you failed or didn't try hard enough, it's just that some people are born with more opportunities and an easier ride.

Some of these things are good goals, like sound financial planning and healthy meals. You can definitely work on things like that in your own life.

But remember that it takes lots of people and lots of types of lives to make the world - think about all the good and positive qualities you have, all the things you are and do that are brilliant and amazing. You're as valuable a part of society as any 'proper' adult

Not big drinkers or pot smokers YAWN

What the hell is dull about either of those? I rarely drink as I can have a great time without it and don't particularly how it makes me feel. Yes I've smoked pot in my younger years but I certainly haven't turned into a dullard because I choose not to these days.

Have well behaved children with interesting hobbies who get top grades

Ours are older, all have 'interesting' hobbies (skydiving, scuba among other things and one in the process of ticking off visiting as many countries in the world as they can, 60 so far). Only one has a degree and surprisingly is the one with the lowest paying job by a huge amount. The one doing all the travelling wasn't interested at school, got dreadful grades, behaved dreadfully between the ages of 16-21 but now has the highest paying job out of the lot of them.

Also self taught via youboobtube 😂😂😂😂😂

It's possible to tick all the boxes you list and be in utterly selfish, emotionally immature, superficial, materialistic knob who scares along on the surface of life caring about nobody but those whose achievement reflects on them.

Ah yes BlueSkies I know exactly the type you speak of! The one in particular that I have in mind has acquired all her ‘grown up’ wealth from daddy... i don’t think she’s ever done more than a few months work at a time in her life! Totally flaky, non committal, only friends with people that benefit her or reflect well upon her. On the outside she has such a grown up life owning several houses, kids in boarding school etc yet all she has won is the birth lottery! That’s not being grown up to me.

Similarly I actually do know several couple one in particular who tick all those boxes and they are a little ... erm ... retentive and holier than though (think Dave and Sam Cam types )

Op seriously don’t sweat this pressure to be ‘grown up’. It’s not actually about having money or looking polished. To me being a grown up is:

Taking responsibilty for your actions (did David Cameron manage that over Brexit?)

Knowing when to put your selfish needs first

Working hard and making a difference (applies to all jobs from PM to SAHM)

Knowing who you are and being true to yourself. NOT aspiring to being a certain class or being seen as a certain stereotype, just knowing who you are and being quietly fine with that.

Admitting your faults

Being loyal, trustworthy and staunch in your relationships with all

This thing on your list struck me most op. to have a family that isn't chaotic or nuts both my parents divirced twice and married thrice, mither befor I was 21. She also happens to be a narcissist and big spender.

That point is precisely why I set out very early on to have all the other things on your list to ensure that when I did have a family I never ever messed them about.

It's achievable with hard work, self discipline and very focussed judgement. To be fair I was very boring and serious in my 20s. I'm far more relaxed and at one with the world in my late 50s.

A lot of it is rooted in childhood.

My parents sent me to private school (not a pre req but helps) and very much focussed on good manners, confidence, polish.

Consequently, confident professionally successful adult with the trappings that affords

As impressive as that list is, there is only one single quality I see in all 'grown ups' and that is responsibility.

You don't need a second home/ISA/family dinners etc to be entirely responsible for yourself and those around you. A sense of responsibility defines a fully fledged adult.

Another saying that what you're describing is what I'd see as rich and dull. However I do agree some people seem to be far more grown-up grown-ups than others, but in my experience this is caused by a weight of more 'life' happening to them in a way you wouldn't wish for.