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?

oh and bed with a head board

I tick 80% of your list. Don't feel grown up. Just feel like I'm winging it. Made a lot of sensible choices early 20s, now I have kids I don't have time to think just ride off the back of what I did then. I always think everyone else is far more sorted than me.

I have everything on your list.

No mortgage, pension, ISAs for me, DH & all the kids. A few buy-to-lets all rented out.
I think I am confident and socially capable. I have a long list of letters after my name.
Only drink a few times a year. Ex smoker.
I run marathons. Have regular holidays that we plan a year in advance.
Have whole family get togethers generally once a month and for all kids' birthdays, Xmas etc.
Family are all educated, working 'top' jobs (think European MDs, doctors etc)
All my nephews and nieces are really well mannered and behaved. All (so far) have got top grades and are in top selective schools or RG universities.
Not myself but members of the family with MBE and Chairs of local organisations that work with Council/Police etc

However I don't go around talking or advertising any of this. (Maybe occasionally about my nephews and nieces but only cos I know how hard they work and I'm super proud of them).
No one knows anything about my financial situation and only my best friend knows we own other properties and that we don't have a mortgage.
Some people might know bits and bobs about our holidays or the family.

What NOBODY knows is the shit and stress that comes with having big families. People don't know the shit stirrer that is my SIL, or what a lazy ass my BIL is. No one hears about the arguments between the adults or the fights between the cousins, cos we all behave and save face in public.

What people do see is how bloody disorganised I am on a day to day basis. How I just about get through the day having fed the kids - cos I hate cooking and I'm disorganised. What a complete tip my house is pretty much everyday, cos again, I'm disorganised. My DC (primary age) are generally late to school. Occasionally even turn up without having done homework or their reading (shocking!!). I look young for my age and dress pretty casually too. You'll never see me on the school run in anything other than jeans and t shirt.
So many acquaintances and friends assume I'm younger than I am (I'm 39). I can tell that compared to them and other friends/mums on school run, I don't seem like an adult at all. If you met me, you wouldn't think I'm a proper grown up either I'm sure.
I look at certain friends of mine and envy their organised well-managed 'grown up' lives, because I know that that is what (in my opinion) I'm lacking the most.

My point is, don't measure yourself against anyone using those criteria. They are just one facet of a life, and gives you a very blinkered view of what someone is like.

I love olives.

However, I don’t think I’ll ever feel like a proper grown up...

Anyway, it sounds dull and vastly over rated!

I tend to think of an "adult" as someone who

• knows what they are feeling (most of the time) and is able to think about it
• is able to communicate what they are feeling rather than act it out (most of the time)
• understands that in reality other people are very different from you; whatever you may create them to be in your mind

-understands that other people are separate and yet connected

• can contain and help others without lording it over them or looking down on them
• has the grace to accept help and service from others without feeling enslaved to them
• has good reality testing and does not expect perfection of either themselves or others

For me second homes and family get togethers and high achieving children are all irrelevant, to be honest. Someone could tick all the boxes on the OPs list and still be emotionally and psychologically under-developed.

I tick most of these boxes but
A) I do not feel at all like a proper grow up
B) there is more shit lurking behind all the family gatherings etc
C) there is no such thing.

RE. Second homes and additional properties for renting out- that has nothing to do with maturity; with being a 'proper grown-up' or anything else. It is simply about wealth. An immature 21 year old with wealthy parents can own a holiday home and own several properties and then there are hard working 45 year olds who can barely afford their own home/stuck renting.

I tick most if all of the above. Have the pension as work as a teacher and it was compulsory at 21 when l started 36 years ago.
Most property etc was attained as dh had a well paying job and was into investing etc.
But and its a massive BUT my dh was diagnosed with a serious illness at about 50 and had to retire early. As everything was paid for we manage on my salary but l would swop a lot of it for a healthy dh.
In my opinion health is everything .
We still plan the holidays as it doesn't interfere with life every day but it still has been a massive blow for us.
We don't run marathons but l do have many interests and am involved in voluntary stuff as well as fun things. Our dc are not surgeons but all doing well.
But hanging over everything is dhs ill health.

I agree with what some other posters have said, regarding stable backgrounds. I think that is emotionally and financially stable. A lot of our friends fit (to some extent) the OPs description, and they have been raised in wealthy, traditional ‘middle class’ type families, where they were really taught manners, correct speech, how to keep a house etc, and they were launched into adult life with enough money to buy London flats as soon as they graduated etc. Now, in their mid-thirties, they comfortably afford nice family homes, which they keep well, and seem to have a natural aptitude for good choices etc.

Damn. Stumbled in the middle, then fell at the last hurdle.

goo.gl/images/T8LEPu

I'll just leave this here

The things you describe are all to do with money though, not necessarily maturity

It is perfectly possible to be mature and not have an ISA you know...

Thanks procrastination I sti.dont feel 'grown up'!

I can't share the idea that being a professional necessarily makes you happy or "grown up". I've seen too many young lawyers and other professionals (m and f) with young kids who work too many hours and rarely come home in time to put them to bed. I've also seen many lonely parents who HAVE to be a SAHM/F because their partner has a very demanding job or has to move around a lot.

There are a variety of theories examining what makes you happy, but I think that the gist of many of them is that once you have enough salary for reasonable living (food, accomodation, some holidays, decent clothes) the desire for more money starts to fall off in favour of some other benefit - eg extra time for family.
I can only despise those who want money for its own sake, who move onward and upward in their jobs and the housing market just for more conspicuous consumption and investment.
My children are grown up now and I'm glad that I saw them grow up and helped them to do it - I think that this is part of what has made me a grown up.

There will always be people better off than you and always people worse off, no matter where you are on the ladder. Stop seeing some sort of moral component attached to having money - there isn't one. I'm just grateful that my children are healthy and normal and eventually flew the nest and hold down jobs, unlike some people I know whose children have say, autism and will never live independently, or who are drug dependent and constantly in crisis. I'm happy enough to own a modest home. I don't need second and third ones when some people sleep rough on the streets. You need to get it in perspective.

A lot of that list looks like money

We have quite a few of those and I definitely feel like a proper grown up (despite drinking and smoking weed) but I think that happiness is not a destination that you get to when you've ticked all things off a big list. If you have that mindset you'll never get there.

Happiness is in the small moments and if you fail to register them, you'll miss out. Quiet cup of tea in the garden watching the birds, picking homegrown tomatoes, watching bees enjoy the lavender. Those are the things that bring me great joy and I couldn't give a flying fuck about not having a pension or second home or even a proper 'career'. I'm happy because I'm grateful for what I have.

not swilling or smoking the saddo sticks is an option for everyone. As is helping out/doing good/being pleasant to be around.

what else matters, really?

Most of those things are connected to finances.

If you've:
Fallen on your feet early enough, been lucky and in the right place at the right time,
Had comfortably-off parents so you were able to study and go to university rather than having to go out to work the minute you were old enough because there was no money,
Managed to find a good well-paid career,
Got with the right partner,
Bought a property at the right time,
And:
Never had a significant family tragedy,
Never had mental health troubles, a serious illness or accident and lost your job,
Never been made redundant,
Never been abandoned in the clothes you stood up in and left holding the baby,
Never been worried sick about where the next penny is coming from...

... then I guess a lot more of us would be like that.

Get yourself a historic Scotland membership. (Or equivalent)

I have a house, married, kids on the bloody pta and never felt like an adult then I got a historic Scotland family membership and suddenly felt grown up! I don't like it though.

I don't have any of those things, I was raised in a chaotic single parent household by a mum who was barely able to function as a grown up in any meaningful, day to day way let alone be like someone from your list. Every Sunday she'd be begging round friends for money as she'd run out, we were on benefits due to her physical disabilities and being a single parent, and also (though not discussed) the mental health problems like depression she undoubtably also suffered from, though never sought help for. I ate rice and beans a lot and she used to buy those little tiny boxes of toilet paper which hold something like 40 sheets, which would then inevitably run out - that was the lack of forward planning that was present. In retrospect, she probably has ADHD and autism as well as depression and the physical disability, so it's not surprising she struggled.

In many ways I have ended up in a similar situation - I am a single mother on benefits. I am also self employed, have a first from the OU and have (I really really hope) a reasonable degree of emotional intelligence after many horrendous relationships and a few years of therapy that I paid for myself, though I had to go hungry sometimes to do so. I don't feel remotely like an adult and am so envious of people born into wealthy, stable families. The inference from some (not all) of those people that if I just bucked up and worked harder, I would enjoy all the things that they do makes me want to cry with frustration at times. I get you, I really really do.

I spent my whole childhood longing for stability and consistency and that sort of comfortable hum drum existence where you don't have to worry about food or money and can just whip up a home cooked meal with the ingredients you already have because you can't be arsed to walk to the car to drive to the supermarket. My family has never had a car and neither have I, I can't drive and we never had a holiday.

The more time I spend in the world, though, the more I see that those things don't matter really - they actually don't. It's just that the world is set up more and more to make us feel that they are essential, and to make us feel silly if we don't have them. It's human nature to compare and find oneself wanting. But I promise you that you can be a lovely grown up person without any of that. Even the unflappable demeanour and confidence thing from your list comes from not having to worry and assuming that things will be okay, because they always have been thus far. It's not the same as confidence and strength of character which have been forged in tremendous adversity, and which is a much more meaningful attibute in a person.

Blimey, by your list I’m positively a juvenile delinquent. I have a job I love, not enough pension provision and yes I sometimes get a bit envious of folks who manage to afford lovely holidays abroad but much as I’d like them we need carpets and wardrobes first. I have a lovely new kitchen and bathroom but then the car broke catastrophically so funds went to replace that instead (decent but second hand).

But we’re doing ok, we have a roof over our heads and enough money to feed and clothe ourselves so I count that as good enough.

My DF had fur-coat-no-knickers syndrome. I’m not sure it made him very happy. Everyone believed our life to be wonderful because that’s what he projected. I am not going to waste time wishing for things to be idyllic as behind the scenes they very often aren’t.

Stop wishing for the moon and enjoy what you do have.

I live in a constant state of some sort of anxiety but I could tick a fair few of those boxes. I'm not relaxing into lavender scented sheets each night, more likely fretting about this and that and wondering how I can keep it all going. I benefited from a safe financially secure upbringing, divorce yes, but with someone who isn't being a c* and who does do his part/financially contributing. Without those I'd not have been able to do as much.

I too have wished I could be like this in the past but unless you are wealthy sometimes these things take a lot of time, effort and planning and though I'm learning to get better I think sometimes you just need to let your hair down and realise things sort themselves in the end and so will u x