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?

I’m 25 and apart from the kids can tick off all of your list . I have an expensive flat in London and a rental property. Good jobs . Life is busy, planned and organized .

Yes family have given some help but we’ve both also got fairly successful careers and also had the benefit of company funded accommodation which allowed us to save to buy . We are very very privileged I know .

BUT are we happy? We continually debate if we are doing the right thing in life . Do we feel fulfilled by our work and roles . Do we ever have time to cook dinner and eat together ? How often do we spend a chilled out weekend together - never .

I am exhausted and not necessarily happy . We are also so organized because we are both fairly neurotic and anxious 😂😬

I'm a head teacher......but apart from that, absolutely not grown up according to your list! 😉

Looking at your list op it seems you've been reading aibu too much. The kind of perfect people you describe mainly seem to exist on this forum.

Ok, so from your original post I a proper grown-up. I turned 40 last week. I have paid off my mortgage, have a pension and savings. We are not rich though, just have been careful. On an average wage.

I am confident etc, but this has grown- wasn't as a child. I am very sensible and drink the odd glass of something once or twice a month, and don't smoke. We go abroad every third year not every year though! I read, sew and am doing a half marathon in Oct, although I am 2 stone overweight.

We have large family gatherings here at Christmas and in the summer. I absolutely love entertaining- it is one of my great pleasures in life, so it is not a chore for me. If it was I wouldn't do it. I like filling my house with people all year round including after school.

My immediate family are average- youngest has Aspergers. Birth family less so- Mum and Dad hate each other but I love my three siblings and get on with them really well. Bunch of nephews I adore. We were poor growing up and I think it bonded us together.

I work for the NHS and my husband works for a charity. Eldest child is quite bright but youngest is average.

I think that's it. On the face of it everything seems rosy for me, but I have recently spent three months in a psychiatric hospital with raging severe depression. Because of my unstable mental health (which began after the birth of DS1) I really value being careful and moderate in my everyday life, hence the above tick-boxes. All I have ever wanted since I got ill was a normal life- nothing spectacular.

Hope this doesn't come across smug- I don't mean it to be. I think that no one is ever fully adult- we all have a little of the damaged child about us.

Outwardly I have a lot of these things, apart from the second home and not much of a pension. Also we have some crazies on both sides of the families.

Ten years ago I was in around £15K of debt and now we live in a four bed detached house, mortgage nearly paid off.

Yet earlier this evening I felt so low and tired (from working hard and then cleaning the big house, etc) that I didn't want to carry on for about 30 minutes. So my point is that I still feel as low as I did at times in the past.

The only difference now is I can afford to buy things to cheer myself up and I don't worry about money. But the level of 'feeling low' is a human thing and I don't think having comfort and money cures it.

Otherwise wealthy people wouldn't commit suicide and we know that they do. If that makes sense?

Echo what peachypips said about us all having a damaged child inside of us. We need to give our damaged mini versions of us a cuddle!

I don't drink much and I don't smoke pot. That's as grown up as I get

OP, I can tick off most of your list but I don’t feel like a real grown up when I am with one of my friends. Her and her DH have a big BBQ and garden furniture, an extension, big children’s toys in the garden and a caravan. I say they are proper adults and we are just winging it. (Reading that back it sounds crazy but I do consider them more real adults than me!). However by your list I am a proper adult too.

My childhood wasn’t at all privileged; my mum died when I was young and my dad drank and kept us poor. He was anti-education and tried to get me to leave school and get a job at the earliest. I saw education as a way out of this and that’s why I have a profession and the other bits to go with it. I don’t think I’m any happier than others but from the outside I do look like I have it all. I consider myself incredibly lucky though.

Oh and I can’t sew or knit, knit crochet or change a tyre which are skills I think real adults do have.

I came from a disjointed and dysfunctional family. There was little security and violence within the home. It was my normal. I don’t tick many of your grown up criteria points, sadly. It’s hard to overcome that background! Yet, I’ve had a successful marriage and career. I drink a bit, exercise a bit and have travelled widely. I think if you could see behind closed doors to what’s really going on in these “perfect” situations, you might be surprised.

Much of it is where you’re from. How you grew up and what your family is like. Sad to say, you’re either lucky or not. You CAN strive for “better” but, it might not be easy. And like me, once I’d achieved, members of my family were only too happy to remind me of where I’d come from.

I would probably say I tick all but one or two of the items on your list - and the ones I don't tick are through choice. I have next to no mortgage left, I run my own business and DH is self employed. We are a very "outdoorsy" family hobby wise (camping holidays, running, cycling, fell walking and yes I'm training for my first triathlon!). DS gets top grades and is good at anything he turns his mind to.

But it wasn't always like this and it didn't come easy, there have been sacrifices along the way.

I agree with what other posters have said that money helps, either you're born into it or have to work ridiculously hard to get it. I'd put DH and I in the latter category, both are from working class families, my mum was a single parent and I was born on a council estate.

From DS was 3 until he was 8 I spent over 50% of my week working away from home, it nearly broke me and my marriage. People may look at me and think I have "a perfect life" but it very nearly wasn't like this!

The other sacrifice I have made is friends. The focus on my career meant I didn't have time to build a network of friends, I literally have 2/3 very close friends and that's it.

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?

You've partly answered the question in your original post.....

confident and decisive

I honestly think personality and confidence are key. I'm the kind of person who is confident enough to either go and find out the answer, or make the mistake and learn from it, and trust me, I've made lots of mistakes in my life!! I absolutely would not have gotten as far as I have with my career if I hadn't had confidence.

(and contrary to what some people would have you believe, yes women DO have to work fucking harder than men )

I don't compare myself to others, my life is good enough for me and I don't care about keeping up with Jones'.

I also don't really care all that much what other people think about me either. I try to be a kind and good person and not to do wrong to anyone, so if someone has an issue with me well then that's their issue not mine!

I think if you can let go of all that and just be confident in "doing you" then you've pretty much cracked being an adult and all the stuff is irrelevant

I am 49, with 2 young adult children, I don't own my own home, I rent a social housing property, (with DH,) I work part-time, and pick up £200 a week, I don't own a property, OR a car (I use DH's if I need to,) and only own a bicycle.

I love playing video games, collecting beanie babies, going to pop concerts, crafting, long walks, swimming, reading shit magazines like take-a-break, watching shit tv like Love Island, reading crime novels, writing short stories, having mp3 parties on my own, and stargazing at midnight. I have no fancy, expensive pastimes....

Me and DH have £1500 in savings, no 5 figure sum in an ISA, no home of our own, (and definitely no second home.) I am not a professional, I do not have a university degree, I earn 75p an hour above minimum pay, I have several 'bonkers' family members, I like a couple of bottles a wine a week, I don't plan big expensive holidays waaaay in advance....... Oh, I have a small pension (and so does DH,)

So I guess I am not a 'proper grown up' at nearly FIFTY years old?!' 🙄

What a thoroughly ridiculous thread. And what a laughable attitude, to assume because someone is (supposedly) wealthy and owns more than one property, that this makes them a 'proper grown up!' You sounds about 12 years old @RedZebra

As has been said, a very small percentage of people fit the criteria in the OP, and although many people on here claim to have paid off their mortgage by 30, in real life, the vast majority of people have not, and very few people know anyone who has paid it off at that age.

Like someone said, mumsnet is a parallel universe, where many posters make outlandish claims of lives that very few people in real life actually have.

Just remember that people can make up any old shit on the internet. Doesn't make it true. And much of what people claim is exaggerated or pure fantasy.

So don't lose any sleep over this fictional 'perfect upstanding citizen' RedZebra

None of us will ever feel like a proper grown up I would hope!

When you feel secure in yourself and your beliefs and have a thick skin and priorities and you can wear your bikini without giving a shit what you look like and you can eat crisps and say it's your evening meal and say sod cleaning the bathroom, let's lie down- your almost a tiny bit there.

When you feel secure in yourself and your beliefs and have a thick skin and priorities and you can wear your bikini without giving a shit what you look like and you can eat crisps and say it's your evening meal and say sod cleaning the bathroom, let's lie down- your almost a tiny bit there.

This in spades!!!

I like your list and am pleased to have ticked off one item on it. It's the one about not being a big drinker or pot smoker. Round of applause for me! :)

To an extent I get what you mean, I have this perfect idea of Xmas family get togethers that include cheesey Xmas jumpers and charades and happiness!! Not quite achieved it with bunch of miserable gits I've spawned from but certainly hoping to install it in to my son!!

That aside have you actually taken stock of what you do have?

They're maybe others out there that crave what you have?

My job brings me into contact with a lot fo the these type of people. They are all knobs.

This was supposed to be a lighthearted thread where I vented my envy of certain people in my life (friends who seem to 'have it all') and talked about what makes those have it all types so successful - is it personality, background, upbringing, schooling, something else? I suppose in all honesty I'm frustrated and wondering 'why not me'? There must be some reasons that some have more comfortable and wealthy lives than others and if I can work that out maybe I can give my kids the best shot at one of those charmed lives for each of them.

This thread was never intended as a judgement on who is or who isn't a grown up. If you're being super literal then a grown up is simply a person over whichever age gives them all legal adult rights (21 I think). As others have touched on in this thread, some people have had to grow up due to bereavement, financial insecurity, ill health etc.

I actually DO feel like a grown up, of course, there's been a whole load of financial and health shit and disability I've had to deal with and those things grow you up pretty fast, along with parenting. To me a 'proper grown up' is just a kind of shorthand, jokey term for those people who seem to have it all sorted and have few troubles.

Great post FrangipaniBlu that's wonderful to hear what you've achieved and how you achieved it.

Just reading back the more recent posts now, it's lovely to hear some real life stories and also hear that things aren't always the way they look etc (though I'm always sad to read everyone's troubles).

The greatest liberation is realising that its ok to be who you are and live the life that fulfils you instead of the one society thinks you should live. And if you figure out how to do that let me know.

cba reading whole thread.

Ask most people " When are you most happy?" and they will reply something like:
Walking my dog along the beach and throwing a stick for it to fetch. Cost = nothing.
Having a picnic in the woods. Cost = a couple of quid for butties.
Having the grandkids round for a bbq. Cost = maybe 30 quid.

Don't believe all the garbage about second homes and triathlons making you happy. All these " Look at the size of my ISA/car/stomach, isn't my life so much better than yours" people have swallowed a bucketful of BS and are trying to convince themselves.

Still reading backwards, great post RhubarbTea you speak very eloquently and totally get me.

The good thing is, that having this vent here on MN has shaken me out of my day or two of focus on all that money stuff. Well for now anyway, I'm sure envy will raise its ugly green head again at some point.

I'm back to focussing on what I do have and being grateful for my health and my children and DH's health.

Oh OP, you must know that your list invited a boast-a-rama! The good ladies of Mumsnet have kindly obliged.

Three cheers for the posters who haven’t done that.

OP, we have a beautiful 6-bed home in central London that we own outright; sbout 20 flats that we let; a NY apartment; one in Caribbean and another in Europe. 3 DC in selective independents, all reasonably settled - one dyslexic but receiving good support, the other two very academic. All have various tutors, etc. DH has 2 Ferraris, a racing car and I have my car. I’m a SAHM and tbh, DH has made a lot of money over the years. Most people we know are in very similar circumstances. Very few divorces or kids gone off the rails. People have money to throw at most problems.

However, DH and I both had difficult and unsettled childhoods (asylum seekers in his case). He has no family left except us. My family are problematic and live overseas. DH is one of these with all the “extreme” hobbies and he’s a self-confessed workaholic - permanently stressed. I’ve been in therapy for some months because life feels too high-pressured and overwhelming at times.