To ask what age you started feeling ‘adulty’?

[sunflowery]

Because I’m 27 and I still don’t! I feel like I’m pretending and on the inside I’m still that insecure teenager worrying whether or not people like me. I have a job, a mortgage, bills etc.

I watch my friends having kids and am often broody myself but then I think oh my god that’s something ADULTS do, I’m not an adult yet!

Where am I going wrong? When did you all start feeling like a proper adult?

I remember going to baby groups etc with ds when I was 24 and feeling like I was a teenager with a baby haha as everyone seemed so much older ( they mainly were tbh ) almost ten years down the line and I still have day were I think that I don’t feel like a proper grown up and look at other adults I know as they are real proper grown ups . So maybe I never truly will

21 when i had to co-ordinate my grandfather leaving hospital and moving into a nursing.

50 and still waiting 😂

21/22/23ish while caring for my terminally ill MIL, deciding on the funeral, clearing put the house, figuring out the paperwork. We (ex, sil and me) were all around the same age and now that I'm older I can't fathom why someone more grown up than us didn't at least advise us.

I definitely didn't at 27. Now 34 and starting to occasionally feel adulty and a bit icky about the thought of getting older.

I was 34. Had 2 kids and still didn’t feel adulty. Then one day I bought a new dress and it came with spare buttons and I thought “I’ll put them in the bottom box”. And then I thought “oh my god I have a button box”. And then I phoned my mum to tell her that I had just realised that I was an adult. Because I had a button box.

Jesus - that’s should not say bottom box above.

Probably around 24. Moved out of my parents' house and lived life exactly how I wanted it to be.

Mid 40s and not yet.

That's the big secret isn't it? We don't really ever suddenly turn into different people, we just deal with responsibility as it comes.

When guisers (trick or treaters but we're in Scotland) came to our door. I turned to my husband and said "ooh I feel like a proper grown up now!". He laughed at me and pointed out I had two kids, we'd been married for 8 years and I'd been a teacher for 10 years. I was 33 at the time.
I remember when my friend moved into a house with stairs thinking she was a proper grown up. We'd all been in tenement flats before that (and later I moved into a bungalow so that didn't count).

33, signing my mother's death certificate.

When I had children I think. I generally feel like an 'old person' now. Except occasionally when I get drunk and go to a club.

As soon as I had kids I think. Maybe during medical appointments in pregnancy when everyone referred to me as 'mum'

@Welshmaenad

14

Mid-30s - 40.

I feel like I’m getting old without ever having felt like an adult.

It kind of creeps up on you I think. I am 46 and have naturally started becoming a bit more sensible and domesticated over the years, but I still don’t completely feel adulty all the time. I love children’s films and pink and Barbies and theme parks and still sleep with a teddy bear for comfort for example. But I am a career woman with a good job and I keep fit and cook stir fries and I think I am a good Mum. But I would never iron anything and I eat ice cream instead of dinner sometimes... basically I think you just stay a mix of maturity and young at heart forever really.

When the manager of my kids creche said they wanted me to get involved in fundraising. I was like what.the.fuck.fundraising?!.fuck.im.grown.up, in my head. Outwardly I just smiled and said "of course".
I had a good career for 10 years, house, husband, given birth twice but it was the fundraising that got me ...

I was 45. I helped my eldest chose their GCSE options. Not sure why, but I think it’s because I clearly remember choosing mine and in (what felt like) the blink of an eye I was helping my child do something that had potential long term implications. I’ve been a grown up for many years, with many responsibilities both personally and professionally, but for some reason this was the moment I felt like a ‘proper’ adult.

Early 20s for me, which is quite young. I was the first person in my family to set foot in a university, never mind graduate from one, so after I graduated they treated me very differently. I was asked to deal with officialdom and ‘the authorities’ on behalf of family members and when important meetings needed to be attended or phone calls made or letters written, I was asked to do it.

I didn’t have a clue about any of this grown-up stuff, of course, but there was an expectation that, as ‘the clever one’, it was my responsibility to do it anyway.

The day I bought a doormat and a ballcock

28 was definitely a turning point. I had my first child and about 6 months later we bought our first house. I don't think I've ever really felt like a proper brown up but at 28 there was a realisation that I'd moved onto to a new state in my life.

14, when my grandad had a car crash and I made the arrangements with the police, insurance and the recovery, the couple we crashed into and called my nana.
I've never felt any more older or capable than I did at that age, potentially at 27 when I divorced and became a single mother and bought my own home and paid bills etc by myself?
I've always been old though.

49 and still don't!