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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think I’m not a fucking kid?!

208 replies

WildEwe56789 · 30/03/2022 11:36

So my dads sister who is my auntie constantly refers to me as a kid or a child.

For context I’m 25 years old, I have a high flying job where I travel the world for it, I have my own house with a mortgage, I own my own car outright and I also have a dog. According to my auntie she still considers me a child/kid because I don’t have a boyfriend and or children which is something I do not want.

It really really frustrates me when she says it, she also constantly says I have no life experience or any grasp on how the world works Confused I have no idea where she’s got that opinion from because some of the countries I’ve travelled to for work are very eye opening…

She is a very bitter woman and she even admits that herself but I sat to her that doesn’t mean she can take it out on me. I no longer speak to her but she always ask my dad about me.

OP posts:
RobotValkyrie · 30/03/2022 14:51

You're not a child, but you certainly are a very young adult with limited life experience. I was flying all over the world for my job at your age. But a lot of very important real world life lessons I didn't learn till my 30s and 40s. 25 is very young.

RobotValkyrie · 30/03/2022 14:52

(Some of these life lessons will be about death and ill-health. Others about certain truth we're told to believe in as a society really aren't true at all. At your age, you still haven't seen it all)

fruitbrewhaha · 30/03/2022 14:57

What do you do with your dog when you're travelling around the world?

Yellownightmare · 30/03/2022 15:08

My parents were like this.
Its demeaning behaviour, as an adult in my 30s, DH, 2 DC, lovely home they took great delight in talking about me as a child, not nice things, nasty stuff like how I wet myself age 3.
hmm
Always in front of others at a social gathering
She probably has low self esteem and so needs to put down, to make herself feel better.
Mine didnt ever mention my career, house , achievements , just sneering put downs.
NC and its great.
Just grey rock her.
Avoid meet ups and dont react

Great post. Identify with all of this.

Frankola · 30/03/2022 15:10

In my family these things are used as terms of endearment having never stopped using them as we've all grown up.

I'm 36 and referred to as "the young'un"
My sister is 32 and "the little un"

Now my daughter is here, she's "the littlest"

We all quite like it

Yellownightmare · 30/03/2022 15:12

@RobotValkyrie

You're not a child, but you certainly are a very young adult with limited life experience. I was flying all over the world for my job at your age. But a lot of very important real world life lessons I didn't learn till my 30s and 40s. 25 is very young.
How patronising.

It's exactly the kind of thing my parents said because I didn't agree with their world perspective.

They had very little nuance or critical thinking skills and I can see that now as a person in their 50s, just like I could see that as a teen.

Age can confer greater wisdom but if you're bitter and twisted, you often fail to learn life lessons.

Cisforcamel · 30/03/2022 15:12

My aunt has 3 adult female offspring. The youngest is 47. She refers to them as the girls. Other aunt has 4 adult male offspring. Youngest is 30. They get ‘the boys’. Would the OP prefer they are referred to as my young adults or my old adults?

girlmom21 · 30/03/2022 15:16

@Cisforcamel

My aunt has 3 adult female offspring. The youngest is 47. She refers to them as the girls. Other aunt has 4 adult male offspring. Youngest is 30. They get ‘the boys’. Would the OP prefer they are referred to as my young adults or my old adults?
You completely missed OP's actual issue According to my auntie she still considers me a child/kid because I don’t have a boyfriend and or children
MurmuratingStarling · 30/03/2022 15:20

I bet the 'YABU to call a 20+ woman a GIRL' pearl-clutchers, are fainting with shock at some of the comments on here! Grin

1forAll74 · 30/03/2022 15:24

You Know who you are, and what you have done in your life, so this is all that matters, You don't have to take much notice of what some people come out with, as in their sayings etc. Its just their mode of speaking, which they will always do I expect.

MurmuratingStarling · 30/03/2022 15:33

I remember when I was 28, this woman (who had known my parents and grandparents from the first half of the 20th century,) saw me walking up the high street with 3 or 4 boxes that I had got from the supermarket. (Me and DH were moving from our little rented flat to a 3 bed house we were buying, and we needed them for packing.)

She said 'are you and your mam and dad moving house?' I said 'umm no, my husband and I are moving out the the flat we've been in for 2 years into a house we're buying.!

She said 'HUSBAND? Shock ' and 'buying a house?' Shock

In HER eyes I was still a little child, and she was gobsmacked that I was MARRIED and buying a house. People never bought their house when I was growing up, and she was knocked sideways that I was. And also gobsmacked that I was MARRIED ... I was knocking the door of 30 FFS.

As I walked off, she just stared at me, almost as if she didn't believe me. I opened the car door. I heard her say 'You can DRIVE?!' So apparently it was miraculous not only that I was capable of being married, and buying a house, (by the age of 28,) but also that I could bloody DRIVE! Hmm

Some people are just ridiculous.

EmmaH2022 · 30/03/2022 15:36

MurmuratingStarling "Some people are just ridiculous."

Yes. I particularly don't understand when they entirely miss the passing of time! 😂

Thewindwhispers · 30/03/2022 15:38

It’s very clear from your post that the aunt is wildly jealous of your life OP.

You don’t hae any contact with her. Why give her headspace? That’s what she wants; she’s trying to bring you down. She asks after you because she knows it’ll get back to you. Ask your dad not to mention her.

GreenWhiteViolet · 30/03/2022 15:45

YANBU.

I'm 35. I know more and have more life experience than when I was 25, yes. That doesn't mean that at 25 I was a 'kid', or knew nothing, or any of the other odd things said on this thread. I'd already been through plenty.

Hopefully at 45 I'll know more still - that doesn't make me a 35-year-old 'kid' now.

Parents using the word kids to refer to their adult children is very different to anyone else doing it, I think. You will always be the child of your parents, but you aren't a child.

Arewethebadguys · 30/03/2022 15:52

You don't speak to her though so you don't know what she says anymore. I'd have better things to worry about than what some bitter woman says or doesn't say about me. Enjoy your job, travel, home and life it sounds like you are absolutely smashing it!

Tilltheend99 · 30/03/2022 16:01

YANBU to be annoyed but most people are still kids at 25 regardless of having a high flying job unless they have had a very very tough life.

ouch321 · 30/03/2022 16:01
Grin

Good one I'm sure...

MaudieandMe · 30/03/2022 16:05

👏👏 7/10 for entertainment value.

WhereYouLeftIt · 30/03/2022 16:06

Turn it back on her. Tell her she only claims you're a child because then she can pretend she isn't old. Not sure how you're going to communicate that via your dad, thoughGrin.

Philisophigal · 30/03/2022 16:08

This reply has been deleted

This has been withdrawn at the user's request.

BeautifulMemory · 30/03/2022 16:08

25 is really young! And you are calling her 'auntie', so I'd say fair enough! I wouldn't get too hung up about it! I wish I was young enough to be referred to as 'kid'!

Yebbie · 30/03/2022 16:10

Are you the youngest? I'm the baby out of 6 kids and am still very much the baby in their eyes despite the fact I have my own baby. Years it took for them to stop offering me pop when everyone else was offered wine. I would have to remind them in was well into my twenties 😂

BeautifulMemory · 30/03/2022 16:13

:57lifelast

mrsm43s

To be fair you do seem to be having an excessively angry childish reaction to something that someone with more life experience than you would realise is no big deal.

This!!

BlueSummerBaby · 30/03/2022 16:14

I've met people before who consider everyone under 30 to be a child and speaks to them /treats them accordingly. Always people with a bad attitude and an inflated sense of their own importance who does this. It's a way of putting others down.

Auntie is maybe jealous of you because you're not tied down with DC or an knob of a DH like so many are. You've achieved so much in life already.

Some people are really messed up, bitter about the life choices they've made and the opportunities they didn't take. Although they'll generally blame someone/thing else for their choices, missed opportunities and mistakes. They're only happy if others are 'suffering' the way they perceive they did at that age. I think it validates their sense of being a victim if everyone experiences the same thing. If you dare to make different choices, be more confident, go against social norms or take different opportunities etc, appearing to not experience the problems or hardships which they did, then you're living breathing evidence that they could have done something differently and their experiences weren't inevitable. They don't want to think about that!

LightSpeeds · 30/03/2022 16:20

You said she's really bitter. She's probably very jealous of you and all you've achieved and is biting back in the only way she knows how...