Why are people so obsessed with adults only doing adult things?

[SirMoose]

Sat through another meal tonight with family where everyone made fun of my husband for skating. He takes it well and doesn’t let on that it makes him feel bad but I know it does. He has a great job, is a great husband and father, does his share of housework etc. I don’t see why it matters what he chooses to do in his down time. Does anyone else think like this or is it just our weird family? I feel like people do think like this a lot especially the way adults liking Disney etc is viewed in here but I just don’t get it.

Using Aibu for the poll.

yanbu- being over 18 is what makes you an adult nothing else

yabu- skating is for kids and he should grow up.

Miserable fuckers!!

I get enjoyment from wearing bright colours and bright shoes. I am not young, I just don't give a fuck what anyone think/ says.

I find the most brilliant bright fabric and make my own clothes. Things don't match, and are all colourful and bright and I love it. Do I care what anyone else wears, not a jot. My goth fade was when I was a teen

Life is for enjoyment.

Absolutely this!

It’s a great hobby! Much better than my neighbour who collects dodgy second hand cars… more cars than people in his house.

You would love my daily outfits

Can’t? Who says?
Now is a great time to do some self discovery.
What sort of things do you think you want to do?
If not sure.. what would you have liked to do when you were nine?

@SirMoose skating has a very cool culture associated with it. I have a friend who is now mid-40s who owns a skateboarding related company and he has an awesome life. The people the sport attracts are often a bit counter culture and highly intelligent. Why would they think it’s amusing for an adult to do something that involves healthy exercise and awesome cultural links. They sound like a bunch of boring idiots.

I bet I would!! I was just about to comment on your above one. I also make my own clothes- I’m not so much bright colours but kitschy patterns are my jam!

YANBU. The only reason I had kids was so I could spend Sunday afternoons colouring in. Not complex adult books, just unicorns and pirates with thick black outlines so I don't go out the lines.

I have literally zero hobbies. I have so much shame and embarrassment carrying around from the way my family made me feel about everything I liked. I think that’s why what my husbands family were saying upset me so much.

When I was 9 I was cooking meals and doing laundry etc I wasn’t allowed to do anything fun. I was “the wrong shape” to do dancing or sports. I would have liked to have taken up ice skating but I was laughed at plus my parents would never have spent any money on me doing anything. It’s sad really.

No time like the present. I taught myself to spin wool, do glass lamp work, sew and some other things.

If you're interested in something, YouTube is amazing to get started. YouTube and reading books on what I want to learn, has taught me so much.

Throw all caution in the wind and do these things for yourself and no one else.

Don't let the past ruin your future. Stop worrying what other people think, life too short to not too things you fancy doing.

Start with something small or join your husband skating so you have support. I've started biking, was put off by worrying about cars! But deep down it was the fear off people watching,judging me. But I got out there and enjoying if

I was brought up similar (abuse & neglect) which is why I’m even more determined to have as much fun as possible now. I do so many hobbies. I paint, sew, collect dolls, read all the time, write fiction and poetry, build and paint warhammer (!) and play video games with my DD and OH.

Therapy helped massively. At first it felt like I was going to get in trouble somehow, or that it just wasn’t allowed. I was scared to think of what I wanted. But now? Ahhh. I’m so happy, so often!

Did you want to dance then? Or was it just that you had no wants, because you knew they wouldn’t be allowed?

I’ve just sat playing with DD’s toy kitchen for an hour after she was in bed (meant to be tidying), whilst watching Malory Towers.
I’m also listening to Harry Potter audiobooks again in the car. I’m 44, no fucks given.
Adulting sucks, give me a sandpit and a swing and some imaginative play any day of the week.
I’m not keen on skating but I still have a 14.2hh pony….

^^'Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.'
C.S. Lewis

I wanted to dance. There was a lot I wanted to do but just wasn’t allowed to try. My mum even made fun of the way I walked! I then started to turn my toes in and now 20 years later I have painful knees and legs from forcing my feet to turn in when I walk. I desperately need therapy but I can’t afford it really.

That's exactly what she means. It doesn't matter!

I took up ice skating in my late 30s. I will never be Jayne Torville (not least because I do ice hockey not figure skating), but I have a lot of fun with it. Have a go, there will be loads of adult beginner classes at your local ice rink.

Genuinely bemused that any activity other than maybe soft play and play fighting/imaginative play is supposed to be only for children. What exactly makes a certain activity, other than playing, childish?

Go skating with him OP! I've just booked me and my 2 boys in for skate fun this week and I'm 49!!! I did it for the first time 2 years ago at a 7 year olds skate party and had so much fun I went on my own every week for a while.

I’d love to learn to skate! I’m far too self conscious though unfortunately.

Oh bless you! That’s awful.
I’m also on a low income/single mother, my therapist allocates her schedule so she always has room for 2 reduced fee clients to have appointments. I pay half fees and see her twice a month so it is affordable. Lots of places do sliding scales so it might be worth a look?

Also.. there’s plenty of adult beginner dance/dance fitness classes. There’s one in my village that specifically says in the advertisement ‘it’s fine if you’ve never done this before, and it’s fine to join in the back of the room’. A taster session might open a little door…

I love a colouring book!

I thought the point of having children was an excuse to go on steam trains, fairground rides, swings at the park etc.

Skating sound slike a lovely hobby. Some people love to suck all the joy out of life. Your DH clearly isn't one of them.

My husband is the most joyful, self assured and easy going person I’ve ever met. What he sees in me I have absolutely no idea!

I'm firmly in the YANBU camp (although I have friends who go to Disney every year and I am a bit bemused by it but I can see it makes them very happy which is all that matters).