What is it with people and the idea of being “grown up”?

[ChiChaNaYubi]

Spent another evening with family being told my husband and I are “childish” and “how old are you?” And “when are you going to grow up?”

I just find it all so strange. We are grownups. We own 2 properties, have careers, children, we pay bills, drive sensible cars etc.

Yet because we enjoy gaming, playing Pokémon go on walks, having nerf gun wars, skating etc we are just looked down on and treated like idiots. I see it on here sometimes as well with people looking down on adults who enjoy Disney or wearing dungarees for example.

What is this weird obsession with conforming to a set idea of what a grown up should look like?

Aibu to think it doesn’t matter how people spend their downtime when the daily grind is done? Do you feel like this or have people who make comments like this?

YANBU, and it's usually said by people who are just ignorant of how many adults actually do those things. Take video games for example - over 70% of players are adults, yet so many will insist they're just for children.

It's usually said by people that are just a bit stuck in their own head and can't see how their logic applies to the things they do, too. Watching sport for example, or reading or watching tv - haven't they grown out of having stories told to them?

People like playing games, not just kids.

I’ve never met anyone who has created an entire persona on being different.Most people, myself included, with hobbies deemed as “childish” just get on with them quietly and with no fanfare. You make it all sound almost fake and being done solely to get attention.

I haven't said anything about having "childish" hobbies being attention seeking.

I've said several times that what someone's hobbies isn't what makes them childish in my opinion.

As I've said, plenty of adults have a range of hobbies (be it listening to Radio 4, the gym, playing D+D, collecting anime, enjoying trips to Disney, watching the opera or any other activities) and are interesting and fun individuals.
As I've also said, there's plenty of adults who have their own sense of style. They also are busy getting on with life.

The people who come across as childish in my opinion are the ones who prattle on about how (insert hobby here) makes them so different, so much more youthful and cool, and not like the boring adults, or try to bring conversations round (in an annoying faux naive seeking compliments way) to how they could swear people were looking at them on their commute and they don't understand why (when it's fairly obvious to anyone that some styles stand out more than others and are louder than others). I find people with that type of personality and outlook quite boring and annoying.

As you are capable of normal adult things and not dependent on anyone else, surely your hobbies are your own business?

I would annoy them by watching a couple of very boring documentaries before seeing them and then droning on about them for hours

You do you. I was the exact opposite and have loved opera, gardening and watching University Challenge since I was a teenager. I was told I was "old before my time" and should "enjoy my youth"....which seemed to be code for "why aren't you going out and getting drunk?"

As long as you're not hurting anyone, your hobbies are your own business. Keep that sense of fun and playfulness, anyone bitching about another person's grown up hobbies sounds like a right old bore.

I did notice that when a lot of my contemporaries hit their mid 30s they seemed to want to make a point of suddenly "growing up" about 25 years more or less overnight.

They went from going out raving to listening to Radio 4 and going to bed early with a herbal tea in the space of about six months and there was something very laboured about it. Having very earnest conversations about programmes on BBC4 and going to lectures and being very snobbish about anyone who smoked etc. It was a bizarre syndrome.

I'm in my early 50s and my raving days are long behind me. I don't even drink much anymore. Disney adults do make me cringe a bit, I'm not particularly into gaming and I don't own a Nerf gun.

But I still dislike the idea that everyone who doesn't "grow up" according to a preset timetable with approved middle class activities and pastimes is childish or intellectually sub-par. It's just snobbery masquerading as intelligence.

Most of the activities on this thread are not inherently less worthy of people's time than knitting or reading or painting watercolours. They just apply an electronic spin to something people have been doing for generations.

I went to see Guardians of Galaxy this afternoon and I was the only one there under 60 which made me super happy. People if all ages loving superheroes.

You and your husband sound fun, OP. How wonderful to have such a sense of fun (especially as you're hurting nobody) balanced with the responsibilities of being adults. Sounds pretty healthy to me. Carry on - unrepentant! 🌹

I've given up trying to be a grown up, it's too boring

I always like to go when kids are at school so it's more likely to just be a group of adults enjoying the movie together.

Especially after Black Widow when a group of young teen girls sat having full conversations and taking selfies for the first half of the movie and it only quietened down after some of them left.

Haven't seen GotG yet, DH doesn't normally come to any of the comic book movies with me but I've got him into Venom and Deadpool so far and I think he'd enjoy GotG too so we're hopefully going on his next midweek day off.

Everyone should go see Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves. It's brilliantly fun. And while there are jokes for DnD players, they are not central to the plot so everyone can enjoy it.

Yes it's a great movie and I really enjoyed the fact it let men and women just be friends-loving friends but no romance needed (and both straight)

I don't tend to speak to my close female friends about my geeky hobbies -we have interests in books and crime drama shows or finance (house buying or retirement) or health issues to discuss.

Something like reading is considered grown up and I read tons. But really when it's a James Patterson crime novel, it's really just a slightly more violent famous five novel. An easy read. It's not war and peace! Most reading is of the easy read variety per lists of what is most borrowed from libraries.

Everyone should not go and see a Dungeons and Dragons movie any more than everyone should go and see a Bulgarian arthouse movie.

I love a Marvel movie but my significant other finds almost everything with fantastical/sci-fi/super-hero elements to be boring.

I love gardening and I'm in late 30s and constantly told that it's a pensioner's hobby and to go out drinking more because that's actual fun.

DH and I had a very onion-heavy dinner last night which led to "natural consequences". We were laughing so hard at our fart tennis I nearly had an asthma attack.

We are both 60.

Keep it up OP 😊

Why do hobbies have to be 'improving' and 'grown up'? Surely it should be something you enjoy and have fun doing or are interested in.

I like tarot, something that's often mocked as being woo and a load of nonsense, but actually has a fascinating history - I love the different patterns for playing card decks. the different decks for different games, the different artwork styles in different countries. The occult history is interesting as well, with how tarot developed into a fortune telling deck. Pamela Colman Smith, who was the artist for the Rider Waite Smith deck was a very interesting person (and sadly died in poverty).

The current deck I'm studying has led me down a rabbit hole of pre-history, particularly the Paleo + Neolithic and the Bronze Age.

I stopped caring what other people thought about myself and my hobbies when I was 18. Life got a lot better after that moment.

"You're never too old to rock and roll if you're too young to die."
(Due credit to Ian Anderson; I'm a child of the 70's and I am not growing old particularly gracefully.)

In our early 20s our group of friends all bought bikes and used to ride the towpaths and go for picnics on the weekends. It's was before the resurgence of bike riding and lycra clad people charting every ride on strata.

Some then went on to become MAMIL's (or women in lycra) and now the rest of us who just want a spin on the bike for a bit of a laugh aren't allowed to join their "very serious journeying"

So we are split into 2 groups of grownups and the children....the children have more fun - we still picnic and possibly have a pint.
We are all still friends though - but the chikdrens club bikes don't cost as much as my shit car.

It depends. It sounds like you gave the bulk of your life sorted so if you want to be ‘childish’ in your downtime fine.

However, my BIL and partner for example struggle in a performing arts related sector and think an art studio (or something similar) is just going to thrust them into the warm embrace of fame whilst doing fuck all to actually work towards it. Whilst wasting all money they do get on Lego and collectible toys and implying they are badly done by and that DH and myself by extension should help them out. Not a chance. Childish beyond belief.

Do what makes you happy. Fuck the judgement of anyone else. If it’s not illegal and doesn’t hurt anyone else, crack on.