Do you ever feel like everyone does this?

[Dooooooooo]

Apologies this isn't meant to sound like sneering or to cause offense.
However I look around and majority of people seem to be living the same life.
That is, go to uni, graduate, stay with the same company for many years, work your way up into management.
Meet 'the one' and settle down in late 20s/early 30s, marriage a couple of years after meeting, the exact same style of wedding, then the first child, then the second one a year or two after, the house purchase in suburbia, the cat and/or dog, and that's it, life is 'complete'.
I feel like this is how the majority of people I know are living. Not that there's anything wrong with it, I wonder if it is social conditioning, pressure, or biology. You sometimes feel like an outcast for not having 'achieved' all of these things, even if there's really nothing wrong with it.

I did all those things, but none of my close friends did. One friend got married and had a baby in her late 40s. Several of my friends got married but didn’t have children for various reasons. Some are single and child free. One is a single dad. A couple of my friends didn’t go to university. Very few of us have pets. We’re all in our 50s, and therefore most of us (but not all) own our homes. All of us have been relatively successful in our careers - some only recently.

I don’t really feel my life involves much ‘achievement’. It’s different from all of my friends - and they’re all financially better off than I am because I have the most children (and pets). I also don’t feel my life is ‘complete’. It’s just how my life is. But I’m reasonably content with my choices, and I think my friends are too. Different things suit different people.

Slightly different order and some things missing but yes, that's pretty much my life and at the moment I love it.

Which is it?

Do you know many people with that life or not?

I know a lot of people who've done a lot of those things, but very few who've done all of them - and certainly not all in that order. The few who have done all of them in order have generally thrown emigration, a complete change of career or a divorce into the mix as well.

I also know a lot of people who've done hardly anything on the list - single, partnered but not married, no children by either choice or circumstance, self-employed, in careers that don't have a management structure (or that have one but they're staying off it), no pets, living in flats in the heart of the city or cottages in the middle of nowhere.

And the details vary as much as the overall picture. I've had friends get married in a castle with 500 guests, in an evangelical church with people speaking in tongues and fainting, with a full 2-hour mass in a 1000-year-old church, up a mountain, and in a registry office with only 2 witnesses and everyone wearing jeans. Receptions in stately homes with fireworks and string quartets, and down the pub with a quiz and pies.

I know people who never left their home town and ones who moved as far across the globe as it's possible to go. Friends who joined the civil service and others who joined the circus.

I wonder if it is social conditioning, pressure, or biology

Or maybe it is because they just want to. Maybe that is biological; the drive to pair off and produce offspring. Whatever the motivation, it doesn't define people and certainly isn't an achievement, just a choice. Its the things that go on in the gaps between these life choices that really count. Maybe you're not seeing this from the outside, maybe you're just looking at from the perspective of someone who is sensitive about the way your life is going.

@Isittimeformynapyet I thought my sentence didn’t quite make sense 😂
Try again….
I don’t know anyone who has followed that life path.
The OPs description is nothing like “my world”.

I also think OP, if you are in the position to think that is your life course, then you are in a better position than most to choose many other life courses. So perhaps fortunate in that way? Obviously I don’t know your circumstances.

I did not have that life course. I fought like hell to get to University, only one in my family. Had a rubbish childhood. Lots of trouble with relationships. Around people who were destructive and dangerous environments really. Too far not he edges with no security or backup, basically on my own.

I have been a single parent now for a long time and am fighting to have some stability in my life. I want my kids to have that life course option, Uni and stable marriage and nice job and kids. So far they have, but also off exploring, traveling and having fun. I’m happy they are. They know a bit about my life, and sometimes allude that they ‘dont’ want to be boring’ but I try and put them off experiencing what I did, it’s not exciting or healthy to be near danger.

I think that's the average life of mumsnet only op. Most people I meet in the playground are not the career women they make out to be online.

@ZeldaFighter choose life! Lol

I think this is the very privileged life that we aspire to n late capitalism. No-one derailed by health, accident, civil unrest, war or disability. I'm older and have had a more patchwork career but my life has this shape and I am grateful.

I'd say maybe about half the people I know? And I'm in my mid 40s. I don't judge anyone for not 'achieving' those things and I wouldn't feel sorry for someone for not having them unless I knew they wanted them and hadn't been able to get them. People are living satisfying lives in their own way - I don't subscribe to the idea that everyone like you describe either pities or looks down on those who don't live like that. Personally I enjoy following the lives of mates who have very different experiences to me.

Yes my life is like that, every one of my friends lives too-we’re all middle working class so maybe that’s something to do with it. I was lucky enough to find my soulmate at 18, so we completed “the life list” early. Now at 38 &40 we’re a little lost, a kind of “what now…what’s next” problem. We’re planning on travelling in our older age/retirement 50+, so now in the meantime we are a little lost.

Your opening post is my idea of hell, but i know i;'m the weird one in this situation.

I believe there is societal pressure to live the life you describe - the characters in most movies seem to fall in line with this eventually, even if they had lived a different life up until the stat of the storyline. The biological drive to have children does not explain the rest - the house, career etc. Those come from the imagery we're surrounded by, be it in books, on TV or by sheer political steering. (I mean, why the hell is there a £200 tax relief for married couples?)

As for my friendship circle, we're all a bit... different. Therefore I don't have anyone in my immediate circle who lives this life, but I know plenty of my MC colleagues who have done exactly that. If it works for them, great. Personally, I'd have been bored shitless.

My mam calls it following the Life Script.

I think it's absolutely fine if it works and makes a person happy. It's a tried and tested formula that must work more than it doesn't or people wouldn't keep doing it. But it's not compulsory. I know lots of people who haven't lived like that and been very happy and fulfilled in life.

I don't know anyone who followed that path. Most of my friends are unmarried, all have children with long term partners. Around 50% went to uni but most had around 5 or 6 years afterwards going from job to job before settling.

I think it depends on your age and social circle.

I'm in my 50s and none of my family have children but most are married and in management.

Friends are all single and childless but I think thats a case of like attracting like.

Plough your own furrow op. Swim against the tide of societal expectation.

I barely know anyone that followed that path and I certainly didn't ! My eldest is 3 this year and very few of her peers have done that.

Me neither

I get what you’re saying but isn’t that just a glancing picture of people’s lives from the outside? They can look very similar but their experiences can be very different - they have different hobbies, passions, organisations they support. Parenting itself is such a varied experience because kids are all different. Maybe they have a side hustle, maybe they have a substantial social media following in a niche area, maybe they are religious and have a community around them that isn’t immediately obvious, maybe they know how to code even if that’s not their job, maybe they are phenomenal at escape rooms and puzzles. All this stuff matters and makes up a life.

I’m also not sure it’s true many people are working their way up in one work place now. There’s much, much more change than they’re used to be due to the way the labour market is now, particularly post-covid.

I don't know anyone who has this life.

Oh gawd - this is me and everyone I know 😂 You've made me feel a bit boring now OP! I am in my mid 40s though - I think things are different for younger people. I certainly wouldn't think it unusual if someone took a different path.

I left school at 16 bummed around and travelled the world until 23, Then got a corporate job/career. Got married and divorced twice. Had 2 children. Bought and sold several houses. Retired at 52 and I'm now bumming around again.

I had my first child when I was 21, then my other children at 23, 25 and 28. Then became a single mum at 29. No uni or big career. No pets. Never been married. Don’t own my own home.

I’m 33 now and I’m genuinely not bothered that I’ve never been married and most likely never will be. Not bothered that I didn’t go to uni, might go as a mature student one day you never know. Might get a little cat one day. Will hopefully buy my council house one day once I get back in to the working world.

Most people know went to uni but not the rest of it. We’re all on our third or fourth career, job hopping, freelancing, portfolio careers, houseshares and partying til late 30s or long term partner you split up with late 30s then find a few one, children around 40, then yes a move somewhere because houses cost money. Never suburbia, usually just “not London”. We all got our cats as students though and they’re dying off now 😭 but then there’s the freedom of going away without needing kennels.