Did anyone else become an adult late in the game?

[OneSeriousPerson]

40 is around the corner, and I don't have kids, property, investments or a viable profession (freelance my whole life and my industry is getting slaughtered by tech).

I also happen to come from a family of settled white collar professionals who all have their shit together and essentially see me as a lost cause.

Is there anyone else here who came to "grown up life" late in the game who can share their experience of becoming a respectable adult despite having delayed? I'm feeling like a fuck up here and am starting to look at retraining options/have applied for jobs, but starting to feel deflated and slightly depressed.

Take the public sector . Will look good on paper if you want to rent or buy . Look on it as the way to fund your other interests . Unless you are in a certain sector , it shouldn't be all consuming or demanding and you can leave it behind you when you clock off.

Lots of life left.........

I was in poverty, lone parent with children 7 years ago. Relatively ok now I'm creeping up on my late 50s.

Draw on your experience and set your sights on what you want, nothing is wasted and (whilst noone can guarantee success) life is a journey not a destination (Oh Lord did I really type that!!!)

Don't worry about what other ppl think, no ones perfect. As long as your happy then uts fine. All these ppl who project there houses etc aren't all happy. There are a lot of ppl unhappy. Don't worry. Do you

I became a dad for first time at 54. And started my own business a few years later. Know its different for guys. But 40 is nothing these days

Question to all those who went to uni and qualified in their 30s and 40s, and now are in professional jobs. How were you perceived by interviewers. Presumably you were applying for the same jobs as newly qualified 22 year olds.

'bouncing around country to country' is adulting. The things you've seen and experienced count for so much. Adulting isn't just about what jobs you've had or earned.

I'm 41. I still live with my mum and with my son in a 2 up 2 down council property. I've got no savings, no investments and I work as a housekeeper cleaning shitty Hotel rooms. I will never be able to afford to own my own property and will likely die in the house I was brought up in from the age of 2. I hope you feel better after reading my post 😂

Got together with DH at 38
Bought our house at 39
Had DS at 39
Married at 40
Started degree at 41
Had DD at 42
Qualified and changed career at 45

I feel that I have finally become an adult very recently, in my mid 40's. I haven't achieved ANY of the normal milestones.

I had a traumatic childhood. I believed that if I worked hard at school, I could have a better future. So I worked hard. I aced my GCSEs, but sadly got kicked out of home before I could finish my A-levels. I spent a few years going off the rails and then found a way back to education and eventually a degree and a professional job. I believed that this was my ticket to adulthood, and I wanted it all. I wanted my own home/a mortgage, a good financially secure husband, children, professional success.

I worked hard. I experienced persistent and relentless bullying at work and abusive romantic relationships. I used alcohol to cope. I became a victim of stranger rape. I eventually had a complete breakdown and lost everything....except my closest friends.

I went through 7 years of hell. I'm coming out of it now. I have had a lot of therapy and mh support.

I feel so much better. I feel completely free. I no longer have any desire to reach socially accepted milestones. I just want to find a little piece of happiness or beauty in the every day. I want to earn enough money to pay my bills, but I no longer have any desire to be promoted, earn more, get validation from work or my job title. I believe that the most important thing is my friends and relationships (platonic), support systems, communities, and being able to express myself creatively.

I feel like the luckiest person in the world because my breakdown was so bad, I lost my home, but I was allocated a council flat. It is a bit dodgy here , but I have a permanent home and some great neighbours.

I work. Poorly paid but very important for my community. Thanks to the therapy I received after my breakdown, I have learned to accept all of my emotions, as painful as some of them are.

My life is very far from perfect, I know every day that I still have so much to learn, I don't have the husband, career, house or children, that I always wanted. But I finally feel like a grown up! And for me it was coming to the acceptance of what I don't have and won't have that led to me finally becoming ' grown up'

This makes me hopeful as a late bloomer.

I have no kids because I never wanted them,
I used to own my own home and have had opportunities to do the same again but love the freedom of renting,
I’ve been with DP for 10 years but we aren’t married.
My only investments are handbags and shoes.

Some people think not having kids or not being married means me and DP aren’t adults or committed. We went out one evening and were asked constantly if it was fear or commitment stopping us from being married- DP pointed out it’s more of a commitment to stay together when there is nothing stopping you walking away. We aren’t legally tied together but we CHOOSE to stay together - no matter how much we hate each other sometimes 😂.
We choose not to have kids because it doesn’t appeal to us. We love having the freedom to travel and sleep in late and not have to worry about anyone but ourselves.
More and more people are choosing a childfree life because having children isn’t expected as much as it was, there is more honesty about how difficult it actually is.
Now it isn’t just a box to tick but something people choose to do and are better informed about the challenges parenthood brings.

I know plenty of people with kids, mortgages, careers who still don’t feel like grown ups. They come to me for advice because there isn’t a check list to being an adult.
I have a lot of life experiences and I might not have a dazzling career but I’ve got common sense and the wisdom of growing older.

It’s literally the years that you’ve lived and the experiences that you’ve had that make you “grown up”. It’s not a list you check off.
You can drive, get married and have kids in your teens, they are choices not accomplishments.

When my mum was dying that was my wake up call, I desperately looked round for an adult and realised that I was supposed to fit that description, I had never felt less like a child.

Live your life how you want and if anyone judges you then use your maturity and experience to see that they aren’t in a place to judge. There isn’t a “one size fits all” for living life.
If you want to make changes then do it out of choice and not expectation, you are the person living your life so it’s only your opinion that matters.

Mid 30s I was still in the bars until wayyy past midnight, renting etc. 3 years later bought a place, was married, flourishing career and shortly after kid on the way. I’m glad I lived it up back in the day for as long as I did.

I switched careers early 30s after a degree in late 20s/early 30s. There were some condescending interviewers but they were minority. Overall I was under the impression interviewers enjoyed talking to someone who was a bit more mature and actually understood realistically what they are getting themselves into and what the company/ job are about.

I turned 40 last year - single, no children, don't own a home...all of my friends and family got married etc. in their 20s. I do feel like a bit of a failure.

Yeah. You really need to stop putting so much onus on what your family say/ think.

Your mum might not even really know what 'a marketing job' means or entails these days.

Start asserting yourself and take charge of your life - your family can't do it for you.

Thanks for this thread. I get how you feel OP. I’ve turned into a bit of a late bloomer and generally feel DH and I are getting our shit together in our 40s in ways other people did years ago.

Had a difficult childhood and many years of therapy. Was freelance for years and then in quite poorly paid charity sector work.

I changed career in my 40s, I work in tech in the civil service which is better paid than a lot of CS professions, and is helping me catch up pension wise. Bought a house. Sorted some other things, like my dodgy teeth. No kids as sadly we can’t have them (though haven’t ruled out adoption, we’re not in the place for it right now).

I feel a bit shitty when I read threads about people becoming mortgage free in their 40s and 50s, we’ll be in our 70s!

I wish I could do my life over and make different decisions, but I can’t. Having some more therapy to help with this at the moment - would recommend if you can.

I'd say stop listening to your judgey normy family and figure out when and why you became dissatisfied with your lifestyle, and what your new priorities are. If you want a child, don't wait.
If you haven't got a house, maybe don't beat yourself up about past choices and you and your partner's circumstances and just figure out if that is a priority and if so, what you need to do to get there.

Do you not know what you want to do for your career, even in a dream scenario? Are you just under confident in going after what you want? What is wrong with going into hotel management if you love working with people and like travel? Lots of jobs are all about relationships and communication - can you draw up a list? What about going back to basics and remembering what you loved doing when you were younger?

I know people who have retrained in middle age, one of whom had basically done nothing with his life till he was in his forties and then became a barrister. It has worked out for them. Don't fret.

But what's your industry? Do you like it? Do you need to retain or simply reframe your many years of experience and start charging a lot more/going for better paid contracts? I don't think freelancing is a sign that you haven't got it together. The amount of extra work and organisation involved makes it a lot harder than having a PAYE job.

Yep , I’m almost 40 , have only just in the last 2 years qualified in a profession and I hate it and am looking to get out - currently on lower wages than expected due to this . No where near buying my own home , lots of debt . 10 years ago I would have thought it would be so much different !

But , do you know what I do have ? Beautiful , happy , healthy children a happy marriage and health .

so no I don’t feel like I’ve failed . You don’t have to meet society’s expectations for your life to be relevant and fulfilled . If you’re happy that’s all that matters x

Good Lord. What's the profession and how long was did the qualification take? Did you not realise until you were doing the job that you hated it?

Teaching .

Did not realise I hated it until I was in it , no . Did not realise what it actually was until I was in it . Sadly, I’m not the only one this early on to be already wanting out and you wouldn’t believe the amount of experienced teachers telling me to get out now . I almost had a breakdown in my first year employed , now I do supply . It took 5 years altogether - with an access course , a degree and a PGCE. Thankfully , I didn’t do my degree in teaching so it’s not like the whole of that time was purely teacher focused .

But , I still feel disappointed and in a way embarrassed - I made such a big deal of qualifying. I was so happy . I couldn’t imagine myself wanting to anything else . But - as a student I was on the stage with the bright lights and then once I qualified I actually saw backstage and backstage is a very broken education system 😢

Please don't feel embarrassed or disappointed. We can't know the reality of things until we try them. 💮