To ask how is adulthood different from what you thought it would be like as a child?

[Cordroy]

I never thought grown adults would have friendship issues.

How wrong I was 😭

I didn’t realise adults were winging it 99% of the time. I thought I’d know everything!

I should add

I definitely prefer adulting to childing

It's just in the last few years friends have vanished

I realised work wasn't going to be fascinating in my early 20s so I am over that one though. It's just probably the biggest difference. My parents really enjoyed working as well. Maybe I'm just not the type.

Thought I'd be able to both afford and have the spare time to do the things I enjoy.

Thought I would steadily climb the property ladder like my parents did.

I thought we only had to choose which career we wanted and it would happen. I thought that the only hard part was making the right choice and sticking to it. I wanted to to be an archaeologist and a trapeze artist.

Love this image!

I came on to say exactly this!!
I now understand why we, as kids, had the same/similar meals every week - mince and tatties on a Tuesday, cooked meat and chips Saturday.

I thought I'd have house full of cats and wondered why people didn't have lots of pets. I do always have a cat, but cats are arseholes, so ones enough.

Really? It was so overpriced and mediocre as was Debenhams.

I remember looking in BHS at Xmas with all the overpriced stocking fillers 1 pint glass and bottle of beer reduced half price on Boxing Day. Ridiculous prices and awful waste. I hate stocking fillers.

I thought all grown ups were actually grown up, good decision makers and sensible. Oh, how we laughed.

I thought I’d have a decent house and good sized garden.

I thought adults threw lots of sophisticated parties and had invitations to great events all the time.

It’s actually been way more exciting than I expected! I remember visiting the US with my parents aged 13. We were spending the day with relatives in Cape Cod and a bunch of us kids, all loosely related, were playing a really fun game on the lawn. All the adults were sitting on a terrace sipping Pimms etc, and I remember thinking how sad they looked, and how they must so wanted to join our game, but weren’t allowed as they were adults.

That, in a nutshell, was my route into adulthood. No regrets here…

I thought adults threw lots of sophisticated parties and had invitations to great events all the time.

Yes! I thought I'd go to lots of dinner parties full of erudite professors and professional high flyers.
This was to have occured in beautiful homes with large dining rooms and libraries, plus enormous gardens in summer.

I never thought my DH would die when I was very young.

Or that I would have to pick up the pieces, finish a house we were renovating on my own, and spend my old age alone.

i always thought that studying hard would equate to a reasonable level of income and some security in that old age. No one really told me as a child that society doesn’t necessarily reward diligence or effort and that being entrepreneurial or a bigger risk taker would have taken me much further in life.

Oh, I thought everything would be easy. I wouldn't cry anymore. I'd eat what I wanted yet still be fit and strong. I'd have loads of money because of course, once I was an adult I'd be able to do anything I wanted.

My kids would have no rules and would always behave because I'd buy them everything and never tell them off 😅

On a more serious note, I thought my friends I had as a kid would always be my friends. Some of my friendship losses have upset me more than a few of my break ups.

I thought I'd have lots of friends to pop in and see for coffee whilst the kids played. Never had that as always worked when ds was younger and i didn't make mum friends

How stupid and pointless a lot of work is, and how so much of it is based on the egos and random whims of those in charge. Also how incompetent so many adults are.

At some point, listening to the charts and knowing all the words for the latest releases stop featuring in your priority list.

You cannot rent an office (with a half cloudy glass panel), call yourself a detective and be brought interesting cases that you can solve easily with your superior intellect, gadgets, and mayabe with some help of your niece, Penny

I thought it was easy to meet a partner and fall in love but alas I’m still single in my 50s

On a more positive note it's easier than I thought it would be though. I was the kind of anxious child who assumed I'd do badly at everything so as a result I feel like I'm actually doing quite well😄

It's a bit hard to remember what I thought it would be like, but I do know if you'd told me I would be able to choose to read during meals AND to do things like go shopping and/or go to the cinema on a Sunday, I would have thought that was absolutely brilliant, and tbh it really is.

Tbh I am still incredibly excited at most of the things I'm allowed to do as an adult. There's something to be said for a childhood involving a lot of church, hard work, long walks, visits to ancient relatives who live on bran and like to test your general knowledge, and hand me down clothes.

I thought I would live with my best friend. We would talk about it excitedly and couldn't wait! Like one long sleepover.

I didn't realise it would be so shit! Adulting is hard

I thought I’d be a lot more glamorous, have a daring job and throw fabulous parties for my large group of friends in exciting locations. Well I usually wear graphic tees and leggings, I’m a bit of a recluse and I work in cybersecurity. Real life has a lot less quicksand and daring rescues than my childhood reading led me to believe. Also no one has dramatically asked me to save the world yet…. Still waiting on that one 😂

I’d never get married but have multiple mysterious men pining after me…

Also flying cars and aliens figured in there somewhere…

When I was a child I thought that being 'grown up' meant that no one would ever be able to tell me what to do again. NOT EVER!

Oh, how wrong I was!

As a child, I was obsessed with being a wedding guest and all the outfits I would wear to friends’ weddings. I fantasised about my own wedding but less so (as wedding dresses are pretty boring). I still remember some of the fantasy dresses too, 25 years later.

More generally, I was a very unhappy teenager and I could never have imagined how great life as an adult could be. I used to hate being told what to do, by teachers, parents, toxic friends etc. and having little control over my life. As an adult, I am free and independent and more or less do what I want when I want. It’s utterly fantastic.