DD and boyfriend are wasting their lives

[FiddIedeedee]

DD 27 and her boyfriend (also 27) are proper home bodies. All they seem to do in their free time is go for country walks with their dogs, meals out or Sunday markets 😂

When I was in my 20s I was partying, clubbing and getting up to all sorts, I fear they are wasting their youth!

Last weekend they baked cookies and went on a long country walk with the dogs with a pub lunch. DD spends a lot of time reading and crocheting bits here and there. The boyfriend has started furniture restoration as a hobby. They’re like an old couple honestly!

DD got annoyed with me because I said to them they need to be out enjoying their 20s (and soon 30s) and not acting like a couple in their 60s. DP says leave them be but I just don’t want them to regret not living life to the full. You’re a long time old as they say.

AIBU?

I think you’re reading too much into an emoji personally.

My own mother told me to live more when I was younger and not to be so tedious, and as luck would have I’m still alive to this day nobody died 🙂 (I’m not mocking you I promise ☺️)

I think our generation (I’m 41) was probably the end of a belief that you just have to go out and get drunk to have fun. The reality is there are a couple of generations of functioning alcoholics who have been led to believe that’s the only way to live. There has now been a massive shift to more wholesome lifestyles which the older generations are struggling to understand. Let them be. There is something to be said for being happy and content with the life you’re living without feeling the need to have more or do more.

Is this a reverse?

you sound really awful and judgemental of your dd if it isn’t

really? Huh, because earlier you were calling them boring and using the crylaugh emoji

I just think you sound tone deaf @FiddIedeedee yes, you were once 27, but that doesn’t mean you have any idea what it’s like being that age in 2025. I think a different lifestyle is now romanticised vs what you have experience of.

for example Kim Kardashian was like 27 when she started her reality show. I think for her generation (people 40+ now), sex alcohol and partying was the cool thing to do during that age and settling down was seen as boring.

whereas after 2 decades of that being popular, things swung the other way. I’m in my 20s and the desirable thing is being successful at work, owning your own house, and being more aspirationally higher class I suppose. Clubbing is seen as more chavvy/working class as opposed to country walks and visiting markets which is more desirable. Most 27 year olds are trying to evolve from their clubbing era to their settled down era, so you’re not going to find many actively desiring a wild lifestyle. It’s probably more embarrassing to be seen as wild the older you get today, than it was in previous generations. At the moment, things like home renovations, cooking, exercising and other wholesome/cosy things are in.

There's no upper age limit to partying though, is there? There are plenty of bars and clubs that cater to the over 30s should they suddenly feel inclined to start partying later in life.

In reality, that's unlikely, though isn't? It sounds like it's just not their thing. Unless you have reason to believe that your DD's bf is preventing her from living the life she wants to and is coercing her into a homebody lifestyle, YABU. If that's not the case, enjoy sleeping easy and not worrying about what your adult DD is up to!

There’s nothing wrong with gaming all day, I don’t condone drugs though.

I don't understand why her life choices aren't "real". Going on a walking holiday is every bit as "real" as vomiting outside a club in Magaluf, or being high on spliffs on some litter strewn beach.
Let her be. She is who she is. If it matters that much what your friends think, tell them she's taken up bungee jumping or something.

Your daughter and her boyfriend sound great. You? Not so much.

My mother is also disappointed with me. Not about partying, I was a wild party animal. But because I 'don't have A MAN'. She herself is unable to survive without one for 5 mins, and thinks that there's something seriously wrong with me for not wanting one. Doesn't understand I'm single by choice and thinks it's because 'no one wants me'.

Any attempts to get the idea that people are different and like different things through her thick skull have proven to be futile. So I don't bother anymore. Really bother to talk to her at all, in fact.

I partied like a champ, oceans of alcohol, all sorts of drugs, sex, raves, the whole shebang. Now in my 30s I travel the world. I have friends and family members who didn't party and don't travel much (or at all), they have lived similar to your DD since early 20s. They're NOT boring, they're great people. We're different, but that's not a bad thing, on the contrary. The world is more interesting when people are not carbon-copies of one another.

What do you mean not real ? It is ther life do you want them to have hardship or stressed, what do you do that is so different

… oh, and about a quarter of the extreme-partying friends from my twenties are dead. Mostly of drug and alcohol misuse, misadventure or major organ events.

And? I'm 40. Got engaged at 20, bought a house at 22, married at 24. Baby at 28. Everyone's timeline is different. Not everyone is in to clubbing and travelling

This isn’t about your daughter is it. Your having a mid life crisis and wanting you’re youth back. If not you are totally unreasonable. I’m glad you aren’t my mum. You laughing at her wanting a Peak District holiday and wanting to stay in with her husband is disgraceful. What do you want her to do, get drunk till she has no idea where she is and then have a raging hangover the next day. That’s no life. She isn’t wasting her life away at all. She is living it her way not partying. At 27 most women have settled down not going clubbing. I suggest you get therapy before you push your daughter away

I think OP is just having a hard time digesting that what she thinks is cool, is not what young people think is cool. Maybe it makes her feel insecure about her own life choices or about her age. I guess many older people told themselves that vomiting in magaluf (or whatever) was a right of passage - and are shocked that actually they didn’t need to do any of that, and that today’s young people are rejecting that lifestyle.

There’s no age limit on travelling though is there. If she suddenly has an identity crisis or itchy feet in 10, 20, 30 years, she can go travelling then. Yes she may have kids or not be with the same partner but there’s still ways to do and experience things.

You’re saying this is about your feelings of worry for here but more than anything you seem a bit embarrassed by her.

My husband and I are very similar. We went on holiday at 21 to Yorkshire for a walking holiday it was lovely. I was growing my own veg and flowers from 14 years old and I'm still growing them at 33. We don't drink. We have plenty of fun for us. We still have time to travel more but our passions in life will never be alcohol and partying.

I have distanced myself from family who enjoyed "banter" of how boring I am or im an old lady. It became very very boring for me.

You might also not know everything about them for all you know behind close doors they are up to all sorts but aren't going to tell you. Even if they aren't they sound very happy.

Don't fret, OP. I expect that your grandchildren will go completely off the rails and in 15-20 years time your daughter will be on here bemoaning that. And when she and her boyfriend (by that time husband) are in their 60s and their kids have left home, they'll cry "Oh well, what the hell!" and go off and spend all their money travelling the world, before settling down to a live in a yurt in Tierra del Fuego.

You are very out of touch with what young people are like! Staying home is much more common than all the crap we got up to as youngsters.

You’re mad to be annoyed at this. They’re adults and well aware they could be vomiting and hung over after partying in some awful nightclub. I never liked clubbing. It was hell in my 20s and thankfully not something I have to endure now.

Of all the issues parents can have with grown up children this isn’t one.

Super unreasonable. Leave them be, their life sounds great. I wish I hadn’t spent so much time “partying” in my 20s and had learnt what really made me happy

Funny I just commented this to my husband how happy we are dd and her boyfriend love country side and home cooking etc. They only go clubbing for birthdays or special events, they like occasional drink but definitely more healthier than we are.

The idea of a life is to get drunk is usually came from the middle aged groups.

This! I am so surprised that well travelled people of the world don't understand or accept people are different and like different things.

I agree, although it does seem partly about those friends with DC travelling to NZ, so maybe there's a feeling of competition there as well?.
She's embarrassed by her own daughter's life.

Personally I think more people should be having children in their late 20’s/early 30’s rather than this generation of people who are now waiting till their in their late 30’s/early 40’s.

My personal view is that having children that much older is in fact damaging to our society, not now, but future generations.

We are entering a world where we are going to end up with a grandparent less generation, where family has become obsolete because children are born to parents in their 40’s who were born to parents in their 40’s who are now either too old or dead and so those children will never know that generation, their family will end with their parents. And I’m not sure that’s healthy.

Added to which we are increasing the number of children with disabilities due to the risks of having children later in life, as well as the amount of infertility and need for powerful fertility drugs with both physical and emotional outcomes.

But hey far better to wait and go out getting pissed instead.

I was married with a mortgage at 25 and had my first child at 28.

The fact is a lot of people can’t afford to travel any more because of the cost, and tbh it’s a bloody faff to have to fly these days, plus the impact on the environment.

But someone describing a couple in their late twenties who are actually behaving perfectly normally as pathetic because they’re not out nightclubbing is incredibly pathetic and says far more about you than it does about them.

I suspect you’re at a point where you don’t want to admit that you have adult children who are almost in their 30’s, so you’d prefer for them to behave like teenagers.

Trust me going out clubbing and getting pissed really isn’t the norm in your late twenties.

Ffs. They ARE living. They sound lovely and very well matched. You are being so unreasonable it’s ridiculous. How awful of you to be so disparaging of the way they live their lives.