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?

Also remember these days everyone has a phone with a camera. Those drunken antics you got up to 30/40 years ago were safe little stories a friend might tell.

Today they are videos and pictures posted online for the world to see. To follow you around when people search you up. You can become an overnight embarrassing star. Lot of younger people are avoiding situations to make sure to they don’t get their 5 minutes of fame yet embarrassing for life stories.

They sound lovely! Good on them doing what they enjoy

you don’t have to make yourself uncomfortable to have a good life.

I am loving the contributions of @ScarlettOYara and @Anonymous07200408

See I think you do, a bit, have to make yourself uncomfortable in order to have a good life. Uncomfortable in the right way. My earlier posts perhaps conflated the "getting out and about" style of pushing your comfort zone with the broader philosophy, but I reckon it's this.

Life needs a mix of familiarity and rest, and challenge and stretch. What those things look like are different for all of us, and they wax and wane at different life stages- but if we're honest we all know in our hearts whether or not we are accepting the challenge.

Maybe they're challenging themselves on the holiday? Maybe they're going up Mam Tor, climbing Kinder Scout, going down the Blue John Caverns.
I don't know, nor does anyone else. A lot of assumptions are being made that this couple are somehow inadequate.

But if you don’t try a variety of things you can’t possibly know what makes a good life.

I would love to not have to challenge myself professionally and personally but those are the times I’ve had the lightbulb moments - made the mistakes that have made me better at things, felt the failures and the reward of the successes. I am currently hiding from a professional speaking engagement that I know would bring enormous rewards and loads more clients - I also know I’ll do it and it will be massively uncomfortable and I’ll be glad I have done it.

I think it’s the philosophy of taking risks vs being totally risk averse - however that looks. I’d also worry about a level of codependency if they are so enmeshed with each other and their hobbies and not conducting independent lives. That may not be the case at all but I wonder if that’s what the op is slightly getting at?

Plenty of people are married at 27. I don't know what all this concern about them being "enmeshed" is?

And also in my ds case, total familiarity and comfort would be staying in his room reading and gaming and not meeting anyone. Also watching all his lectures on catch up. Can we agree that this level of comfort and familiarity is probably not very good for his overall wellbeing?

But OP hasn’t said what they do professionally.

You absolutely can have a good life without doing what OP seems to think you need to - clubbing, drinking and travelling all over the world.

Well there is plenty of evidence that codependency is not a great thing mentally, psychologically or emotionally.

i have no idea if they are or they aren’t but in principle I think it’s fair to say that this is a risk if you do nothing but dog walks together, eating out together and holidays doing more dog walking together.

the op may be missing loads of details about their wide set of interests and social connections in which case I agree with you but I don’t think having a job disproves any of the above.

You’re totally missing my point. Where have i said that going clubbing is the key to fulfilment and success?

You’re saying they don’t stretch themselves.

we simply don’t know if that’s true because OP has been so judgmental

Nor does it prove it. All I know is that the OP seems embarrassed by her daughter because of friends talking about their kids trip to NZ. She calls her "old". She's "dull".
I just think there's more to the story, and I think the problem is the OP.

Frankly it’s just sad. If I found out my mum was saying this about me I’d be heartbroken.

I don’t disagree. I’m just talking about the wider issues I see in gen-Z

Don’t disagree - the wording of the op’s posts have been pretty awful. As I said - I’m just musing on the wider issues I see with gen-Z

That we focus on what’s actually important?

No that there’s less experimentation before settling into ‘old age’ style life.

And by that I don’t mean the going clubbing etc. I mean pushing outside of comfort zones. My generation I think are guilty of starting this though as the clubbing etc was within our comfort zone.
For myself personally travelling solo is something I’ve never experienced that I think would probably be of huge benefit (although terrifying and unlikely at this point due to kids)

I also think this is something started from a much younger age. Quite a few of my friends lament that their kids (teens) won’t join different clubs and don’t get involved in things socially. (These will be the same ones that will end up like OPs DD.) They stay well within their comfort zones already because their parents never took them outside of them when they were younger and showed them it’s ok to experience new things.

They've got it right! Not all 20 year olds want to sleep around and get drunk every weekend.

What do you think is “actually important”. I feel you’re being very obtuse here.

💯 agree. I am at the stage of having young adult kids - mine as I say is just starting uni and he is finding it extremely overwhelming. Had he been encouraged (by us as much as anyone) to take a few risks and get out of his comfortable torpor he would be so much better equipped for this stage.

I am having to do a ridiculous amount of scaffolding to get him into a routine that doesn’t involve hanging out doing his comfort activities of reading and gaming - he knows these won’t make him entirely happy but they are easy. he has expressed a desire for more in his life but isn’t used to challenging himself to take the steps to discover what he likes.

he is very much not alone in this - it’s a generational problem.

Isn't this rather a modern interpretation, though?

My parents' generation were generally married with kids in their early 20s. What we now think of as some sort of homesteader lifestyle was pretty much the norm for average working class families. Were they all 'avoidant' or just ordinary people getting on with the business of working and raising a family, which had its own challenges?

I don't think people were 'avoiding life' by just doing the things they enjoyed and could afford. It's how most people lived.

I can't help thinking we've got terribly hung up on 'experience' for the sake of it. I find it very interesting that I once read that those living in areas where the adventurous Brits go don't really understand why we need to put ourselves in danger for the thrill of it when their lives are spent surviving the environments we play in.

I agree. I hope she never finds out 😥

Yes, but then we had a generation of women who busted their balls for equity. Do we really want to lean in to a pre feminist era?

That’s not really my point though - I’m talking about figuring out what you like. If it’s this and you’ve experimented enough to know, then great. But if it’s because of fear of challenges I would say not so great - and it’s something I’m observing in my sons and their friends much more than in my generation - so not specifically a gender thing. Just some balance needed.

I disagree, (just going in what OP has said). They are alternating WFH which suggests minimal or zero socializing with work colleagues through choice and occasional lunch with another couple.

How many people do you think they’ll talk to on the Peak District holiday. My guess is zero.

I think it sounds like they are isolated, but it sounds like you see it differently. It sounds to me like neither have much of a social network beyond their partner. I really would not want that for my daughter, especially if it started in her early twenties or even teenage years.

As someone in their 30’s who gave up drinking 2 years ago, after spending my 20’s over drinking, making awful decisions and generally ruining my life before having a nervous breakdown over ‘having a good time’, I wish I had started spending my life like your daughter earlier! I do this now, and I’m 1000 times happier. Not everyone has the urge or disposition for that kind of life, and it’s awful that people are still pressured to do so