AIBU to think prolonged young adult lifestyles now extend into people’s forties and to wonder what the outcome of that will be?

[rotiegg]

Of the bat this isn't really about a judgement about any one person its just to trigger a speculative conversation about this trend.

I am noticing that the lifestyle of what was once “young adulthood” i.e. casual dating, hook ups, going out to pubs, clubs and parties every weekend, drugs, booze, some what chaotic lives, poor diets, living in messy flat shares, mostly not having kids or being married and a career that is all over the place, doing unpaid, or precarious work still trying to break into various fields is now going on into people’s 40’s? In fact I was inspired to start this threat after listening to a women on a local community radio show talk about her new art show which explores living that kind of life at 40 while also starting to deal with perimenopause.

There was also a segment where two women again about 40ish spoke about things their friends had done as “revenge” to recent past lovers and it was really immature stuff like urinating on a drunk passed out boyfriend in a club because he hadn’t helped her when she’d been sick and another where a friend of theirs orchestrated an elaborate rouse where they enlisted a friend who they knew would be an ex’s dream woman to seduce him via Instagram and once he was in love with her got her to dump him brutally to break his heart.
I do get that it’s a lot harder these days to find secure housing, committed relationships, well paying work, especially in the arts. I work in the creative arts as well and so I see a lot of this in my peer group and we are probably at the coal face of precarity for middle class workers but even if people decide to opt out of traditional work or living arrangements at some point surely a degree of maturity is reached?

I’m not immune to this, my life isn’t exactly where I thought it would be by this stage in many ways but I do think my life is more stable than it was when I was 23. I just wonder if people think that the fact that people are delaying or unable to progress in life as they did in the past that it is also sort of extending the behaviours of youth as described above for longer and what that means when people who never “grew up mentally” start to bump into real physical ageing with out a home or savings etc? I know its been a thing for a while but in the past it seemed to go on until the 30’s now its stretching into the 40’s where things like real aging, disease and menopause wait for most of us.

She still has time to sort herself out.

Her life isn’t exactly over, is it?

And look at the not that long ago creative sects
The French Riveria bunch
The Bloomsbury Group
The soho colony room gang
Even da Vinci was a terror!

When have they ever conformed?

What’s wrong with that?

Why is there a time limit on partying or pubs? Why can people not avoid excessively high housing costs by flat sharing? What if you simply don’t meet the right person in your 20s / 30s or ever and don’t want to marry somebody you dislike?

I think a sign of extended young adulthood is not understanding life is not always going to be nice and linear and entirely within your control.

I think it’s good that people who want to focus on their own passions and work aren’t having kids. Too many people in the past married and had kids because it was expected rather than actively wanting to do so which isn’t a good thing.

Personally I think it’s fine to live like you describe as long as your decision isn’t impacting others natively eg you are in your 40s and live chaotically in your parents’ home.

I think it’s a good thing if the definition of being an adult isn’t as rigid in the past. For example someone childless doing charity work in a war zone is as adult as the adult living in a mortgaged house in the suburbs with a spouse.

If she had grabbed one of the blokes on offer in her 20s who she had declined (for valid reasons) she would still be stuck with a loser, only for longer.

I did the classic 90’s thing of uni and job. (I know it’s very different now!) myself and my exh rented a cheap shitty flat (yes I know not easy now!) but we spent 1-2 years living on absolutely minimal inorder to save for a house and then a wedding. Worked on our careers, worked every bit of overtime including Christmas and BH, and had kids in our 30’s when we could afford to.

it annoys the hell out of me the amount of people that bang on about not being able to buy a house when they still live the lifestyle they do (eating out/holidays/takeout coffee on way to work etc)
we used to go shopping and only buy from the “essential” range (ie Tesco blue stripe) we cut back and saved hard!
we have a few relatives and friends in their 30’s constantly telling us how lucky we are!
people have seemed to have lost the ability to really understand how to save and not see having a fancy rental house/flat as a luxury!

they seem to suddenly want to buy a house/get married/have kids but with no saving plan behind them to prepare for it?

my DD has a mortgage fund and she’s only 10! She knows how to cook from scratch (and loves it) and knows how to earn/save money. (she sells shell art from our driveway)

before anyone blasts me…. I’m not from money, I grew up in a council estate but my parents taught me the lessons I needed to know.

and a career that is all over the place, doing unpaid, or precarious work still trying to break into various fields
this is pretty much me. A career all over the shop and starting over again, I don’t think it’s some moral failing. I had the “aging/disease” realisation fairly early, had cancer as I approach 30 and it made me think, I should pursue fun things, be that in career or life. So that is what I’m doing! I don’t think working a traditional career or living arrangement is what makes you mature, you can see awful behavior from all sorts of people working serious jobs, people who are dicks tend to be dicks regardless of living arrangement, children, marriage or jobs.

My kids are now mid - late 30’s, as are most of their friends. A mixture of single, partners, married. All seem very mature to me, good jobs, own homes, they all know how to have a good time but aren’t out clubbing and boozing all the time, they’ve outgrown all that ! In fact in my London daughter’s friendship circle there’s quite a move away from alcohol altogether.

Somebody only read half the post

This is a consequence of a number of things.

1. more personal freedoms and less pressure to conform to a typical lifestyle.

2. economics - people struggle to afford the typical lifestyle of wedding, house & kids

3. social media has exposed people to other ways of living, whether this is good or bad is a personal stance

But, there’s no doubt about it that a lot of people still want to find a life partner and have kids. I see some of my friends absolutely crushed by not having kids.

Everything changes but the song remains the same. People want love, most people want to raise kids (biologically hardwired), people want security, peace and joy at some level.

Sadly, this is becoming harder for the reasons mentioned above.

YABVVVU. It's nothing to do with you how people live their life.

I also think for some people their brain chemistry needs to shift before they live life like OP wants.

I have not achieved most of the milestones OP thinks I should have and still enjoy a night out dancing (far less than I would like). But other things such as getting better financially only changed once my brain changed. I felt a maturity just happen one day like my pre-frontal cortex closed at 29! Maybe I was trying to reclaim my youth when I was adultified.

But other milestones were missed for circumstances completely outside of my control and I am fine with that. My career is fine, high earner but I am not the world’s most ambitious person either.

As long as they don’t harm others how anybody chooses to live is completely fine

I agree that most people want stable relationships and children. I feel like there will always be people protesting that marriage and children aren't for everybody and are part of an old fashioned template of how to live our lives but the statistics are pretty clear. Up to 80% of women without children are child free as a result of circumstances rather than choice. Marriage is also still a popular aspiration for young people.

I think we are in danger of assigning too much of this shift away from marriage and children to choice and changing aspirations. Yes, people do have different attitudes to many things today but the fundamentals have never changed. You can't override biology that easily.

I am not sure the people that described urinating on someone etc is really an example of the average 30 to 40 ish age group.

Yes, certainly they are sometimes picking different lifestyles than what was the norm but each to their own. I am now in my 40s and happily single. I did not want to get married or have kids in my 20s and nor was it expected of me. Twenty years ago I think the expectation would be different.

OP I get what you’re saying - how will society change as a result of what was once a niche way of life becoming incredibly mainstream?

I think it’s really interesting too, not necessarily bad by any means, just different to the rest of history, and it’s SO easy to forget that it’s largely down to contraception making women able to choose their lives and that then changing the way society is set up over several generations. I’m full of relief I don’t have to raise seven kids in one room in a city slum like millions of women had to 100 years ago - people should read Round About a Pound a Week or the even more eye-opening Our Spoons Came From Woolworths to see how constrained women were by their own fertility!

Before women could control how many children they had while having sex, society had to have a lot of rules broadly intended to ‘save’ children from growing up destitute. Marriage being key, no sex before marriage, men under pressure to support (with devastating consequences if they didn’t), and women almost literally chained to a hot stove with the effort of feeding their herd of children…

Three or four generations of choice in this matter has changed many people’s idea of this being the ideal way to live your life, most of us have much smaller families and many have none!

In real terms how much was your deposit?

We bought our first house with a 5% deposit in 2011.
We were paying £500 in rent.

The same houses are £1100 to rent and £170k to buy.

Our deposit would now need to be the best part of £20k as I don't think 5% deposits are a thing any more?

Most of my friends are between 34 and 40 ish. I honestly don't know anyone who is as you have described.

Some are married. Some have long term partners. Some have children. Most own their homes. One lives with her parents because it makes the most sense. some do still go out frequently but not every weekend in the wild party way we did in our early 20s. Some have 'great careers' some have a 'work to live' attitude.

These are mostly women I would know from school/uni

I don’t think many put it down to a shift in aspirations they acknowledge societal changes.

I think it’s ok provided they have no children. When children are in the mix people need to grow the hell up. I also don’t care what adults who support themselves financially get up to in their spare time. If they’re living in a messy home, screwing 25 people a month, getting wasted every night etc it doesn’t affect me, provided my taxes aren’t covering this lifestyle.

I disagree. I think there is a strong school of thought that believes that women in particular have been liberated from marriage and children and making different choices with this new found freedom. I think there are certainly a minority of women that this is true for but I think that most would still like marriage and children.

I really don't think this is common. I'm early thirties and the vast majority of my friends and acquaintaces are settled down with children now. Of my single friends, none are regularly clubbing or serial dating, it's more brunches and book clubs here.

Well the most obvious outcome is fewer babies being born, which we can clearly see in demographic figures for the past 10-15 years, but I'm not sure we can lay that wholly at the door of young people having more choices. Some of that is young people being unable to afford to buy their own place and have a family - even if they want to. Young people are, in some cases, stuck in the parental home, unable to get on with their adult lives, and that is thanks to wage stagnation, poor economic growth and bad governments - of which we've had several in a row.

And yes, some young people are rejecting the path of education, job/career, partner, marriage, children and embracing a more interesting, but less secure life and they're continuing to have fun and stay unencumbered for longer, but at least some of that is because of choices that they don't have. Earlier generations weren't saddled with the debts that Millennials and Gen Z are if they go to uni, earlier generations were graduating into a more buoyant economy with more jobs and prospects and that double whammy is having an impact on our society and the decisions that young people make.

Oh I think some people think that but it’s not a majority.

I do think there is an element of truth in it purely that choice means “missing out” is an “option” in a way it was not previously. Now we seek the right person to commit too. In the past you had to pick somebody / anybody. If they were a great option, fantastic! If they weren’t a great option oh well- you still have to pick.

What I mean is I think it’s a rare woman who is childless / unmarried not by “choice” who simply had zero interest or options. And greater female autonomy means we can shun those options we dislike in a way women could not in the past.

I agree partly, but the people I know like this are men in their 40s who haven't matured at all. They are in their comfort zones and if anything seems like it might be challenging and take them out of those comfort zones- relationships, job opportunities, learning skills - they will avoid it regardless of the rewards it might bring. Still in low paid work (if any work at all), permanently single, partially supported by their parents, all through choice.

Some parents are really infantalising their kids though. Talking to a mum I met a while ago, about how she gets involved in her daughter's education-I thought her daughter was 7 like mine, but she was actually 17! Yet her mum messaged her tutors despite her having no additional needs.
Some parents seem to helicopter when their kids are at uni, or even have kids of their own. Or the opposite-even when they're in their forties, they're making their personal life dramatic and forcing their kids to deal with them dating new partners all the time, or expecting to go out with their teenage kids as if they're friends of a similar age.