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.

So little difference then.

There aren’t any. Settling for who will have you at 25 or 35 is the same. Still with a terrible choice of partner. She will just have had her kids with her terrible choice a bit earlier.

This. What you describe just sounds like a handful of folk who didn't get the memo that the ladette era is fin.

That’s nothing to do with them being childfree. That’s who they are. They would likely be equally as irresponsible as parents. I don’t know anybody who would do this. But I do find who we surround ourselves with reflects who we are.

If they got married and had children they were childless not childfree. Also don’t people say raising kids costs more?

You’ve had a sheltered life OP

Good men get snapped up early. By 35, men that age are the dregs, the ones with something wrong with them, the fuck boys, the commitment phobes OR if you're lucky, the recently split up/divorced who might be OK.

At 25, the pool of non-shit men is bigger. The later you leave it, the harder it is to find a good one. Clearly. The person I'm writing about had a number of nice boyfriends between the ages of oh, 20 & 30ish. But she wasn't looking to settle down. Those nice blokes are now either married or have a long-term partner.

Ask any 40 year old woman how easy it is to meet a good man. And watch her laugh.

You see it in economic terms. Some people have no concept of doing without and saving up for things and the downsides of relying on credit and getting into more and more debt. There are some who have little choice if they want to eat and have a roof, but I’m thinking of others who do have the choice.

People who chose to have children but don’t make wills and take out life insurance when they’re born, who don’t start a pension when in secure work etc etc .

You see it most notably in our politicians and national economics. The U.K. is deeply in debt and financial trouble and we continue to swerve the hard choices or even any discussions about them continuing to elect politicians who will say anything to get elected - who cares about the next decade as long as I’m in power for 1/2 terms. Scary.

How many of these messy flat shares have you visited?

I was aware of men in their late 30s and 40s living like that when I was in my 20s, 30 years ago. They tended to hover on the edge of / overlap with student accommodation areas, student pubs and social scenes to a degree, so somebody would know one of them and naively believe his hype for a bit. Both men who'd always lived like that and were still expecting to "make it" in some dream creative or entrepreneurship way (the latter with a string of failed schemes behind them) and men who'd returned to living like that after leaving a wife or partner and children.

I don't know whether this type of lifestyle used to be more male and is now something both sexes do, or whether it's unchanged, but I don't think it's in any way a new phenomenon.

I don’t think it’s new…in my clubbing days there was always some older ravers. They just didn’t go on radio four to talk about their lifestyle

Interesting discussion. Every choice in life means you give something up. I settled down youngish, bought a house, worked hard and progressed in a “good” job. My partner turned out to be on a different page so I did most of this as a single parent. Now I’m in my 50s and although I’m delighted I got to have a child, I look back and think how over-mature and over-responsible I was. Something playful and free for left behind and a lot of the time I wasn’t really being myself but playing a role. Hopefully I have some time now to get back in touch with my carefree side, but I wish I’d been a bit less hard-working and careful to be honest.

I think what I’m saying is that every path in life means you are letting go of some choice or opportunity. That’s just how it is.

This reminds me of an article I read years ago about the fall of the Roman Empire, where contributing factors were persistently low birth rates esp amongst upper classes (avoiding lifestyle burden and high financial costs of children plus avoiding maternal and infant mortality).
(This bit from typing ‘Roman empire low birth rate’ into Google…) This demographic decline undermined the military and economic foundations of the empire , triggering centuries of intense legislative and societal efforts to encourage procreation. Despite these legislative efforts spanning centuries, historical records and paleopathological studies suggest that the fertility rate remained below replacement level, ultimately forcing the Western Empire to rely on foreign mercenaries to sustain its military and economy before its fall in 476 CE. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself! I’m a lifelong liberal!!

I have often thought I’m likely to wind up grandchildless - and been fine at the prospect, not wanting my kids to go through what we did to have them - we gave up our fun lifestyle for 20 years and are only now slowly returning to going out. But pp here have made me think - I’ve raised my kids to enjoy opportunities more than to have a sense of duty, and I wonder now if the balance was right. (They are all decent people btw, great manners, considerate, raised to have morals, take responsibility for themselves and face consequences but also to see where their desires lead them). I guess time will tell!

I do go to the odd day rave and they tend to be stuffed full of middle class people in their 50s (live in south east) and international students. Everyone using the loos as you’d hope!

People do seem more immature but older. Guy on my team mid thirties announces he is going to get bladdered one weekend. And meant it. Sort of thing someone who was sixteen might have said years ago. The impact of immaturity can result in a lack of responsibility for things.

I've not witnessed this and I'm late 30s. Is it perhaps because you know a lot of creative types OP and they tend to have less stable career paths and so on? I don't think those radio examples are indicative of any kind of trend, they just sound like unhinged people and were picked to go on for that reason.