When I was young, all I wanted to do was to grow up. I remember one of my fervent wishes were to be able to stay up past my bedtime, 9:30pm. I loved New Year’s Eve because it was one day of the year when my parents wouldn’t chide me to go to bed sooner. Then a few years passed – I’m not exactly sure when – and they stopped telling me to go to bed. And I missed that, not because I wanted to be told, but because it was a sign that time is passing, and that I am getting older, and once you get to a certain age, you lose the privilege, the expectation, that you should go to bed at 9:30pm.
Now I am a bonafid grown-up, an adult, I am getting married and heading off to graduate school and saving for retirement and all that. There are lots of things that I enjoy about being an adult. But there are other things that make me go, “gee, being a grown-up isn’t all that it’s cracked out to be!”
- All the Administrative Life Tasks that you have to deal with. Picking up the dry-cleaning. Buying groceries. Setting smog check appointments. Renewing your driver’s license. Paying the electric bill. All these little annoying things that take up much more time that I had expected.
- A mature, healthy relationship that takes work, and most of us did not grow up taking Relationship 101. I don’t know what I was thinking when I was young, but I had the impression that having a happy relationship would just kind of materialize, because that’s what happens When You Grow Up. But relationship, like all things, actually takes work. Who knew? For as important as healthy romantic relationships are in a person’s happiness, there is suprisingly little education on it.
- It’s hard to make, and maintain, friendships. Unlike in high school or college, where you see your friends every day and maybe even lived in the same building, being an adult means that your friends are miles away, or spread out across the country, or even the world. In a school environment, it’s relatively easy to make friends. But once you are out in the working world, and everyone is busy, and maybe have their own, primary, relationship, it becomes much harder to make friends.
- The cooking. Oh… the cooking. Being an adult = if you want to eat you have to cook or pay someone else to cook it for you. Being a child = having someone provide your meals WITHOUT charging you money. How glorious that was. Now, CB and I descend upon a pot of Mom’s leftover fried rice like ravenous wolves.
- Having to think about money & retirement. I never worried about retirement until I found the world of personal finance. But now I do!
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Like you, I wish there was someone around to tell me to go to bed at 9:30…
Yeah, the administrative tasks are the worse – especially anything tax related.
In general, I like being an adult, even with the menial tasks.
However, more and more I look back at college as the best time in my life for the areas that you mention. In college, I had independence from my parents but was still coddled and protected from "the real world" by my parents and the school. I mean, dorms and dining halls? Not having to clean up my own dishes or vacuum my own room? Heaven. And incredibly time-saving.
I wanted to be a grown up when I was younger too! I think I'm definitely living the life now. (Other than dealing with moving – it's a major administrative hassle.)
But bills? I love paying bills. I love getting mail. I love saving money. I hate buying groceries though. I like having my own car insurance and credit history and that I will some day soon, own a condo. Cooking? I hate cooking, but I'm working on it. Mostly, it just takes time that I'd rather be doing other stuff. My mom was (is) such a good cook.
Relationships on the other hand? Ugh. If you think meeting friends after college is hard, try meeting dating partners. That is even harder. Some days, I am jealous of my friends and colleagues who met their partners in school, until I remember that I get to spend my twenties doing whatever I want and spending/saving money however I want.
Though I enjoy the wonders of being an adult ( lovely wife, and family, able to do things I couldnt) I do miss the care free living. Not having to worry about working and paying bills and always know I would have a roof over my head and food on the table. I guess you can say I wanted to grow up too fast. Enjoy the youth while you have it but dont miss out on being an adult.
UGHHHHH I miss my childhood and teenage years and college years EVERYDAY! I hate waking up and working 8 hours a day and I hate having responsibilities. I wanted to grow up way too quickly. I started working as much as I could by age 16 and I've worked all throughout high school and college. I regret it and wish I lived up to my childhood like everyone else. I wish I partied harder in college. I wish I lived at home longer. OH WELL haha. Thanks for letting me rant:)
I do enjoy being able to save money though. Thank goodness for that!!
I like msyelf in my thirties more than I liked myself in my 20s. But somehow keeping friendships became more difficult than ever. I guess because life is so much more busier. It is never too hard for me to make friends, but it is hard to go out with them all the time. Cooking is anotehr hard part. You have to cook! What do you do if you don't like it? You find someone who does and marry them.
Being an adult is better than I could have anticipated! I got to do everything I ever wanted to do professionally and personally. That is what it is all about!
This post really made me miss my childhood days. Ahh, the days of careless irresponsibility. Being an adult definitely has its perks, but all the extra work and pressures can be overwhelming. Sometimes I'd rather have someone else worry about that while I just worry about having fun.
Life was def easier when I was younger, and although I'm 27 now, I still don't feel like a grown up. I thought getting married would give me that grown up feeling, but it hasn't. I still feel like we're playing house all the time.
I told my husband the other day, now that we're moving from a shack to an actual home, I wonder if THAT will make me feel like a grown up….
Things are so much easier as an adult. I can honestly say that life only gets better as I age. The freedom to do what I want and the strength to know that I am making decisions based on my own thoughts and values is so powerful. I had a great childhood, but I wouldn't want to go back to that time in my life. I was so much more fearful, shy and concerned with other peoples impressions of me. Now I do what I want regardless of what others think.
I suppose it is a trade off either way. With the increased responsibilities of adulthood you also get increased freedom and the chance to express yourself in whatever way you choose. But it was nice to be a kid and let someone else take care of all the drudgery.
I grew up relatively poor so I could not wait till I grew up and start making money. Being poor sucks and I never want to relive that. Thank goodness I'm a little wealthier now (middle class instead of upper poor class, if that makes sense…). Too bad I had to wait so long to start enjoying life a little.
Yep, the dream doesn't match reality. But I was luck in the fact that my childhood really wasn't that great, so just a little improvement is great.
When I was a kid, I was going to save the world, correcting injustices in my own small way, but those ways would take money, and lots of it. Nowadays, I'm just happy traveling and shopping at my local farmers market and helping my community in small ways like that.
I think these are definitely the things I "didn't know" about when I was a teenager who couldn't WAIT to grow up. I was chomping at the bit and ran out the door at 18. How stupid I was! Little did I know all the mundane tasks associated with being an adult and the responsibility. Thankfully, I don't have to cook. Mr. LH does that.
But everything else I had to learn on my own. Yuck is all I can say sometimes.
Great post! I think about this often actually. When I was a kid, I too just wanted to grow up. I hated being a kid and being treated like a kid. I wanted to make my own money, make my own decisions and do what I wanted. Well, now I do, I can and I do. And…..I have to work really hard every day, I have to worry about whether I can pay the bills if something happens to my sole source of income. I have to worry about whether my mom will go broke before she recovers from depression and pay her bills for her while she isn't able to. My back hurts and I fixing it will require big money. My car keeps ending up in the shop. It's one thing after another that I have to do, stress over and/or pay for. Ouch.
But on the plus side, I have my own life and have freedom. I can make awesome decisions and lifestyle changes on my own like cutting my spending, getting out of debt and saving for a house. There are so many opportunities open to me that weren't when I was a kid.
I guess it all depends on how you look at it. Like a glass half empty or half full. Either way, it's definitely an entirely different life. It's not even close. Being on this side of the fence though is slightly more sad, because we know we will never be a kid again.
Of course, it's also nice not to have anyone making you eat foods you don't like, forcing you to go to bed when you're in the middle of a good book, making you clean your room if you have other priorities, etc. But yes, the food. It is one of life's great luxuries to have someone else think through what you're eating, procure the food and make it. I think that's why that essay "I Want a Wife" was so popular from the first issue of Ms. Magazine.
You're forgetting "when I grow up I will stay up as late as I want!"
Now that I'm grown up, I do stay up as late as I want every night. I just don't want to stay up past 9:30!
I was always a 'little adult.'
Couldn't wait to grow up. Moved out when I turned 18 and have been working full-time ever since! I don't regret moving out when I did. I'm very close to my parents but they were very controlling/overprotective, and I desperately needed and wanted to live life on my own terms, making my own money. It was hard to work full-time while also going to school full-time, but it taught me valuable lessons. I don't miss being a kid at all. I do miss the close friendships that can only happen as a teenager, and the fun days in college of skipping class occasionally and drinking beer in the afternoon with friends. 
First world problems..haha I feel you about all of this! I was just on 9gag.com and they had a graphic that described this perfectly- as a kid you feel like you're in a prison but the fridge is full and everything restocks itself. As an adult you have more freedom than ever and stuff never gets done! haha.
Friendships are harder to maintain but they run so much deeper.. I do still have plenty of dorky childish moments with the good friends I'll keep forever. Loved the post, I think we all have our moments where being an adult is not all it's cracked up to be.