Last updated on November 19th, 2023 at 12:19 am
What age do you really become a grown up? I am thirty-one years old now and I still feel in limbo about it. As a teenager you think turning twenty-one makes you all grown up, you can legally drink, make your own decisions, drive a car, and in some countries that could even be younger at eighteen. Although I never felt that way then or now.
At first in college, living on my own, paying bills, working full-time and school full-time I felt like someone playing dress up. I still worried about making friends and being social. Yes, I had responsibilities but nothing I felt too serious about.
Then I got married. For sure, getting married should be the ultimate grown up thing to do right? I was madly in love and had just moved across the world to be my new husband. And yet I still didn’t feel like a grown up. I was on a life adventure, seeing the world and falling in love. My life had bills, work and love but there was still never a feeling of being a grown up yet.
Buba and Missy Moo came along a few years later. Then I turned thirty just after having Missy Moo. The combination of babies and age felt very grown up. Thirty used to sound so old when I was a kid and I had a master list of things I wanted to accomplish by time I was thirty (many I have done and many I have not done, yet). When babies come into your life there are more “grown up” things to think about. Among them was life insurance, family savings, schools, and the overall health & wellbeing of each child. I was shoved into a bubble of feeling very grown up. When anyone becomes a parent I am sure they feel the same way. Lately, I have been in thinking more of our future and planning ahead which was something I never did before. My life adventures, up until now, have been full of the here and now but with a family to care for planning for the future is just as important as the here and now.
My ignorance of knowledge can get the best of me at times. I know that I need to secure a future for my beautiful family and myself but sometimes I don’t always know how to go about that. I think sometimes we think that all that is for grown ups and we are not quite there yet in our 20’s and 30’s but we are! I think family savings are so important. If you are unsure about investments, there are companies like Nutmeg that make it simple to manage savings online for you. You are in charge of your level of risk you want to take and how much you want to put in. Best part you can leave the scheme at anytime with no hidden fees. It can help people make the most of their savings in a way traditional ISAs might not. These are just the sort of things that make me feel grown up now. Taking life more seriously in my thirties and planning for the future as a family together. If you feel the same way too, check this video out it could help you on your path to being a grown up too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k1SvdJSgrY
It’s almost like I became grown up overnight in some aspects with more financial pressures and responsibilities, and yet there are still some days that I feel like I am not quite there yet. Do we ever feel completely grown up? I still want to run to my Mother when I have had a tough time. I still want to be lazy on a Sunday afternoon, eating pizza and watching bad tv. I still want to go on all the rides and be a big kid when we go to water parks. There is still so much of me that feels like a big kid. At thirty-one years old, you would think I would have the answers by now but I don’t feel like I do. I told myself at ten that twenty would feel grown up. I told myself at twenty that thirty would feel grown up. Now maybe it’s definitely forty years old. Does everyone else feel this way too? Or will I always think another ten years I will be wiser and feel more grown up but never get there?
Linking up with Vevivos for #PoCoLo
*pr collaboration
I definitely agree with you! I’ve done plenty of ‘grown up’ things; buying a house, getting married, having kids, but I still don’t feel properly grown up. When I need advice I always go to my mum or my grandmother. I still worry over little things and don’t know all the answers. I don’t think I’ll ever be truly grown up but I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing, I think everyone is the same 🙂
Thanks Beth. Me too. Maybe we never feel grown up. I should ask my grandma if she feels grown up but I know what she would say. She is funny like that and never wants to grow up. lol
Jenny I completely agree. I don’t feel grown up at all!
I think by the time I am 40 I will be a proper grown up and I will magically acquire skills like some type of magical unicorn as I hit my 40th!!!
x
I am glad I am not the only one that feels this way. I think forty is the magical birthday for sure. Lol
I think most people are winging it and feel like fake grown-ups a lot of the time! I certainly do – I’ve only just started feeling confident enough to complain about things in service provider-client scenarios and I’m 33! My brother says it took him 11 years to propose to his girlfriend because he didn’t feel grown-up enough to be married… Then he realised he probably never would do so finally popped the question! Great post 🙂
Hahaha glad I am not the only one then. It’s reassuring knowing others feel the same. It does feel fake sometimes. Confident enough to complain about service providers you crack me up.
I’m 41 and still winging it 😉
hahah I love it. Glad I am not the only one for sure. It’s weird to start talking about all this grown up stuff like savings and investing but then still not fully feel like a grown up. 🙂
great post – somehow being 15 doesn’t seem that long ago and yet a lot of years have passed since then and so many things have happend #PoCoLo
So true. Time is a weird thing that passes quickly and at times goes so slow.
I’m turning 30 next week, and I share the same feelings as you. There are days when I feel like such a grown up, but feeling it constantly? Like I’ve made it into this responsible world of adulthood? I haven’t had that happen yet. And perhaps, we’ll never get to experience that. Maybe that feeling doesn’t exist. Maybe “growing up” is all relative, all in perspective. Taking care of our family and we’re doing the best that we can is good enough for me! Thank you for sharing, Jenny!
Oh wonderful hunny. Happy early birthday. Yes I think you are right maybe it doesn’t exist. So we all will just be waiting for something to click and feel grown up someday. Lol
I sometimes think, wow, I’ve got two kids, a hubby and a home, I’m so grown up! But then I get excited for silly things like ‘Pitch Perfect 2’ to come out and realise that I’m still quite a silly kid after all haha #PoCoLo
I know me too! I think we never fully become grown ups but why would we want to? Got to keep a little fun in us right? Pitch Perfect 2 me too girl! lol
i’m constantly asking myself this question!! Even at 40 I still feel like a little girl sometimes and get totally overwhelmed by the fact that I’m a wife — a mother — a business and home owner. I wonder how on earth all that could have happened when I still don’t feel very grown up!
One of my favourite quotes is ‘Don’t ever grow up — it’s a trap’.
Having a childlike perspective is nice, I think. It makes you look at the world with fresh eyes. I LOVE that! xx #PoCoLo
Caro | http://www.thetwinklediaries.co.uk
I love that saying. I am going to remember that one. So true. Wise words lady. Thank you.
I’m 34, a mother of 2 and a doctor, I still don’t feel grown up!
#PoCoLo
Thanks Morna, maybe we never do and it’s something we just think as unreachable each year. lol 🙂 It’s great to still have fun and feel like a kid too.
I’m well into my forties now and still don’t feel as though I’ve grown-up. Most of the time I feel as though I’m pretending to be an adult and hope that no one suspects a thing!
#PoCoLo
hahah Thanks Izzie, glad I am not alone. I asked my grandma after writing this post and she said at 82 she doesn’t either. lol
I don’t know if we ever ‘grow up’. I am mid 34 and have two children, a mortgage, work and pay bills yet when I feel down I ring my mum! I become excited like a child when my children are excited and I will happily play at the park too 🙂
Hahah that sounds like a beautiful way to be too Rachel. Maybe none of us feel completely grown up and that’s ok.
I think we are all just faking, though I must say when the first parent die and you suddenly have to organise a funeral, you do feel grown up.
And then a few weeks afterwards, when life has gone on, one day you realise that you feel like a teenager again, so who knows?
#PoCoLo
Maybe it’s supposed to be that way to keep us all young at heart.
Hi Jenny, I don’t think I’ll ever feel like a proper grown up either and in a way I quite like that. Most of us are young at heart and having kids definitely helps with that – I love reverting back my two year old’s level now and then! #pocolo
I think so too. It’s great feeling like a kid and playing grown up. I would love to find someone that does feel like a grown up all the time. Maybe they don’t exist.
Oh yes I think it’s the best way to be. I just wondered if anyone felt grown up but I don’t think they do. Kids definitely help and I love feeling like a kid and getting to their level.
Oh Jenny, I think I am pushing that age even further away now by another decade to 50! Because 40 is only just round the corner for me (well 4 years…) and lately, I’ve actually attended two 50th birthday parties – where they a)don’t look 50 b) certainly don’t act like 50. Think the lesson there is you’re as young as you feel! Which by my reckoning is still 18 x #PoCoLo
I think we all do that just add another 10 years to that feeling of grown up and never get there. But that’s ok just means we are making most of life and staying youthful. lol
When I became a parent my priorities changed. From thinking about myself I have to think of my son as well and yes mostly his future. I think when I started thinking about other people rather than myself is the time that I became a grown up. #pocolo
I don’t believe that I will ever truly be a grown-up – I am far too young at heart for that! Even now I can’t believe I am a Mum – and that is supposed to be the most grown-up thing of all in my eyes! Thank you for linking to #PoCoLo x
Yes I completely agree, I think I felt like well I have two children why do I not feel grown up yet? Maybe we never do and we all just felt like we are playing our roles. lol Thanks for hosting lovely.