At what point does a grownup not doing grownup things seem strange to you?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I can see not having a car if you live in a city with public transportation, but it gets a little shaky if there’s no public transportation and you’re constantly having to rely on friends and family members to take you places. Obviously, though, there are circumstances in which not having a car is inevitable, so I’m hesitant to say the lack of a car alone makes somebody “not an adult.”

Same for not having your own place. There’s a difference between living with parents due to financial constraints and living with parents because you’re too cool for a job.

Not having a job currently isn’t the same as not having a job ever.

There reasons for people not having sex are vast.

I think the only thing that strikes me as odd on the OP’s list is the lack of ID. How does a 20-something navigate the modern world without one, whether it’s a driver’s license or a state ID? Rely on never getting carded for a pack of cigarettes or a six-pack? Don’t you need some form of ID for a cell phone?

22

I find people who are driven to paroxysms of fear by the thought of and/or completely unable to navigate their local area without the aid of a car to be less “adult” than those who don’t own a car over a certain arbitrary age point.

23

Hey, you didn’t “see” my waking dream this AM!

Not caring about savings and health insurance, by, say, age 30, is definitely slacking. Oh, I guess 30 is the new 20, so adjust accordingly.

24

I don’t trust adult men that don’t drink beer. :smiley:

25

Maybe some of them just don’t buy those things. (I don’t.)

I actually use ID very, very infrequently. I think the last time I had to present it anywhere was almost a year ago, the last time I went to Canada.

ETA: I also put my drivers’ license number on my absentee ballot envelope last November, so I guess I used ID then. Although I could just have easily used my Social Security Number.

A cell phone, probably. Any cell phone, no.

26

What are you including in the cycle of misery? There are plenty of things in life that suck, but avoiding adulthood doesn’t make very many of them go away.

Going by the list in the OP, the dividing line to me about whether something would be strange was whether someone was forcing/letting someone else take care of responsibilities that he or she would be perfectly capable of doing or should be capable of doing.

Living with your folks to save money for a house is responsible. Living with your folks so you can spend all your money on entertainment or you won’t take an available job that isn’t exactly perfect isn’t. Not buying a car because you don’t want to spend the money and you’re able to take public transport and only ask people for the occasional car-related favor-good for you! Not having a car or knowing how to drive because it’s a hassle and you don’t care if other people burn their gas or take time out of their day-not cool.

27

Exactly. I’m 32 and have no car, no licence, no job (am in school though, and I have had several jobs in the past), and have a roommate. However, I also have absolutely zero debt and have travelled extensively - both of those things are a direct result of living at or well below my means. My roommate and I get along really well and I get kind of lonely when he’s away, so I don’t see living alone as a very attractive option for me. I don’t really myself as ‘not a real grown-up’.

I know people who are married or live with their SO(therefore presumably having sex) but let their husband/wife pull all the weight in their relationship while they dick around and do whatever they want. These people often live in nice houses and drive nice cars, but I wouldn’t call them ‘grown-ups’.

28

I’ve worked and lived on my own/with a roommate since I was 18, but I don’t know how to drive and until two weeks ago (when I had to get a valid photo ID for a new job) I hadn’t had any photo identification for 5 years. It just never came up.

Not only do many of my peers (mid-20s) still survive by mooching off their parents, but so do many people I know up to their 50s. It’s an issue of enabling rather than ‘adulthood’. All of them drive though. Most people I know who don’t drive are relatively self-sufficient like me- we have great public transportation in this area, and cars are such a money-suck.

Not having sex is fairly unusual but I personally know several cool people who do not (due to lack of interest or opportunity) or who didn’t get around to it until later in life. Not something that seems very ‘strange’.

29

If you live in a major urban center, it’s not that unusual at all. I know several people in New York City, London, and Toronto who don’t have driver’s licences because they’ve never had any need for one. A dear friend died at the age of 76 and he never had a driver’s licence, although he travelled the world quite extensively. He had no family in the country where he resided, so no, he did not depend on family members to chauffeur him around town.

30

I guess I can tell you a bit more about the situation as so many of folks have asked for more details.

Where I live public transportation is virtually nonexistent, and so the only way to reasonably get around is via driving. Considering that all of my friends live in the same area as I do, I know damn well that they’re facing the same level of public transit (or rather the lack thereof) that I am, something which makes their refusal to get a DL and a car all the more perplexing to me. I know that some of them are legitimately AFRAID of driving a vehicle, while others are just faced with an absence of motivation to get a DL at all; my response, to all of that really, is simply “why?”

Some, not all, of them go to school, and while I personally haven’t gone to uni yet (I could’ve gone immediately after I finished high school, sure - I had the grades and stuff for it - but there were some other things that I needed to sort out first) I don’t think that being or not being in school really has any merit in the argument here. And Hell, I’m finally heading back to school myself in a few months, but I’m doing it all while still working at my grownup job and while still driving my grownup car. Again, not having any of those things, by a certain point in somebody’s life, just has to become strange eventually.

I do like the idea of it perhaps being more about other people allowing this behavior to occur rather than somebody’s general lack of ambition. Maybe the folks that I’m criticizing just need to be pushed more by their parents or something; I dunno.

31

Oh, I missed the edit deadline.

But I meant to edit: As for car ownership, my partner and I have discussed getting rid of our car. Within 15 kilometers we generally cycle otherwise, as we’re in a major urban center, we can use public transit. We’re re-evaluating how cost effective it is to have a car that we never use except for travel. Presently, it seems far more cost-effective for us to rent or use a car-share program. We’re realizing that owning a car may just be throwing money away pointlessly.

32

(pointless interlude) – I’ve been spending my first paycheck as a no-longer-academic, no-longer-FT-professional musician, and the first thing that came to mind was to buy a late-model Dodge Challenger R/T, white paintjob. (Cool, though, right?) Nah. I’ll just keep on with the flexcar and maybe buy a van. I guess that makes me less a man, but I’m a full-grown man. Who cares? Answer: nobody cares, it’s just more shit you got to deal with.

33

Not having a drivers license, no, not strange. I’m 24 and I don’t have one (though I am working on it, as I realize that some careers require one, and I don’t want to have to renew my permit again). And in many places, you simply don’t need to drive–the “drivers license as coming of age” thing applies mostly just to Americans.

Not having an ID at all, however, is weird. Not immature, per se, just strange. Can’t you get in trouble for not having ID if, say, the cops ask for it? And if I were to die in an accident and my body got horribly mangled, I’d want there to be some other way to identify me.

Not having a job…eh, it depends. If you’re willfully lazy and just plain don’t want to get off your ass, yeah, that’s pretty immature. If you haven’t had your first job by, oh, 25…well, I suppose there could be good reasons for that, but it does strike me as strange. (I myself didn’t have my first job until I was about 20, though I’d done a lot of volunteer work.) If you’re looking for work and just can’t find it in a shit economy, are in school, or are unable to work for whatever reason, those are all legitimate reasons not to have a job.

Not having a car, no. Cars are expensive, and, like I said before, are often unnecessary. I don’t have a car, but my boyfriend does. When I get my license, we’re going to share his (and I can easily bus to work…if I couldn’t I probably would have worked a lot harder on getting my license sooner).

Not having your own place…eh, not really. In this economy there are quite a few 20-somethings living with their folks, and again, cultural differences matter. I live with mine. I was going to find an apartment with my boyfriend, but when I told my folks this they just looked at me funny and said “why don’t you just live with us? It’ll be a lot cheaper.” Can’t argue with that! That being said, I don’t plan on doing this forever.

Not having sex, hell no. I have a friend who’s asexual (so, no sex drive whatsoever). He works a full-time job, has his own place, has his own car, all that other stuff. If you tried to suggest to him that electing not to sleep with anyone, ever, didn’t make you an adult, he’d laugh in your face. Even if you DO have a sex drive, there are perfectly legitimate reasons not to have sex.

34

It varies everywhere I suppose but a lot of my peers had part-time jobs at 14, fulltime when they left school, but many of them, including myself don’t yet drive as we hover around the 30 mark. We just don’t need them as much where we live as some people do in many places.

35

Does the OP live in the United States? I have a hard time believing that any significant number of American 20- or 30-somethings fit the profile that’s being painted. Europeans are arguably different: I’ve long heard that, for example, it’s common for Italians to live with their parents well into their 30s, and for Europeans in general to stay in school well after their American counterparts have entered the workforce. (It’s easier if you have to pay little or nothing to go to school!) In re. getting a license and a car, that’s also much more of a requirement for Americans, given the truly terrible state of public transportation here.

Anyways, as others have said, a lot of it depends on where you live. If you’re in Chicago, Boston, New York, and a small handful of other places it wouldn’t be unusual not to have a license or car until late - if not ever. In the vast majority of the US, however, it’s unusual - if not downright juvenile - not to get a license. Likewise re. getting a job. In regards housing, does having roommates or housemates count as “getting your own place”? I don’t think that’s unusual or immature - I wouldn’t expect all young adults to have their very own house or apartment. Having sex or not is everyone’s personal prerogative.

36

Not having sex makes you not an adult? I would think choosing to abstain would be more mature than have consequence-free sex that’s only consequence-free until the odds catch up to you.

Not having a way to support yourself or at least trying? Yeah, immature.

37

If you’re going to school full time then not working is not that odd, in my opinion. Depending on the program, full time university can be literally more time-consuming than a full-time job (I’m at school at least 50 hours a week), and that doesn’t leave much time for working. In addition many people find that working on top of going to school is detrimental to their grades. I know people do it out of necessity, but at most universities you’ll find that many of your classmates do not work during the term, and looking down on all of them might not be so good. If you’re talking about people who don’t work at all even during summer break and just screw around for years getting drunk in the dorms on daddy’s dime, then I can agree that those people aren’t very adult.

We’ve had threads about this before, but I think most car owners would be genuinely amazed at how possible it is to live without a car in even a relatively small city. You need to make choices about your life with public transit in mind (eg. rent or buy a place near a bus route), but it doesn’t require you to be a moochy freeloader. I just don’t see why people put such weight on owning a car - it’s just a thing. If I went out and bought a car tomorrow, would I be suddenly more adult? Why, exactly?

38

Not having a car doesn’t seem strange imo (because having a car can be an expensive pain in the ass) if it’s a choice and you live in an area if you public transportation. I like know many people who live in NY and owning a car for THEM would like the regular person owning a plane. Useful, but who has the space and not really needed. If you have a job where say you can’t afford a used car and/or car insurance, yeah you’re not an adult. Not having sex to me is ok if you’re any age. I like the idea of some not having sex for various reasons vs you had sex at X age because you felt you were the last virgin of your age group. I’ll admit if say a 45 year old told me they never had any type of sex, I’d be all ok… I wouldn’t count them as not being an adult, but it’s just not what I hear all the time.

I can assume your friend haven’t done a lot of things if you don’t have proper id. Like say opening up a checking accountant. So, anyone over 18 who doesn’t have id is really strange to me. I’d assume they were immigrant or here illegally. Seriously why don’t you have id? You need id to stay in Arizona now a days… Yeesh.

To answer the question at hand, 25. If you don’t have your life in order by 25ish I start to think he/she is really going nowhere. I’m NOT saying you have to have a house, a dog, 2.5 kids, a masters, and great job at 25. (Hell, I don’t want 2.5 kids and am willing to sell one of my dogs. So, I’m not measuring success by this.) If 25 and still live at home, never advanced your degree, and have no idea what you’re going to be doing at 30 I’m taking you as seriously as a 16 year old. You (general you) have the same mentality of one. That seems what the emo teens are like “I don’t know! I don’t care! 30 is far away!”. I remember when I first started my career shorting after graduating college, and a 28 year old telling me they had no idea what they wanted to do with their life. I was thinking you’re just gonna keep wasting it. To bring a little light into this, I’ll never forget one time I had to go in to my old job on a Saturday. So, it was casual dress. My coworker was wearing this beaten up leather jacket. I looked kinda weird at him. He said “this is my freedom jacket”. I inquired. He said that was the ONLY thing he took from his parents home when he struck out on his own at 20.

TL;DR version: 25 and older.

39

Who raises said child?

40

You’re right - I should have clarified that anyone who doesn’t have a car or license but expects everyone else to drive them around is being juvenile; if you manage to make your life mostly work without a car no matter where you live, that’s a different story.

And I would be amazed to find out how well people can live without cars in smaller cities in this country! I say that as a 30-year old who’s never owned a car and is constantly annoyed at the lack of public transportation outside a very few major cities. But maybe things are becoming easier, thanks to the efforts of some intrepid pioneers…