big surprises of being a grown up

In My Humble Opinion
41

The perception of time is the biggest surprise for me. I was born in 1974. To me, the 1950’s were thousands of years ago. If I was the age I am today, in 1974, I would have been born in 1941!

It used to be that I would hear the old cliche, “the years just fly by,” I thought that old people (adults) were just expressing their own realization that they were old, but that a year was still a loooong time. I remember being told that dinner wasn’t for another 15 minutes and thinking that 15 minutes was an excruciating wait. Now I scratch my butt and 15 minutes disappeared.

My age has nearly doubled since high school, but the amount of “life” between ages 0 and 18 seems like ten times as much as the experiences between 18 and now, even though I know better.

I no longer have any interest in finding out who the cute girl likes. Nor would I want a friend to ask her who she likes, in hopes that it might be me.

My concept of romance is not much different, but there is something less “magical” about it.

As a kid, I expected life to be filled with opportunities to save a child from a speeding semi, or to solve crimes just by being in the right place at the right time. I assumed I would be a private investigator, because about half of the world was.

Evil has taken on a new form. That of the asshole personality. I’m surprised that no one has built a doomsday device and demanded millions of dollars. But I’m also surprised that adults can be so mean to each other, and so often over petty things. I’m also surprised that I see the worst form of evil in the form of people not taking action when something bad is happening, like child abuse or just a bully personality.

I’m surprised that elderly people are my peers. People who are the same age as my parents are now equals. When I was a kid, my brothers friends were five years older than me and that seemed like an enormous amount. They were tall, had deep voices, and Adam’s apples. They seemed like Titans. Now, I can sit across the table from someone ten years older than me and tell them to “fuck off” if necessary, without even blinking.

I’m surprised that things that were the epitome of coolness are now the very things that will make you the butt of a joke. Getting the high score on Pac-Man or solving the Rubik’s Cube are now things that make you a geek. And that effect is multiplied if you wear a t-shirt that says it. Crazy.

42

When I was a kid, I was completely oblivious to all “politics” in the interpersonal sense – jockeying for status, subtly influencing people to get what you want, whisper campaigns, sucking up to the right people, isolating others, manipulation, etc.

Over the last few years I’ve had to deal with a lot of it, and I’ve been absolutely gobsmacked at how virtuosic some people are at it. Never having learned how to do it, I’m no good either at doing it myself or at recognizing or intercepting attempts at it by others.
I’m also amazed at how royally screwed up some people are. Now that I think about it, among the people who were around me when I grew up, there was nobody with really severe drama in their lives – or at least not that I was aware of then. It just amazes me how much of a Russian court epic some people’s lives are.
Finally, I’m astonished by people who don’t follow the news even to the slightest degree, who don’t even attempt to think critically, who lack basic knowledge of the sort that I would have considered a minimum for understanding the world, and who have no desire to do any of the foregoing to the point of being put off by those who have. I always assumed that those things were part of normal human existence.

43

I’m not sure I agree. As a kid, I thought adults were somehow magical. I loved nothing more than being stuck at home on a rainy day, playing indoors when my aunt was over for a visit, and just quietly absorbing by osmosis all the coffee table talk of strange things like “wartime” etc. Adults were, serious, all-knowing, and had gravitas. I never thought they were boring. Now that I am one, on the other hand, they are a bunch of shallow, boring, over-sized children. I used to dislike being patronised by adults, but now a rare pleasure is for an elderly man to call me “son”.

I didn’t like childhood. It was a cruel, petty little world, and I somehow knew that adulthood would be orders of magnitude better. And I think I’ve been proven right. I like being a “grown-up”. I’ve had a hard life by some measures, but I’d never say I’m a victim, and I’d never trade it for childhood. By and large, adulthood rocks.

44

I always thought that I’d be set because I’m not having kids.

Wrong. I’ve gotta be all responsible now. :frowning:

~Tasha

45

That your landlord or utilities company doesn’t give a f*ck if you just lost your job and can’t pay the rent/bills.

46

Having your children look to you for guidance when you don’t really have a clue is terrifying.

Having your children discover that your feet are made of clay.

Being able to stay up as late as you want to and realizing that you don’t want to stay up late at all.

47

I think that if and when I make it to a ripe old age I’ll really let rip with all the forbidden fruit. I’ll take up smoking again and eat all the chocolate my body can bear. :smiley:

As a child I automatically imagined my 30+ year old self as wearing frumpy grown-up clothes like my teachers and to some extent my mother, who wore what she called ‘classic style’ clothing.

I never pictured myself as a thirty or forty-something dressed in essentially the same style of clothes as I wore as a teenager, with some variations based on changing fashions and expanding waistlines, but still, I don’t dress like my youthful perception of a grown-up. I hardly ever wear makeup and have never worn ‘ladies’ shoes’!

48

Many if not most intellectuals are quacks. Much if not most of what passes for art, literature and philosophy is snake oil.

Many people who believe themselves to be the educated elite are every bit as gullible as trailer park yahoos who send their welfare checks to TV preachers.

Many Western intellectuals have an astonishing pathological hatred of their own civilization and race.

49

Oh, my God - yes! I thought that getting everything put away would make maintenance so easy and I’d have time to scrub and decorate, etc. But no, just keeping my crap and everyone else’s off the floor is a constant battle.

Also, I never thought I’d feel more exhausted after an average day than I did after my first marathon.

I never thought it would be so darn hard to lose weight. When I was in my 20s, it just fell off. Now, even though I’m running from the moment I wake up to the moment I drop into bed and am up sometimes in the middle of the night walking the floor with my son, the pounds just don’t budge, no matter how much or little I eat or exercise.

I also used to get so annoyed with my mom when she’d say, “Ok. I’m done - I don’t want to make any more decisions today.” But I completely understand now. I don’t want to decide what the baby eats for dinner, what he’s going to wear, when he goes to bed, if he has a bath first. I don’t care what we’re eating for dinner, where you put the towels or if they’re folded one way or another. After I’m home from work and our son is more or less in bed, I would love it if someone else would think for me. Just for a little while.

And I never knew how much there was to know. I thought if I went to grad school, I’d be special and know everything there was to know about my field. But I went and by the time I was finished, I felt stupider than ever before.

I also never realized how much I’d want to know, how many nuances go into making a simple decision like who to vote for, that few things are ever black and white.

Plus, I never realized how nice it is to just sit in my house when it’s clean and no one else is there and it’s quiet. Not doing anything except maybe enjoying a slow cup of coffee. Ahhhhh…

50

I never realized how happy I would be with my “boring” life. A weekend of gardening and reading is delightful now. As a teenager, it would have seemed like living death.

51

It’s funny, I read this thread yesterday and was thinking about it as I stood in my kitchen last night, watching my husband put together exactly the dinner we wanted to have. I thought to myself, “I am SO glad I’m a grown-up.”

These are the big surprises to me:

  1. That you never feel like a peer of your parents, even if you are the same size. When I was a kid, all adults seemed like adults, with no stratification, and I would be quite incensed on my mom’s behalf when my grandmother would refer to her and my aunts as “the kids.” But grown up as I might be, I still feel like a kid around my mom, and I kind of like it that way.

  2. How fucked-up people are, in general. There’s way more depravity, cruelty and selfishness than I ever imagined possible.

  3. That my personal philosophy is more or less utilitarian, rather than Christian. I thought understanding God would be easier when I was an adult, and instead I’ve become close to atheist. Moreover, as long as what people do doesn’t bring harm to anyone else, I see no reason why they can’t do whatever. Be gay, be polygamous, whatever. I was scandalized by such ideas well into my teens.

  4. That you never view your house as “done.” There’s always another project or 10 waiting to be tackled.

  5. Echoing other posters, yes: the sheer amount of effort it takes to maintain things, lose weight, save money and sometimes just stay awake.

52

I found a (presumably Dutch) anarchist who believes that all art should be destroyed, because it is a toy of the privileged that does nothing for the world’s poor. He actually advoates moving all the world’s art to the U.S., so Europe can be free of its pernicious influence.

Well, OK.

Link

53

As a teen I always dreamed that as an adult I wouldn’t be boring like everyone else, I’d be a starving artist/poet, a true Romantic figure. I thought it would be wonderful, and who cares if my greatness isn’t realized until after I’ve passed tragically? Yeah. Growing up changed that perception, big time. I’ve since come to the shocking (or would be, for my 16 year old self) that being a starving artist isn’t nearly as rewarding as having a mundane job that pays the bills.

Furthermore, I realized that most people who opt for the starving artist route in the long run aren’t any more committed to their art than the next guy, they’re just too lazy or dysfunctional to support themselves at the same time.

Another thing is the whole responsibility bit. I always understood intellectually that being grown up meant more responsibility, but it’s a whole different way of thinking. As a kid, my parents would always jump in to save the day if something that needed to be done wasn’t. I was surprised to learn that as an adult, things don’t get done unless you actually get off your butt and do them. The bigger surprise was that this applies to everything. Still struggling with this one, actually!

54

I thought of another one: Sleep. When I was a kid, it was this thing that was inflicted on me by adults or, much to my horror and disgust, I might fall asleep while trying to stay up to watch a movie. It was always something disappointing, though, and I felt like I was missing out on all of the excitement by sleeping. I would have never thought that when I grew up sleep would actually be something I’d look forward to and eagerly anticipate after a long day. A nap felt like a punishment as a kid, but now it’s one of my most exquisite pleasures to curl up on a sunny spot on the couch and doze off for an hour.

55

Just wait a few more years. In my family my parent’s generation is getting old enough that “the kids” are taking over the parental roles. There is no question who are the grownups now.

56

Just about the time I got to where I could do whatever I want, I realized that I couldn’t because it would turn around and bite me in the butt.

I can’t just decide to take off work because it’s a nice day – either I’ll have twice as much work when I get back, or the other people in the department would have to take on the extra load. And I don’t really want to irritate my co-workers when they can get me back.

I can’t just take my wife out to the backyard and have wild sex with her under the stars because it would irritate the McFussys next door – but the McFussys are actually nice people who take in our mail and watch the house while we’re on vacation, and let us use their bathroom when our plumbing backs up.

57

I’m surprised at how little I’ve changed. I was an unusually mature child, and I am (in most ways) an unusually immature adult.

58

True, but also:

When you’re “grown up” (if there is such a thing), your parents may still think you’re pretty special but the rest of the world sure don’t.

I’m surprised at how fast you can descend the social ladder, 10 rungs or more at a time, once you start shouldering your own financial responsibilities.

On the converse from Thudlow Boink, I thought being an adult would be much more interesting; having intellectual discussions with my friends, going out and doing whatever I wanted after school/work, spending entire nights and weekends loafing around the house with no consequences. Man, was I disappointed to find out that I could’ve spent entire days on the beach back then and I can’t now because I can’t afford the gas.

At elementary school I was beaten up on a weekly basis–usually for being white, although sometimes people would switch it up and beat me up for “killing Jesus”, wearing glasses, being geeky, wearing the wrong shoes, etc. I was pleasantly shocked to find out when I moved to San Diego at age 10 that most people weren’t outwardly and violently racist.

59

I do feel like a peer with Mum because we’ve got the whole friend thing going on as well as the parent/child thing. But also because I had one of those great childhoods where I spent way too much time in the parent role.

I’m constantly amazed that I can hold down a job. I never saw either of my parents manage that for very long. They still skate from precarious situation to precarious situation. I assumed I would be equally lacking the vital ability to just suck it up and rub along. Turns out I’m OK at that. Not only that, I really actually quite like this whole ‘having a career’ gig.

I was surprised that I could be loved and liked for who I am. I’m still somewhat surprised not to be living hermit style. It turns out that you can leave where you grew up and find people who are more like you. Kind of echoing Beltane there.

In short, my expectations for adulthood were that I’d be pretty much entirely dysfunctional. I was never making long term plans for when I grew up because I just assumed I wouldn’t make it too far in the adult world and I’d probably successfully darwinize myself nice and young. Adulthood has been positively full of pleasant surprises.

60

Don’t forget self induced ignorance. The level of people who just don’t know shit on anything or even try to learn something new. They just live their life in a box. sad.
This has led to my motto: Everyone is fucked up. If you don’t think you are, here is a ladder and get over yourself. This is meant in the nicest sense.
The more I look around the more I see that adults are sheep. Buying whatever is trendy and hot. Living where eveyrone else does in the same kinda house, dressing the same way, driving the same kinda leased car, taking the same vacation, going into massive amounts of debt and having the exact same motherfarkin’ conversation every time you meet them.

When did the Android Invasion take over all the adults?

Groceries My mom use to give me $40-50 a week to do the grocery shopping ( as she had her first job in 30+ years). My brother would wait in the car and I would get stuff. I always came home with change. And that was feeding two grown boys, me and my mom. We ate good, home cooked meals ( and ramen noodles, which she hates to this day with a passion.)

Now, I cannot make it out of the store after an expedition under $150.

Adults in General No Matter Where You Go or How Old You Get never evolve out of middle school - High School OMG Didjahear mentality. This seems to afflict all levels of IQ, income and occupations.