I keep seeing a meme along the lines of, “No one ever told me that being an adult means having to decide what to fix for dinner every single night for the rest of your life.”
You know what else they didn’t tell you? That you’d also have to shop for that food, and to pay for it.
And for extra credit, that if you’re the main cook in the household you’ll have to listen to other people’s complaints/criticisms regarding the food.
However, once you pass the age of 18 (or in some cases, never) you’re supposed to start acting like an adult. And being an adult isn’t always fun.
It can be fun, and it can even be great. But no one tells you that it’s also by turns terrifying, irritating, annoying, depressing, occasionally gross and often overwhelming.
They say that the trouble with life is that it’s so damn daily. Ditto adulthood. No one warns you that being an adult means a daily parade of stuff that sometimes you are not equipped to face, from the hazmat quality of an overloaded diaper to the daily drumbeat of, “How am I going to keep the lights on, the kids out of jail and my retirement secured?”
Am I complaining? Not really. Being an adult is what adults do. But sometimes you just want to be seen, as the kids say. You want someone to notice when you’re on the ragged edge, and you want that someone to say, “You know what? Siddown and eat this cupcake. I’ll handle things from here.”
If you’re really, really lucky, you have a partner who will do that for you as needed. But even if you do, there are always new things ready to pop back up. Adulthood is like a game of Whac-a-Mole, with unshoveled driveways and clogged toilets and permission slips instead of rodents – and the mallet that life provides is often way too small. (As an Amazon affiliate, I may receive a small fee for purchases made through my links.)
Here are some of my least favorite things about being an adult.
1. Having to plunge that clogged toilet
S–t happens. If you’re an adult, then you take care of, uh, business.
If the stoppage is due to kids or guests, you and your partner can flip a coin. Or, if you’re me and DH, you can quietly take care of it in order to spare your partner.
2. Having to fix other stuff
Back in the day, I was in charge of everything. That got real old real fast, but the alternative was that otherwise things just didn’t get done.
It wasn’t so bad after the divorce, because fixing stuff meant I was doing it for myself. During the marriage, however, it felt like servitude. If he’d have taken care of even some of the repairs, I might have been able to carry on being in charge for most of it.
These days, I’ll guiltily cop to DF doing the lion’s share. (Appropriate, since he’s a Leo.) In part that’s because he’s retired and has time to seek out things that need fixing. He also tends to repair items without making a big deal out of it, i.e., I didn’t even know something was busted until I see him coming back from Ace Hardware with a replacement part.
(Oh, the utter joy of having a partner who takes care of a chore without expecting a participation trophy!)
Am I slacking? Well, a bit. Allow me to point out that I make pie from scratch, which he believes to be a mystic art. DF can cook just about anything else, but piecrust remains a code he cannot crack. So we balance each other out: He deals with irrigation issues and I turn out a pompion pie that would have made John Alden weep.
3. Taking out your own splinters
In the war on splinters, my mom had two weapons: a sharp sewing needle and an even sharper “Sit still!” We sat still.
Now I have to sharpen my resolve in order to extract splinters. It’s not terribly painful, but it’s never fun.
Incidentally: I sterilize the needle with rubbing alcohol. Mom sterilized it by holding the tip in a match flame, which left streaks of carbon on the steel. In effect, she was giving us temporary tattoos.
4. Making your own appointments
When you’re a kid, you go to the dentist/doctor/optometrist because a parent makes you go. Being an adult means that you have to make yourself go.
You have to arrange to get your teeth cleaned regularly, assume responsibility for your own colonoscopy and allow your pupils to be dilated. And yes, you have to pay for these privileges.
5. Killing wasps that get in the house
I’ve had a serious fear of them since one stung me under my eye at around age four. Yet any time a wasp got in, I had to pretend I wasn’t afraid and then deal with it. First this was as a babysitter, then as a parent.
Now I tend to let DF deal with it, because that age-four sting revealed another fun fact: I’m allergic to stinging insects. Not a serious, need-an-epi-pen allergy, but a blow-up-like-a-balloon reaction. I haven’t been stung since I was 17 years old, and for all I know that allergy may have gone away.
On the other hand, it might have morphed into a need-an-epi-pen situation. So yeah, I’ll let DF be the adult in this case.
Readers: What are your least favorite parts about being an adult?
I have the same type of reaction to getting stung – not going to die, but inflate quickly.
In college, I was stung multiple times in the legs helping to rake the cross country trail in the woods. In physics class later, my lips felt itchy and I somehow ended up with a bottom lip so swollen that I could cast my eyes downward and see it sticking out. Word spread quickly and I had several visitors to my dorm room as though I were a circus sideshow act!
Re: my least favorite acts of being a responsible adult:
*definitely dealing with a clogged toilet
*deciding whether to take the kids to the doctor or follow my “I’m sure they’ll be fine” tendency
*being stuck on hold or navigating the “REPRESENTATIVE!!” phone tree
*pulling together tax data for the accountant
*pretending to care about things I really don’t because I feel like I’m “supposed to”
But overall, I love adulthood way more than childhood!
Absolutely glad to be an adult! Even as a kid I knew that adults held all the power. But chanting “REPRESENTATIVE!” over and over to the phone system, or filing my taxes on time (along with my business payroll info), and watching fix-a-toilet videos on YouTube…Well, sometimes adulthood is less than ideal.
Right now my company is changing 401k companies. Doing the paperwork right now is a classic adult combination of necessary, confusing, intimidating and uninteresting. It will be done soon.
Oy.
“If you’re really, really lucky, you have a PARTNER a game of WHAC-A-MOLE, . (As an Amazon affiliate, I may receive a small fee for purchases made through my links.)”. @Donna, I got all excited with your two blue highlighted items followed by the Amazon affiliate comment. Unfortunately, the PARTNER link was NOT to Amazon… Curses.
As a happily now single adult woman of a particular age, I have recently been teased by a few friends when I contemplate entertaining exploring the possibility of a new gentleman friend. They all laugh loudly and ask me where, exactly, in my life, I would find time and room to fit one in. I have to admit that I don’t really know the answer to that.
As for adulting jobs? I am not fond of lawn mowing and weed whacking, and have found that hiring my new-found “Wonder-James” is a game changer. not frugal save for the fact I don’t have to move to a condo!
Not a fan of setting rat traps or dealing with their successes.
Don’t like replacing car and truck cabin air filters (and the rodent evidence – gah, life on a farm) however I am damned if I am going to pay the dealership $150 to swap out a $25 part. Youtube to the rescue.
Hauling chicken feed is tough – glad I currently have a son back at home, but I CAN do it with a bit of huffing and muttering.
culling deformed baby chicks – SO not a favourite job, haven’t had a partner around who was better able to do it, though. Sigh.
replacing the toilet paper roll… after someone else doesn’t. Emptying the dishwasher when there is another person in the home.
I don’t mind emptying the drying rack. nor cooking, most of the time. I actually like weeding (now that the weed-eating is done), and I love to plant and harvest. and process and prepare.
I don’t mind parting out a whole chicken – again, never had a partner who could do it willingly or well. My surgeon father was often roped in to that chore when I was a kid, not sure if he did it happily but always was willing. Guess I have wanted a partner who would and could. But I haven’t and I don’t, so Teri it is.
I really dislike vaccuming. don’t mind sweeping. However, am going to give up on the indoor cleaning person as I can do her job as well as she does, and would prefer to save my $ for Wonder James, now that I am pinching pennies a bit harder. So vaccum, toilet, dusting etc is back on the agenda.
Will it all ever end?????? Oh, well, guess I know the answer to that! LOL
Sorry I couldn’t send you a guy-link. I keep telling DF that if I could clone him I’d make a fortune.
Life on the farm sounds very busy indeed. But at the end of the day, it’s all yours and you’ve taken care of business — even the tough stuff, like culling chicks.
Wonderful post! And too true, alas.
Took me about 43 years to finally, actually, “adult” as a verb . . . but now i actually enjoy most of it. Except the paperwork. Don’t mind earning the money (i like my job) but budgeting/saving/planning/insurance finding/tax preparing/end-of-life and when-i’m-gone documenting: AAAAaaaaarrrgh!!!!
I would truly rather plunge a stopped toilet.
Thank you for sharing that it took you until you were into your 40’s to actively adult. This brings me hope that the person in my life who needs to learn all the ‘adulting’ skills can get there.
I loathe the appt making, the tax time nonsense, the going to the appts that I had to make…..it all seems like “work”, and I’d rather spend my spare time in “play”..! And do not get me started on the weekday alarm telling me I HAVE to get out of bed and go to work.
I do not mind house chores, laundry and such.
And, if you add an ailing/elderly parent or relative to the mix — welllll, that is a whole different kind of adulting work! When my Mom passed away 13 years ago….I wondered to myself, “no one ever tells you how much actual work is involved when someone dies”….and it lasts for 6 months minimum, some times longer!
I have been an adult for over 2/3 of my life. I sometimes long for a summer of no real responsibility. I grew up in a Florida beach town where summer meant beach days with friends, Slurpees, bike rides, dancing, bestsellers, and fireworks. I get nostalgic this time of year. I have adjusted to adult life but some things I really don’t like.
* Running errands in the summer heat and coming home hot, bothered and tired. I’m especially bothered when I forget to do something that was on my list. This never happened when I was younger.
* Getting a paycheck and NOT being able to do whatever I want with it. When I was in my late teens, I taught swimming lessons in the summer and made $8 per hour. This was a lot of money then. I put 1/2 in the bank, but the rest was spent on clothes and fun. Now I pay bills, invest, and plan nearly every expenditure.
* Doing housework — especially cleaning the bathrooms. I don’t think this needs any explanation. There was a reason cleaning toilets was a punishment during detention in high school.
* Filing a tax return – I grumble every year about this. Precious hours of my life are spent working on our tax returns. These are hours that I will never get back, and all for the privilege of giving the government 1/3 of my income. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so responsible.
* Losing people that I love – Sadly as I have gotten older, I have lost many special people that have meant a great deal to me. Each loss leaves a hole in my heart that can never be filled. I especially miss my parents and sister. This just sucks!
However, being an adult means, I’m totally autonomous. This I like a lot. Wishing all peace and good health.
Dealing with insurance. My employer has several young employees and we are their first jobs to come with benefits. Trying to figure out insurance, the strange terms, the discovery that deductibles and co-pays exist, has them running to me (I’m the oldest person in my office!) for help. They always say they aren’t so sure they are adult enough for this stuff. Hey, I don’t know if I’M adult enough for this stuff.
Losing strength. I stay active, exercise and do my own digging, pushing, lifting, etc., but I find I am slowly having more and more trouble doing this. And I can’t hop back up off the floor the way I used to.
Forgetting things. This started when I had kids, ahem. It hasn’t improved.
You have to look at mundane tasks as a way of serving your family to find joy in them. If it is all about you then it sucks to do them when the benefits are all flowing to other family members. But if your mission is to serve your family out of love it can adjust your attitude to make them tolerable or even something that feels purposeful. And by you and your I mean me and my, because even in my sixties I don’t particularly like some of the things I know I need to do to benefit others. And if a senior adult doesn’t always like adulting then it must be a lifelong thing! Sometimes you just have to admit it isn’t all roses, like in this post, and then get back to it. Well written post that puts into words what we all feel at times.
1. Getting up on utility steps to clean the greasey dust off the top of my cabinets. Why oh why was it popular to NOT make them go up to the ceiling?
2. Painting. This is only to save hiring someone but the perfectionist in me cringes when I look at my mistakes.
3. Cleaning bathrooms.
4. Going to dentists. It almost always involves pain in the wallet and pain in the mouth even if it’s the needle to inject the Novacaine.
5. Although I lost grandparents as a kid, I didn’t seem to feel the loss as much as when I lose people now. That feeling of missing someone is deeper, especially missing my beloved son Nick, my parents and my grandmother who helped raise us and lived until I was 39. Those four.
Ugh. That dusty slime. A firefighter once told me that kitchen smoke is “floating grease.” And we all know where it lands.
I guess this is where I feel lucky to have had a childhood that mostly felt long, dull and stressful. Being a child with work responsibilities who often had to wonder WTH the adults were thinking isn’t all that bad; it gives you a sense of confidence about going in to adulthood.
The sucky part is doing this while having a very controlled environment. We moved to the middle of nowhere when I was about 6 and after that, there were no more friends coming over, no freedom (couldn’t even walk to the neighbors) and a party line that meant mostly no phone calls either.
Started working at 11 for my parents. Once I got a “real” job, I was amazed that I was allowed to take a real break. And the fact that my bosses weren’t detailing everything I did wrong at dinner? That was kind of awesome.
Being able to eat whenever I want without someone asking me what I was doing and why I also love. I can walk out the door to meet whoever I want whenever I want, and will likely always feel nervous in car-dependent areas as it was such a control issue as a kid.
I used to LOVE writing the monthly checks, and now checking bills daily, because once I wrote that check it meant that for the next thirty days, I had bought my life. I paid to live alone starting at 19 and the feeling that I could now, if I wanted, lock my door and sit in my apartment DOING WHATEVER I WANTED for thirty days was the best feeling in the world. I still sigh contentedly when the mortgage check clears. When I look at my net worth now, I immediately calculate how long I could last doing whatever I wanted. Those aren’t dollar signs- they are years, days hours of freedom.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t hate people nor do I usually lock my door and tell the world to go away for long periods of time; actually I hardly ever do this. But I CAN.
Many things about adulting still give me joy. Only things that don’t are the ever-narrowing sense of possiblity. There are some things we just can’t’ do in the late fifties so that list of what I want to be when I grow up is getting shorter. But hey… I never really wanted to bungee jump, but I did think I’d like to ride a horse again.
And I used to like taxes. Now that I have three sources of income. OMG. No.
@Paula, I actually DID start riding a horse at the age of 60, got a hip replaced at 61, and have ridden since. Lessons, not needing to go fast just experiencing the true joy of being on the horse, and spending an hour focussed on remembering to communicate simply and clearly – priceless!
Wow! I wish, but I’ve had spinal surgery and they now say osteoporsis, so a fall would just be bad. Particularly because given the amount of nerve damage I have, being laid up for anything like a joint replacement for more than a day or two would be really damaging.
oh well. I’ll live vicariously. And no more cute boys on Harleys now either. UGH.
well, we can still LOOK at the boys on Harleys, can’t we? Sorry about the spinal/osteoporosis challenges. Life does have a way, at times, of ensuring we slow down…
That is wonderful! I always loved riding horses but haven’t done it in over ten years. At 63, I actually wonder if I have the strength to hoist myself into the saddle. Maybe one of those stair things would help. At any rate, your post gave me hope that maybe my riding days are not over. Thanks.
Oh, I definitely use a mounting block. No shame here, can’t imagine my new-to-me hip permitting me to put my foot by my head to get up the old-fashioned way…
In my case, the hardest part of adulting is having to do it all without my darling husband. As those who have read my Meet a Reader on The Frugal Girl know, DH has severe Alzheimer’s and has been in a skilled-nursing facility for over a year now.
I’m ashamed to recall now how much of the adulting load DH used to pick up for me–everything from all of the home repairs to dealing with agencies on the phone. I suppose one small benefit of the gradual dementia process was that my takeover of responsibilities was more like the proverbial frog being lowered into boiling water than having the whole load dropped on me at once (as it would have if I’d been abruptly widowed). Still, it has been grueling. And, of course, the legal, medical, and financial responsibility for DH is yet another aspect of adulting–a dreadful one.
Nevertheless, it is what it is. I hire all the help I can afford; I get all the help from my wonderful neighbors and other friends that I can (trying not to overburden any individual or couple unduly); and I suck it up and do the rest of it–some parts better than others.
A. Marie, what you do most beautifully is model grace and gratitude and acceptance and a deep abiding kindness toward other humans (as well as yourself). I really really value your commentary her and at FG. I know that you are aware of your strengths and areas needing some big-girl, bootstrap growth – and your sharing of how hard this is can be such a gift. So many folk only post their perfections, you post your challenges and solutions – and I adore your attitude. You GO! Girl….
What Teri said.
I did read your “Meet A Reader” — it inspired me to want to do the same feature here. What a difficult journey this must be for you. I am so sorry that your beloved husband can no longer be at home with you.
I hate the word adulting.
What I hate about being an adult is I am usually the one making all of the responsible decisions and carrying out the processes and determining the financing. At least I’m still in enough of my right mind to get most of it done.
Not crazy about that word, either, which is why I used “adulthood” instead.
Although I thought this was a funny, self-owning video:
Love it!!!
I had to think about my response. Many of the readers mentioned things I agree with. I’m adding maintaining a large house and yard to the list. Our house is bigger than our need but we bought it for the location. Happily room for houseguests but that is also hard work as housework gets more difficult as I age.
So this morning during my ‘adulting’ time I was reviewing on of my email accounts and saw this new post from you Donna.
In many ways I have been ‘adulting’ since I was elementary school age. So to me most of this stuff is just my way of life.
I was blessed for several years to have an exceptional DH who was good at everything but handling the money, and that was/is one of my strengths. Unfortunately life sometimes goes off the road and into the weeds and divorce becomes the necessary choice.
Anyway, I’m grateful that I’m capable of doing all of the necessary tasks, even if I don’t enjoy doing them.
Thanks for the reminder that it is a better and ultimately happier life if one has the ability to master the skills of adulting.
This!
I agree with several others – losing people (and pets) has been the hardest part of getting older. The best part is that I am more stable financially and I’m happier with myself & my life. The laundry is definitely my least favorite adult chore.
Adulting seems to get more difficult with each passing year. I bought my house more than a dozen years ago, thinking it’d be a piece of cake to maintain. It was in fairly good repair, although some things needed fixing. But it’s always been open season on single women, and I have to watch out for scammers when I hire someone to do jobs I can’t. Now, in my late 60s, I start hurting a lot when I work outside, esp. raking the leaves of my giant oaks, and the heat is getting to me so that I rarely am able to mow the large yard. I had a really reliable yardman who helped me a lot, but he’s only a few years younger than I am. And, like most men, he’s aged a lot faster. He recently was in the hospital — it sounds pretty serious — and I realize he can no longer safely do the work he used to. I have some big repairs I can’t afford to make and people advise me to sell this place and buy elsewhere. I can’t: I have my mortgage paid off; haven’t gotten a good-paying job in years; housing prices have skyrocketed. So there is no more affordable places in good repair in safe-enough areas. Aside from the toilet, I also hate trying to find work — age discrimination is something employers get away with every day. But my most hated adulting skill has been to go before the property tax people and plead my case. They are not supposed to hike your taxes more than 10% a year, but they do that….and in a decade, guess what happens? You’re paying double!
Going before the property tax people takes guts. I applaud you. And I hope the decision came out in your favor.
Kids and adults have both pros and cons.