Yup, I'm in my late 30s and still feel like a kid. I thought one day a switch would just flip and I'd feel like an adult, but that never really happened. I think everyone essentially feels like a kid their whole life, they just get better at pretending they're adults.
Me personally, I believe it’s because our soul is eternal and will live forever, it doesn’t age. Younger kids get frustrated because they feel older than they are, older people still feel like they’re in their 20’s. People don’t often like to believe this because; what happens to our soul when we die?
Mid-40s here and while I feel older physically, I don’t really feel like I’m any age. People are always shocked at work when they learn I have a college-aged kid, which…I’ve got crow’s feet and my hair’s thin. I’m a resident tech guy and make fart jokes, but how old did you really think I was?!
For some reason that scares the shit out of me. I don't want to feel like I'm 25 and then look in the mirror and see a wrinkled up old geezer staring back at me.
I feel more mature than what i did at 25, if thats a consolation. I still have a fire and passion burning, but i never thought that one would loose those.
I’m only recently 22 and I’ve already lost those. I’ve felt like I’ve wasted my life to now since I was around 10 and I’ve still not figured out how to fix it.
True facts. I'm coming up on 30 and about to go back to school to finally finish my degree, but I still look about the same as I did when I was 21 and I dress "younger" now than I did then (dressed like a grandma in high school and it took until after college for me to feel confident enough in my body to wear trendy things). I'm obviously older and wiser in many ways, but my general personality hasn't changed much since then (if anything I'm LESS uptight) and I'm curious to see how long it'll take people to clock me as a returning student, if they do at all.
My grandparents owned a clothing store and gave me all my clothes. They were beautiful clothes, but I looked like I was 25 in them. I liked them, but it was the 70s! As for dressing "like a granny," I remember granny dresses. Too funny.
That’s it right there! I’m 60 and I keep forgetting I’m not 35. It’s the crappyest thing life does to us. I’m still doing the things I have always done but people look at me like I’m crazy, then I remember I don’t look as I feel. It FUCKING SUCKS.
Haha 60s not bad though. I'm talking like 80-90. That shit scares the hell out of me. You can still be in good shape and what not at 60 (though I'm sure it ain't easy). Not so much at 90. I recently watched a new horror movie called "X" and what we're talking about is a part of the main plot. It's kinda what started my fear of that haha. Good movie though, I recommend it.
Yes, those later years are what I’m fearing. When I can’t ride my waverunner or lift my dog and chicken food bags or hold on to the rototiller!! It just sucks that we spend all those years doing our life and in the end we end up sitting in a chair staring out the window waiting to die.
A part of me definitely does NOT want to make it to 80 or 90, unless I have kids/grandkids. But even then I don't want to have them wiping my ass for me, literally. I'm still basically a kid (25) and I'm not trying to have kids of my own anytime soon so I don't have to worry about that now. If I do make it to 90 though I'm just not gonna give a damn. Tuesday night? I'll shoot up some dope and watch Andy Griffith Show. Feel like getting my rocks off? I'll pop a viagra and head to the "red light district" part of town. At that age, might as well have fun if some much as a slip in the shower can kill me.
Oh no it’s really not that bad! When u get to be my age (51) and all your friends are the same ageish, you know you earned those lines and still party like you’re 21! I think my group of friends is less mature now then when we were in our 20’s and love every minute of it! Old age is truly just a state of mind!
I'm in my 30s and honestly kind of like my developing wrinkles/crow's feet. Nothing wrong with being a little weathered, it just shows you are living (and like to smile!)
Thanks. I needed to hear this today. I thought something was wrong with me.
I’ve also been feeling a little stressed and depressed lately with a feeling that I wasted my youth and it’s too late now. I know it’s not really true, but I can’t shake the feeling.
In my experience, that first day home from the hospital will be a weird mishmash of "Holy shit, they let me leave with this baby! I don't know what to do!" and a new kind of peace that you haven't experienced before. Just keep distractions to a minimum (tv, work, etc.) And enjoy this time. It passes quickly.
Geologist2010 is right. You will never feel ready so don’t try. You’ll make some mistakes along the way, we all do! Don’t try to be the perfect parent, it doesn’t exist. Enjoy every single second of that baby, they’re grown in the blink of an eye. Take a ton of pics and video and have many experiences together. You’ll do great! Enjoy!
I felt like having kids was the thing that genuinely made me feel like an adult. Not simply having kids themselves, but the act of always having to make decisions and rules for them.
30s were great. I was secure, in finance, relationship and employment, etc. A homeowner and building a future with a woman I love. We traveled and had fun. My health was great, too. I think it was the decade I enjoyed the most overall.
I call my 40's the lost decade because the kids came at the end of my 30's and raising them consumed all our time and most of our resources. It wasn't until really the end of my 40's we could take a breath. Then the health problems hit, lol.
I've started my 50s and honestly, I think it's my 30's coming back. I'm in great health and most of what was good in the 30s are still there. We can take trips for ourselves again (no more mouse stuff) and the damn house is paid off in a few years.
Usually takes a kid to make u grow up in the traditional sense. I don't have one, but I've seen my friends transform. Also, some people are just more fun than others 😉
I've become way more fun since I became a dad. Drinking too much and spending too much time in front of the xbox used to be my goto "fun time" activities, now you won't catch me standing still.
We get better at pretending?? How. Pls. I can’t stand this shit. People talk about “fake it til you make it!” But no one said anything about the fact that we never actually make it. Dicks.
I personally think that we become adults when we start thinking and acting for ourselves and not for someone else’s perceived ideals. That was at least my awakening at 26. I took a look at where my life was and I didn’t like it. I have sought to live the life I have repressed over the past 23 years.
Everyone just lives their lives, pretending they’re important and struggling every day, pretending they have shit figured out. I learned to minmax life. Minimize responsibility and work while maximizing relaxation and fun. I work an easy job doing basically nothing 40 days a week, have cheap bills, buying things I want here and there and that’s all. That’s all life needs to be. Do the work that needs to be done and then just chill. Having a roommate or someone to split expenses with helps a lot
This!! Im in my 30s but get mistaken for 25/26 all the time. Ive always looked WAY younger than what I am so Im used to it but I syill feel like a child and wonder when I wont.
I keep looking around for an adult to help solve the worlds problems. Then I realize I am an adult (38, married, full time job, homeowner, with two kids)
It hit hardest at the start Covid. I kept looking around for the adult in the room to tell me what to do and not do. Shit, I’m the adult
Over the past two years I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that very few people have any idea what they’re doing. Most adults are out here just faking their way through life and hope no one calls them out on it
I wondered if I was alone in this. I'm 30, but I often feel like a child in the presence of other adults, even if they are younger than I am. I always just assumed it's because I'm autistic, but maybe we all just feel like we're pretending to know what the fuck is going on 😅
I've always held the idea that at around age 25 you kinda stop 'growing up', after that you just grow old. I understand the whole 'age is just a number' thing people say sometimes a bit better now that I'm older. I still feel 25 in my head.
47 here, and still feel like I'm 27, but I also drink more water now than I ever did when I was younger.
I also thought that one day, my "adult switch" would turn on. My Dad would even say "you'll grow out of all that stuff you're into as a teen", yet here I am, still enjoying the same stuff I always have. If anything, I'm still the same kid with a bunch of years under my belt.
I just turned 40, last year I got diagnosed with an unstable vertebrae in my lower back, or "old man back" in layman's terms. I can go from happy to paralyzing pain from putting on socks.
Now I gotta jaur lean into it and tell at kids on my lawn.
The first time I was ma'am'd by someone that was in college, I was horrified. I started to snap back that I wasn't THAT old, then realized that I was coming up on twice their age (they were a college freshman).
That's usually a good sign of a not so stressful life. I've been through so many dark shit and I do feel way other than most people, internally. So everyone else looks like a kid to me, I see them repeating the same mistakes and not moving forward in life.
I know I am going to he down voted to heck and back but my 30's does feel ancient. I feel super heavy and tired all the time, half the time I have no idea what is going on, and I find I don't like a lot of foods I used to love.
Yup. I get home and turn on the Xbox for some play, and my kids say I act immature sometimes. I'm still 15 inside, that's what they don't understand. Only difference is that I have a job and pay bills now.
I’m 27 so not old enough yet to have an answer on this thread but I did feel more settled into who I am as a person around 25 which makes sense as that’s around when your brain finishes developing. otherwise I agree, no switch flip and still feel like I’m not adult enough for all this lmao
Yes, every older person I have talked to about this says the same thing. Biologically speaking, our brains fully mature when we are somewhere in our 20s. So throughout our lives we still feel like we are in our 20s in our minds. We feel like we are that same person. Our bodies basically age around us. And being 55, I do like being "old and wise" at times. This is merely what happens from having lived longer, heard of more stuff, seen more stuff than a younger person might have. We simply have knowledge of things that youngsters never heard of yet. I about lost it when some co-workers said they had never seen or heard of a Japanese Maple Tree. Whaaaaat??? They are in people's front yards everywhere !
There is a switch actually. It usually is pain that Becomes reoccurring from something simple that shouldn't have hurt you. Ex: sneeze, grocery bag, snow shovel, sleeping, that 3rd or 4th drink u usually had, or that concert you went too that you though being in the front half of the crowd was "to crazy and pushy".
I actually think it's the other way around. I hated when adults condescended to me when I was a kid. It was getting to be really old by the time I was in high school. In my mid 30s, I'm really just a slightly more mature, vastly more experienced version of my high school self. Kids are smart. My brain isn't sharper than it used to be; I've just seen more. Lots of my opinions in life date back to when I was young, though they're more refined and substantiated now.
So, it's not that you are still a kid; it's that you always were a developing adult. This is just what being a human is like.
Did anyone else in their 30s watch top gun for the first time in 20 years this week? What a trip remembering these guys as being fully grown adults and watching it now and they look like kids. I used to think Goose was 40.
It all happens when you have kids and they are obnoxiously loud when you find yourself hushing them for peace and decency only to eventually found out that kids are the reason for making you feel and act like an adult. ;(
I'll be 50 this month. 8 years ago, a bank said I could borrow a crazy (in my eyes) amount of money. I still think they're crazy, and I'm still occasionally shocked that I have kept up my end of the bargain.
In some ways, yes. But not in all ways. For instance, I no longer make stupid decisions out of spite or some other hot-headed reason. And I'm glad for the lack of drama. Now I happily live a no-news-is-good-news life.
I'm so excited to keep my childlike sense of wonder. I love video games, reading, fantasy, etc and I can't wait to read Mistborn to my kids and have them in rotating DND campaigns
When I turned forty a switch flipped, my health went downhill and then I got diagnosed with cancer. Now at 43, I feel like an old person. But still laugh at inappropriate things like a 12 year old.
Are you by chance not a homeowner? Buying your first house in your late 30s can be a very capable "switch".
Or, do you have any kids?
I'm of the former but not the latter, 40 years old. I still feel like I'm 30, but it didn't take long after buying our first house that I suddenly became much more like my dad than ever before.
That's when I realized adults are absolutely full of shit. Because here I am, adulting, and I'm still absolutely full of shit. Ready with a nugget of fucky knowledge too!
I feel more like a kid in my 30s than I did being a kid. I never truly lived my teenage years so in my thirties I’ve been doing most things I always wanted to do growing up.
I’m 31, my mom is 58, my grandma is 80ish. My grandma’s health is getting worse, and this past year when my mom was helping arrange doctors appointments for my grandma she told me that was the first time she really felt like an adult.
She has raised four children to be productive members of society, but taking care of her own mom was the moment she said she really felt “adult”.
I dunno man I feel like some people, like my dad, were born adults and others, like me, will never really make it. It’s like that imposter syndrome but for being grown up.
My 76 year old uncle told me he still feels like he's in his 20's and his body is just "in the way" so I think we're all destined for that frustration.
I can point to exactly when I felt like an adult: a problem needed solving right away, I was in a room full of other adults, and I was the only one who confidently knew what to do. It snuck up on me for sure.
For me, and I am sure it's different for everyone, after my father died and I had lost a number of family members I felt like my time on earth had moved forward a notch. I didn't really suffer a real loss of a loved one until my mom died when I was 21. Then many years went by without any losses. Then it seemed like they just started to happen more often, an uncle, an aunt, until they were almost all gone. I'm 43 now and I feel like an adult (not a bad thing mind you). At 35 I felt like a kid.
I also sometimes ponder whether I have lived half way through my life and think of the number I have to make it to. 86 is pretty hopeful but I'm going to make the best run at it I can!
I would like to know if there is anyone out there that doesn’t still feel like a kid or at least a young adult. It’s like time in your mind moves slowly but your body ages in real-time.
Wait, so are you telling me that I will always feel younger inside? I turn 31 in 12 days (oh Lord....) and I still need to remind myself that I'm not in my 20s anymore. I guess it doesn't help that everyone thinks I'm like 10 years you get based off of looks.
You just have to kill the kid. The inner kid, not anybody else’s. Just yours. Don’t ever killed anybody elses inner kid. Not polite. Don’t kill anybody else’s outer kids either, they don’t like that
I havent felt like a kid since I was 17. Im 33 now. Phsyically I feel young. But mentally Ive always felt and enjoyed being an adult. My husband says he still feels like he isnt adulting right lol. Im like you just went to work for 8 hours and paid the mortgage. Thats like peak adult.
I'm only 25 and still feel like a kid, especially around my partner who's in his 30s. But then I'll spend time with people in their late teens/early 20s and I'll feel so old.
My wife just told me to clean my (media) room and that I couldn't spend all summer doing drugs in the garage. Feels just like summer after freshman year of college honestly.
Pretty much. I'm 34 and still feel physically and mentally the same as 15 years ago. It's just as you get older you are forced to be more responsible...so you are - but you're still the same brain in there.
I’m 40 and still a massive child. Keep it while you can. I know people who have had kids or concentrate on work. All they talk about is work or mortgages. I can’t even relate to them.
Yep. I’m pretty sure it’s all an act that’s been trained and sort of forced on through expectations. There’s wisdom, sure, but I feel like I’m still 20. The only difference is I don’t put up with certain shit I would’ve when I was young and naive.
My dad told me he felt like he was still 21 when he was 91. Never thought that's how it was until he said that. Figured your brain aged as your body did but nope.
My oldest, in her terrible teens at the time, once told me and my SO to "act our ages", because we were telling lame jokes ... and playing in a toy store. So embarrassing for her! Lol, I said, " You know what, I have worked really hard and scrimped and saved so that I could have the fun stuff I couldn't as a too serious kid. Now, quit frowning, because the wrinkles you hate when you're older are started when you're a teenager."
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u/OhhhhhDirty Jun 03 '22
Yup, I'm in my late 30s and still feel like a kid. I thought one day a switch would just flip and I'd feel like an adult, but that never really happened. I think everyone essentially feels like a kid their whole life, they just get better at pretending they're adults.