JFF At What Age Do You Actually Feel like an Adult?

My oldest will be a freshman in high school come August. I am having those "wow, I really am an adult! I really have kids! And I really have to be responsible for them" moments all the time. Some days I really feel like an adult and love it but other times I feel just as young as ever like high school was just a few years ago (it was actually 26 years ago). It really hits me when I think about my parents and aunts and uncles and that Grammy isn't around anymore so my parent's generation is the oldest generation... And I'm the next generation. It's just crazy how fast time flies!!

I'm glad you posted this. I thought I was the only one, or at least one of say 10% of the adult population, that feels this way!

I still don't usually feel like an adult. I have been an adult for a long time. I mean, I was on my own and supporting myself long before most people can drive. I have acted as an adult most my life, but I don't FEEL like an adult much of the time. I feel young, I look young. I still do incredibly silly, easily amused type of things...and think it's awesome. As I inch towards 30, I feel the same. It's other people, that make me feel old. I was with a friend of mine (she is actually 2 years older,) and she was talking about her menial job, living with her parents, being single, what it will be like to have kids someday, etc. I just felt OLD. I have been doing those things for so long, thinking like that feels like ancient history. I'm only 30 (almost) for goodness sakes!!

The day I start looking my age, I think will bring it all home for me.

Hi J.-

I feel like an 'oldie' even responding...lol

I am 52.

I have certainly had some very serious moments in my life that required me to be an 'adult'...

But mostly I feel much younger than I am.

My gentleman friend, Pete, is fond of saying that 'you are as young as the person you feel'...lol

Since I am 'younger'...when I feel old...I guess I will give someone 'younger' a squeeze...

***get your minds OUT of the gutter...lol...I mean a future grand baby!!**

Best Luck!
michele/cat

For me, it was when my best friend was raped our second month into college. Waiting with her through AIDS and STD tests and talking her into not killing herself is vividly in my mind when I knew my childhood was over. I remember specifically thinking, "It's time to be an adult."

I really wish it had been a fun moment instead.

Well, I'm 44 and I still have those moments. I think the kid part of our brain is always there, which is often fun, but occasionally annoying! ; )

Its funny when I meet people that are the same as me ,I'm 38 yrs.
I always feel they are older than me,not just looks wise but have a grown up attitude.
I think we keep our natural personality throughout life regardless of age,so if you are young at heart you will be still that way at 80 yrs !!! ,same as with older souls.
My grown up moments are when we are at a party and I am stuck at the kitchen sink helping the host ha ha.
B. k

At the age of 32 when both of my parents died 8 weeks apart. Suddenly I felt like an adult.

I still feel like a kid.
I know I am not.

But I knew I was an "adult" when I had my kids. ;)

For me, it was during my 25th year. I'd already been a mother for a few years, and I'd had to do some rapid growing up. It wasn't until my niece came to live with us though, that I really had to 'man up' (funny term, eh?) and grow into my life. Anyway, that's when I started to feel like an adult.

I started feeling like an adult at 17. My mother died of leukemia and I was forced to grow up quickly.

I'm still waiting. I hope it never gets here! :)

I don't have an age, I have moments. For me it is usually when I am dressed in cute, sexyish clothes, smelling all good, wearing big pretty earrings and high heels, hanging out with my husband and/or other adults. I felt like that all the time when I was working.
Now, because I am almost always with my kids I mostly feel like a fun big sister who sets boundaries. Probably because I spent so many years as an informal nanny. :o) I like feeling the way I feel just fine for now.
I don't know if the feeling goes away. Best wishes and happy "Friyay" to you!

I feel like I had to start thinking and acting like an adult as 22; when I graduated college and got my first "real" job...9 years later, I am now married, we're home owners, we have great jobs, we have a 2 year old and on weekends, we love to get together with our friends and just act like kids!!! We joke, we are never going to grow up; although we are all very settled and doing well for ourselves. Life it too short to "grow up"; stay young and have fun!

Why did they compliment you on that? It isn't a BBQ until the toddlers are sword fighting with sharp knives. :p

44

I get to be a grown up at work.

I'm still waiting and I'm 42 . . . I do have my moments though - like when my sons tower over me.

I felt grown-up in my 20s (I was not) and into my early 30s. Then, I had kids and realized I had not been emotionally mature. Not even close.

I have enjoyed emotionally mature moments since then, but at some point in my early 40s, I realized "Hey, I'm back to being who I was when I was 12, only with more freedom!"

I think that should have been my goal all along. : )

lol...great question.

i am 34 and just now started feeling it. first, because financially we are finally starting to get our stuff together, paying off debt, keeping a monthly budget, etc. also, because i am starting to NOT feel like a kid anymore, physically - i have been dieting and losing weight, BUT - i am starting to notice things like wrinkles, sagging, (ok it's very very slight, but it's there!) and yeah, i am not thrilled lol. also my husband is starting to have back problems - that's an old person worry! ALSO my son is starting kindergarten in the fall. ugh!! oh and ALSO ALSO, i just notice i am generally becoming more (AUGH!) RESPONSIBLE! and it's crazy. anyway lol. yeah. i'm feeling it!

I feel like a phoney adult. Here I am, in charge of a sizeable organisation, and 130 people, the only breadwinner in our family, meeting with auditors, politicians, businesspeople and the mother of three children. Nope, I hope no one notices that they're being led by a 14 year old!

It comes and goes for me. I feel more adult when it comes to taking control of my life and what I want to do with it, but I don't think many people wanted to be an "adult", per se (with responsibilities), but just wanted to be older. In in the back of our minds, we wished someone else took the "burden". We sort of just grew into adulthood and took on the roles. I still wish every now and then that I could go back to having no responsibilities and let someone else worry about it, but unfortunately, I am an adult and I have to live with it.

It seems to come and go for me. Much of the time, I still feel that slightly insecure teenager thing.... But other times, not at all.
If I have a house full of little ones... I feel adult. When their parents are here, if they are my age, I don't feel so adult anymore.

When my parents are around I usually don't feel like an adult. Sometimes, but not typically.

When my friends "adult" child is around (someone who doesn't quite have her act together still and is fairly self-involved and unrealistic about life in general), I feel very much like an adult.
I feel very adult around the mom of one of my daughter's friends, in particular. She seems a little contemporary (?) in the way she is raising her daughter, and I am more conservative, and I feel more adult/mature around her. But then there are other parents of other friends, that I feel so teen around.... (sigh)

It just depends upon whom I am around at the time, I guess. If I feel confident in my "authority" I tend to feel more adult. When I don't feel like I am the authority in a given situation, then I feel more teen-like.
When my dad was in ICU, and my mom was sleep deprived and stressed and had no solid answers to straightforward questions (because she didn't think to ask them or didn't want to impose herself on the staff), I felt very adult confronting the duty nurse with my list of questions, and advocating for him. Especially when they moved him to a "standard" room on heart floor, (only bed available) when his issue was his spine. There were specific rules about how to move him in the bed (and NOT move him) and they weren't planning to post it anywhere in plain sight in his room! The very first nurse that came in, I had to stop from causing him further injury, because she wasn't going to log roll him. My mom was visibly bothered by it, but couldn't find the words to say "HEY! HE has a spinal injury, you can't DO THAT." These were cardiac wing nurses accustomed to dealing with cardiac patients. :/ (We made a big sign and posted it above his head/bed on the wall).

Sorry to carry on... but I think for most of us, there are "moments". It is very situational whether you feel like an adult or not.

Age 40 was the year I think I finally knew.

I'm 28, but I will let you know when the day comes that I start to actually feel like an adult.
I had a conversation with a good friend of mine about a year ago about this subject. We used to go to the same slumber parties and all that fun stuff, and we both admitted that sometimes it still feels like we should be having slumber parties, not pushing 30, married, buying or looking to buy houses, and having kids.
It reminded me of a song lyric by a band called K's Choice in their song Almost Happy, "Am I too old to allow my adolescence to go on?"

EDIT: this is how I know I am a fraud adult: after posting this answer I hit me that I quoted that song incorrectly. Well to be completely accurate, the quote itself is right but the song is not Almost Happy, that is the album title and a different song all together. The song is called Somewhere. It is mistakes like that, that keep me up at night. Ha! Ha!

This made my day! Funny to think that other people feel the same way. Sometimes I feel like people are looking at me and thinking........how can that girl be responsible for her family and then reality hits that I am almost 40! Mine seems to be in moments too, depending on who I am around. Great post!

hee hee, I am 40 and have many moments where I don't feel like an adult. Also, I don't look or feel my age; however, I think I act it in theway that I am more self assured and wiser that only age can bring.

Good topic!

you are just young at heart, nothing wrong with that! you are probably just a happy person. :) i think it's odd that people think they should "feel" a certain age, you're so much more than just a number!