DAE in their 30s/40s/50s not really feel like an adult?

I often think of this SMBC comic. It left a deep mark for me and it came out over 13 years ago.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-06-24

We are all faking it, we don't have a clue what we are doing. Some are aware of it, some are not.

Just pretend you know what you're doing. Eventually you'll forget you're pretending.

For me it was after both of my parents had passed away. There's something about losing the people who could still see and treat you as their child, no matter how old you had become, that changes things. I do still feel like I'm waiting to be a grow up sometimes. My great grandfather lived to 101, and still often felt that way. But once the "adults" who raised you are gone, you find yourself out in the open and may have to admit that you're the adult now.

Well I mean, we're all just mostly LARPing this whole adult thing, right?

I’m in my 50s and actually still LARPing, and playing TTRPGs, and MMORPGs. No need to grow up for anyone else’s sake as long as you’re not harming others.
- When I was little, I thought I would grow out of playing video games, as in I have a very specific memory of sitting in my 1st grade math class and just making that observation to myself. I was a 90s kid surrounded by baby boomer adults who largely were not gamers, so I just assumed one day I'd grow out of it.
  On the positive side, I learned that you don't have to give up your imagination when you grow up. I came up with elaborate make-believe worlds as kids are wont to do, and merely started adding lore and continuity and documentation when I got older. You don't need to be writing a sci-fi novel or DMing a homebrew D&D campaign to do it, either. I worldbuild for the mere joy of pretending, or to dignify it with Tolkien's words sub-creation.
Lightning bolt, lightning bolt!
- I'm out of mana!
Pretty sure I was born LARPing being a kid too. I never made the very common presumption, when most(?) people are young, that adults (or my parents for that matter, religious indoctrination immunity) knew what they were doing. Perhaps I came across older than I was, and now the opposite is happening the more grey hair I get!

Our parents were faking knowing what they were doing, just like we are.

Yup, everyone in the world is just winging it. Everyone.

"When do I start feeling like an adult?"

That's the neat part! You don't!

I’ve felt like an adult since I was a child.

When I started saying "I can't do that, I'm an important guy with shit to lose" I became an adult.

I know I'm mature. I know I'm put into positions of responsibility. I still feel like a teenager.

I'm almost 30 and just starting to feel like a kid.

I've had to be an adult since I was 10 but getting sober and having my first kid really brought me back to life. We play with a hotwheels track that we call car thing, we wrestle everyday, we have jam sessions where we switch instruments so for half of it I'm playing a tiny piano. When I buy clothes I let him help me pick stuff out and most of it's from thrift stores so my outfits have gotten very funky.

He also makes doing adult things more fun, we do everything together so he helps me with house work. There's the shark vacuum, the carpet cleaner turns the floor into lava, laundry basketball, we cook dinner together. My favorite is making pizza dough with him, it takes longer to clean up than it does to make the pizza but it's a blast.

Adults are just large children. Accept this and move on. You will never understand anything, really. Those that seem to are just pretending.

There's a reason terms like "man child" exist. And sayings like "boys never grow up". 😂
- When I was a kid, my family made fun of my uncle pretty often with the expression "the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys". I'm in my 40s now and holy shit were they right...

I'm in my 40s and I still don't get it. I keep asking myself when my life as an independent adult who has my own place to live and access to decent transportation will begin.

I feel like I came at this from another direction. In my twenties I cut my foot pretty bad on a rusty screw so I went to the hospital and got stitches. The doctor didn’t prescribe me an antibiotic and I foolishly thought “oh they’re a doctor, I must not need one!” I of course got a pretty bad infection within a few days that required me to be on IV antibiotics for several days. I’m lucky I didn’t need any debridement or worse. I learned through that experience that nobody knows what the fuck is going on and you cannot count on “adults” because we generally know fuck-all.

I worked for a guy in his 90s who felt this way.

I have kids myself, but I don't feel ashamed of letting them know that I don't always have the answers or that sometimes I like to jump the trampoline for fun.

Adults who seem like they know everything and act responsible all the time actually seem "juvenile" in my opinion.

They don't really get it, you know? Like they got to that level of life by following expectations and then stopped developing past that and just keep trotting along. Some people get stuck there while others "soften up" when they get grandchildren and less responsibility or whatever.

People mature in different paces, but the whole "being grown up" is definitely just an optional phase.

I started feeling like an adult at about age 30. But 20 years later I still don't feel that different than I did in my 20s.

i strongly believe we have deluded ourselves as a society to associate natural human feelings with youth when they are simply how humans perceive and feel regardless of age. every single older person i ask if they feel their age says no. they all tell me they feel like they’re in their 20s at the oldest, some still teenagers. your body ages, you get wiser due to life experiences, but you don’t “become an adult” ever, because what we consider adulthood is a Western lie built upon capitalist standards and strict American individualism (if you’re in the US).

i don’t feel 36. i don’t know what that would even entail. i feel “younger,” but i don’t see it that way. i feel like a human being connected to his actual existence and acknowledging it rather than allowing it to be repressed because i’m too old for x y z. we are all young-minded permanently. that’s just how humans are. it isn’t reserved for the physically young.

Perhaps its because we assume a proportional relationship between ignorance and youth. But because its impossible to know everything we are doomed to feel ignorant frequently and therefore perpetually stuck in a state before the imaginary line between young and old

Nobody knows how to be an adult. Everyone is posing.

When I turned 18 and my grandmother was in her 80s, she told me, "I still feel exactly like I did when I was your age."

I asked if that meant she was frustrated by how slowly she moved (she used a rollator by that point), and she confirmed it did.

You'll never really feel like an adult, but your body will keep on aging anyway. And you'll never really get used to that, either.

I feel like adding a positive experience to contrast the more negative comments (including my own). The summer I graduated high school was perhaps one of the best times in my life. I really, truly felt that I had my whole life ahead of me.

I spent all of June training with my first guide dog. The clearest memory I have of realizing I was finally an adult was when we were flying home after training. I was sitting at the gate, my new dog lying quietly under my chair, my feet resting slightly forward into the walkway to accommodate her, my head filled with future plans and possibilities. I thought about how I would provide a loving home for this carefully bred, meticulously vetted, and rigorously trained canine that this organization had entrusted me with. I imagined our first semester of college together. I hadn't gotten into my first choice school or major but that was OK; I had a backup plan and was looking forward to it. A kid ran past me, pulling me out of my thoughts, then I heard his mother say "Watch out for that man's foot." That's it. I was a "man" not a "boy" or a "kid" or a "child". The world saw me as an adult. The future may not have turned out how I thought, but in that moment, I was exactly who I wanted to be, doing exactly what I wanted to do, exactly where I was supposed to be, and man it felt good.

I've always felt like a kid and told myself I wouldn't grow up.

Still the same. I think having a somewhat traumatized childhood also makes you want to live as a child freely again.

Also not having kids helps. I can do anything I want and make my own schedule.

I never understood boring old people. Ill be doing projects and having adventures until im 80.

No, I still feel like an adult. I just feel like I'm still 24 (I'm 50)

This is a good and a bad thing.

There is no dividing line between when you're young/middle aged/old. It doesn't exist. I remember being 10. I remember being 20. I remember being 30. I remember being 40. I am still the same sentient entity I was at all those ages.

There is no reason to assign any "age group" to yourself. Be the age you feel inside.

Being an adult in the sense of being responsible, feel pretty good about. Pay the bills. Feed myself. Go to work.

Being an adult in the sense of having no fun, or tightly restricted fun, not so much. Still go see live music and play video games.

It's right around the time that you realize your parents were just doing the best they could and didn't know how to "adult" either that you start to understand that you're destined to do the same thing. We're all just making it up as we go and hoping to do better than the previous generation. Generation after generation built upon the knowledge of iteration.

So yeah, mentally, I don't feel significantly different than I have at any other time in the past twenty years, aside from knowledge and experience, but I also realize that I'm viewed significantly different by others, so you kind of have to act the part and fake it till you make it.

Many of the traits of childhood are wonderful and you should cling to them. Sense of wonder and curiosity, goofiness, don't take yourself too seriousky, adventure, physicality, etc.

I think I get what you're saying, that sometimes one wonders if relative to some of your peers of you're "achieving" enough. That's a trickier question because some introspection from this is good.

Are you truly content?
Is your future somewhat secured? (forward-thinking with finances, career, health). Or are you doing the more reckless Yolo teenage thing? (this aspect of being a child, especially if one has kids, I'd say isn't good lol).

What if you're just staggering through because life won't stop shitting on your family? Every time we get above water something else catastrophic happens. Couldn't even get our kitchen and bathrooms fixed from water damage with the paltry insurance payment we got and then the basement ceiling and imsulation got soaked from external water. No way can we report that to insuramce because they will drop us and we'll be fucked into a higher rate. Don't use State Farm. Cunts.
- Oh yeah, and the floors we paid to have redone 3 years ago? Already buckling and peeling. Warranty replacement has been in process for over a month now but at least there's a glimmer of hope we'll get something from it.

You don't have an insight into other people's minds so you attribute their behavior and decisions to some knowledge you don't have but they do.
This is a fake feeling caused by lack of information. Everyone is improvising life.

Some reading as introduction to the cause of the phenomenon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_bias

Yes, definitely

I used to genuinely worry as an 8 year old that I’d get older and just lose all sense of fun and silliness.

Turns out in my early 40s I’m just that very same 8 year old but I know a few more things and like boobs more than I used to.

Just hit the big 40 recently and I still feel just as immature as I did in my twenties. Just with a bunch of new and exotic pain.

I only really feel like an adult when I spend time with kids and young people. Even though the students I teach are at university, and thus technically adults... I'm always struck by how often they seem 'immature'.

And to be clear, I don't even really mean that as a criticism. Sure, at times they don't pay attention and forget to do things and seem akward/nervous. But "adults' do all those things too. The difference is the adults have generally accepted these flaws and come up with coping strategies (both good and bad) like avoiding those situations, or blaming other people.

So, what makes me feel like an adult is not that I'm on top of things, or that I'm no longer a mess. It's that I know I'm a mess, and I no longer hope that one day I'll get everything sorted, and tbh, that's fine.

I'm 42, and I feel like I'm cosplaying and LARPing as an adult. I'm able to convince everyone but myself.

Mortage, kids, and a pretty nice career is my equivalent of a fursuit - something to hide behind in an effort to find acceptance from likeminded.

Sounds like we're all in the same boat here.

Adulting is an illusion.

You're fine, some days I barely feel human let alone adult. I imagine the overwhelming majority are faking it till they make it. It's one of those clichés that's cliché for a reason.

I'm 30 and feel barely any different than I did as a teenager. Probably doesn't help I still live with my parents. Although going to my childhood best friend's funeral on Sunday might shake things up.

My little daughter thinks I'm an adult and calls me daddy

"Being an adult" means doing all the things your parents did when you were young with the confidence and determination you assumed they had at the time.

Also doesn't help that much of modern management culture is suffocatingly paternalistic. Bosses want you to continue getting an education, they want you to dress a certain way, they're out assigning you work after hours, they're harping on you for showing up late or leaving early without regard to traffic conditions or life events. There's HR policy around shaming you for being overweight or diabetic or pregnant that's pitched as "how you can save some money!" but mostly revolves around saving the company paid sick leave and benefits. You're told to save in a 401k, but forbidden from managing your money independent of a brokerage. You're told to live independent of parents or roommates, but without the income to afford a home or an apartment convenient to your workplace. You're constantly subjected to reviews and milestones that only ever seem to monopolize your time and never result in career advancement.

You get the same attitude from businesses you interact with - everyone from salesmen to bill collectors to DMV officials have a way of talking down to you and using shame or disappointment to manipulate your behaviors. TV is increasingly just a series of jangling keys. Social Media is just 40 year olds who act like they're still in High School. PTA meetings feel like the blind leading the blind, as you meet with people who are just as infantilized as you've been, trying to convey why this month's deluge of standardized tests is more important than the last in a way you'll believe more than they do.

And that's before you get to the fucking Police. An entire multi-billion dollar bureaucracy dedicated to being America's abusive stepfather.

It sucks out there, man.

Adult is just being 18+ years old. What you may be looking for is how to mature as an adult. That’s done by trying, failing, and learning over and over again. You’ll always have some fear of new things, but you eventually learn how to bounce back from failure to reduce the fear. As you get older, you’ll lose the support of family because they die. As that happens, you’ll learn to fend for yourself. You will not mature if your are doing the same old stuff because it’s comfortable.

I don't know what the word "adult" means. It's just a made up term we tell kids so we can guide them more effectively towards not falling off a cliff and dying.

The idea of "growing up" is bullshit and probably stunts a lot of kids growth and development.

Last night I ate two bowls of knock-off cinnamon crunch at 23 o’clock, simply because I hadn’t had cereal in a while. My parents would have sure been like “why? Just wait for breakfast.”

I’m 40.

As someone pushing 40, this thread is full of people who sound like fun.

I don't know about feeling like an adult, but I don't feel like a kid, that's for sure.

Never really have. Around 8 or 9, I stopped wanting to get any older and since then I've always felt like I was pretending to be my age rather than being it.

I understand that a lot of other adults are also pretending, but I've all but ceased to be able to keep up the charade.

For example, I own a house, and even managed to look after things for a while, but that was a struggle and there's no way current me is up to any of that.

I envy others' strength and ability.

In my experience the only defining trait of being an adult is that you suddenly start to like getting socks as a present.

One of my many "I guess I'm a grown man now" moments was when I got legitimately excited to buy a ladder.

Being adult is highly overrated. Look at all the "serious" people ruining the world with their greed and selfishness. Never let the inner child die. Children inherently understand morals that adults corrupt with religion and over-thinking.

No one ever truely grows up, some people are just better at hiding it.

I'm about to hit 49. We're just older kids, that's all.

I feel like an adult, but I feel like very few others actually are

I have adult aches and adult bills and sometimes adult hopes I won’t wake up in the morning… but I’ll still laugh at fart jokes.

Yep. At least partially. Never been able to achieve any of the milestones of adulthood. Marriage, home ownership, kids, etc. Could never afford anything.

Fake it til you make it

My body reminds me I'm an adult every day.

Feel still like a kid.

Sometimes feel like a 10 year old in the body of an adult

I know when I first hit my 30’s it dawned on me in a panicked rush that people expect me to be a mature knowledgeable adult. I have accepted that truth but also know that I am still just as “adult” as I’ve ever been

idk, i do a lot of joking around, but i pay all my bills on time

OP: What do you consider 'adult'? I am trying to be a responsible parent to two children, and I pay the bills on time. I have a decent paying job while still being able to care for the children. As the father I do most of the cooking and cleaning and in the weekends I perform the upkeep of our home. But the best moment I had with my kids were doing 'immature' things together, like playing with Lego or loudly singing along with 80s goth music, or occasionally both at the same time. I also play board games and computer games (instead of passively sitting in front of the television, I might add).

On the other hand, I saw parents at the playground who were working on spreadsheets and totally ignoring their children. If that is being an 'adult', I do not want to be one.

There are two types of adults; old teenagers and grown-ups. I'm definitely an old teenager.

Well in some ways yes, and in some ways no. I never seem to get jaded, silly things still make me laugh. I still can read and shut out the world like when I was a kid.

But I am so competent in some ways? Can cook and hold a job, raised kids, gardens finally grow for me. All those seem adult qualities. And I have made so many mistakes and have been hurt so much, do feel the weight of experience. And while nothing hurts, and I can still cartwheel and do yoga, I have no bounce - can't run well, can't jump.