Why being a grown-up sucks

Happy Max by makelessnoise, Flickr

You’re lucky, reader, you nearly got a blog post about Spring cleaning; about going through my children’s toy collection and clearing out all the old stuff that they’ve outgrown. Having to even think about this is just one of the many things that makes being an adult a bit shit. There are many other things and they are all magnified when you have children and are expected to know what you are doing. In no particular order, here is a list of the worst things about being an adult.

1. You’re expected to take all sorts of insults and aggressive lash-outs (from your kids) in your stride. You are supposed to be the rational, sensible one and they are little bombs of emotion, passion and a very strong sense of (perceived) injustice. Thus, when you are told that you are mean, a witch and that they hate you, on a regular basis, the correct response to this is either a sanguine silence or an expression of stoic acceptance. Something like “whatever you say.” To offset this negativity they will occasionally threaten to incinerate your heart by telling you that they love you or, saying extraordinarily flattering things like “You look beautiful”. They are quite clever and devious at disarming you.
2. You have to make decisions.
3. Staying up as late as you want loses its appeal when you have to get up at 5.30 in the morning.
4. Pensions, bank accounts, banking fraud, tax returns….are you asleep yet?
5. No…? Well here’s another lot: Cleaning, washing up, scrubbing mould off tiles, knowing what kills mould. Researching how to get rid of moths. Owning a copy of How Clean is Your House, the companion book to that programme with Kim and Aggie. (Owning a copy but never actually referring to it - if you’re a bit of crap adult, like me…)
6. You have to cook dinner for a mostly unappreciative audience. (Even if you don’t have children this may still apply to you. The point is that as an adult you are expected to provide your own dinner.)
7. Do you remember that bit in Home Alone when Kevin realises that he can eat whatever he wants and nobody will stop him? This is a really appealing thought when you are a child and feel that you could eat the entire contents of the experimentation rooms in the Wonka factory. In reality, regulating your food intake is tedious and fraught with emotion, sometimes it would just be easier to let someone else think about it for you. Yes, you can eat anything and everything you want but we all know that this is not actually a good idea. I came back from holiday recently, craving vegetables and fruit and never wanting to see another scone. (Happily, it hasn’t put me off wine though).

And to balance all that negativity, some plus points:

1. You don’t really have to go anywhere you don’t want to (barring work). If you tell someone that you can’t go dry slope skiing, to a sticky-floored nightclub or to a new restaurant that specialises in offal because you can’t afford it/are ill/have been bitten by the tsetse fly, people have to accept your excuse and not challenge the veracity of your statement. The older you get, the easier this seems to be.
2. The element of choice makes most things more appealing - thus if you are choosing to practice your piano playing or go for a 10K run, you can tell yourself that it’s because you enjoy it.
3. Eating loads, all of the time is sickening but once in a while it’s fun.