What would you say to a kid about how wonderful it is to be an adult?

You can actually drive your Dinky Toy/Matchbox car for real!

I can’t think of anything. Being an adult sucks. The only good thing is that the hell that is high school eventually ends. But working, bills, responsibilities, and getting old? No thanks.

And I’m pretty sure many kids would equate eating cream of wheat for dinner (or at all) with being grounded. I know I would.

Hm…how about not living with your parents? That would’ve sold me as a kid.

@livelaughlove21 LOL Love cream of wheat and oatmeal. Just don’t like it much for breakfast.
Sometimes I may even substitute a real dinner for a banana split with all the works. :)

I tell children adulthood is way better than being a kid all the time. Especially to depressed teenagers. I figure I give them some hope. Being an adult is better in so many many ways, I don’t say it just to say it, I actually mean it. I tell them I feel more free as an adult, and as we get older we get wiser, and getting wiser helps us handle dissappointments better and change things if we want to. If they hate school they will be finished as an adult. I usually don’t go on and on, because children have minimal attention spans and I don’t want it to be a lecture, but I could nake many many more reasons why being an adult is better.

@JLeslie You may need to talk to @livelaughlove21

I keep trying to think of positive things to say, but I am not feeling very optimistic tonight.
But it is nice to be able to have what you want for dinner (within financial limits). So I made up a bowl of Cream of Wheat to join you, @Pandora. Haha.

Oh! Here’s one. When you’re an adult, age matters much less for friendships, and more of your peer group will be mature. (As a child I couldn’t wait to be able to relate to other adults as an adult…)

@Pandora No need. I know childhood sucks. I’m just not convinced adulthood is much better. Different, certainly.

What a great question! While some things about being a kid can be better, adulthood has been far better for me, that’s for sure. You can basically do whatever you please, so long as you don’t break any laws doing it. I stay up all night and sleep all day, for one. Win!

@bookish1 LOL, That’s the spirit. Nothing like a warm bowl of goodness.
@livelaughlove21 Everything has its ups and downs but I think most people enjoyed the innocence of youth. I have to say, JLeslie did point out a great aspect of adulthood. With age comes wisdom and knowledge and they are both liberating when applied correctly.

I don’t think from a kid’s perspective it is wonderful to be an adult. The biggest thing, I guess, would be that you are mostly left alone to do what you want.

I decide when it’s bedtime, what color my curtains will be and what I wear when I get up! I can make my own rules, decide on my own morals and choose my friends.

If I want to own 15 cats a dog and a monkey I can!

@marinelife As a child didn’t you want to be grown up?

You can look in the fridge and know everything in it is food that you like.

You can live on your own.
If you can afford the bills.

You can do whatever you want.
Except at work, or around certain relatives, or your spouse, or…

You can choose your own clothes.
Assuming you can fit into them.

You can eat whatever you want.
Just watch your cholesterol, or hyper acidity, or diabetes, or…

No one is the boss of you.
Except the police, or your landlord, or…your boss.

You can make your own decisions.
Until you’re expected to make all the decisions and they become your responsibility.

Oh, I know (my favorite part of adulthood) – you can read comics and eat chocolate chip cookies.
Waitaminute!!

@cookieman Got some toll house cookies in my freezer with your name on them.

There you go! And its not so creepy when a fellow adult says they have cookies in the fridge for you.
Only creepy when you are a kid and some adult says this and you don’t know them.
Waitaminute! Maybe creepy if you don’t know them even when grown. LOL

You can stay up as late as you like and nobody will tell you ‘you can’t watch that’. You can equally go to bed very early if you want to. If you want to sleep in or get up early, that’s your choice too. You can afford to buy and choose your own clothes. You can buy your own games and play them for as long as you want (except for when you have to go to work). In most cases, you are in control of your own life. You’re an adult, you can say no to things you don’t want to do. Sometimes other adults may not like this but you can still say no if it suits you.

I would say, “The age you are, whatever that age, is the best age to be alive.”

I don’t know about the food aspect. I ate all sorts of yummies when I was a kid and was still thin and everything.

I can go to any toy store and buy whatever the fuck I want.

I think being a kid is way easier. Being an adult is not all it is cracked up to be. And then you die.

@woodcutter I don’t thing being a salesman is your thing.

I’ve often considered that for adults, trying to remember precisely what childhood felt like is like trying to use digital to read analog memory… It just doesn’t translate. And now that I’m an adult, none of the positive things that jellies are saying about adulthood to make it attractive to children sounds good to me. Toys? Cookies? Bedtime? Boring as hell. Sex and intoxicants did it for me.

I am against the Western cult of youth, and I’m not sure we should be hyping adulthood to children, either. (In either case, the obvious answer is to buy stuff! That is how teenagers were invented, and then ‘tweens’ shudders, and now we have 6 year olds with iPads because they and their parents are sold the bill of goods that owning expensive things and keeping up with the crowd is the only way to be a person.)

Anyway, children’s perspective is so small that adulthood is unfathomably far off—not like something that will appear around the corner if they just grin and bear their present situation.

@bob_ This Toy Store?

@bookish1 You make some good points. Sex, which is also tied into leaving the parental nest and joining up with a mate to create ones own nest is very appealing to most once teenagedom hits. I never was a drinker so that didn’t influence me.

In fact, I would say really feeling good about being an adult didn’t hit until my very late 20’s or even 30’s. Which might explain @livelaughlove21 not feeling it yet since she is still fairly young. Navigating the first years of adulthood is quite nerve racking. What degree to pursue, what career, getting a job, changing jobs, low man on the totem pole, etc. It’s quite scary and I would say exhausting in many ways.

Okay, here’s the original post. Yeah, there’s the bills, the $7000 a year health insurance (I’m self employed) the burying of relatives and friends, dealing with aging parents, old injuries catching up with you, and having a refractory period. Adulthood is just f***ing great.
Did I miss anything from the original?

@Adirondackwannabe I’m glad I’m not the only pessimistic one here. Adulthood is for the birds. I’d almost rather be a kid if I don’t have to constantly worry about money.

Although, refractory periods aren’t just a older man’s privilege. My 23-year-old husband calls himself a “one hitter quitter.” Which is quite a relief, because I don’t have the libido to keep up with more than that. Make it count, because there’s no second chances with me tonight! We’re such an old married couple…

@livelaughlove21 Thanks, I’m not usually that black, it’s just been that way for the last few days.

@JLeslie ok, maybe not any toy store.

Hey don’t make me pull the breaks. It was suppose to remind us of the good points of being grown up. Not whine about everything that is wrong about being adult. I’m also not really trying to pitch adulthood to kids. As it is many already think being an adult and making their own decisions is something they are in a hurry to do without any help.

I had a fantastic childhood and there are days I wish I could go back. But stay there, no chance. There are many things I would not like to relive as well. Life isn’t perfect all the time. But we steer the wheel. As a kid it mostly got steered for you. It was fun but, looking back now,I know I wasn’t a fully formed individual.
No adulthood isn’t a 24 hour picnic but everyday but there is always something to be grateful for
.
@livelaughlove21 If you are bored already than make changes. Go out on a date on a Wednesday. Get playful. Re-invent the wheel. That is one of the great things about being an adult. You can drive your life in any direction you want it to go.

@Adirondackwannabe You sound like you need a fun time out. Wish we really knew each other. I would take you out somewhere nice and unexpected. Since I can’t why don’t you pull out a map and point to a place and go there tomorrow. Play hooky from work. Take someone to enjoy it with. Spend the whole day out with no intentions of coming back before dark.

@Pandora I blew off some steam with a friend, I’m much better. I’m usually really upbeat. I don’t know where Mr Black comes from. I have appointments tomorrow, but that idea sounds so good.

Ahh but @bookish1, I well remember lying in bed and listening to the Bonanza music and wishing I could stay up late enough to watch that programme. And I actually threw a tantrum (and about five pairs of shoes down the steep stairs one by one) to alert my father to my discontent at being sent to bed before Coronation Street came on. As an adult with the ability to watch these things I see how ridiculous my desire was but nonetheless, as a child, I so hated being told to go to bed when all the ‘good’ stuff came on TV.

@Bellatrix There are advantages to being an adult. When I was young I loved NFL football. Monday night football was on after my bedtime. I’d get out of bed and crawl under the dining room table to watch it. My parents figured if it was that important to me they’d let me watch with them.

@Pandora Who said I was bored?

:-) That’s a sweet story @Adirondackwannabe. I have to say when I was old enough to stay up and watch both Bonanza and Coronation Street I was pretty disappointed. Quite the anticlimax.

I remember Bonanza but not Coronation Street. Was it a show that didn’t last as long?

“Coronation Street” was on forever in Britain.

@Pandora, Coronation Street is STILL on in Britain. It’s an institution. It started in 1960 and it’s still broadcast today. It’s the world’s longest running soap opera.

You can remain a big kid & a child at heart, it’s still funny when you hear a vicar fart.