Adulting is the Worst

            Have you ever seen the meme that says, “Adult hood is the worst hood I’ve ever lived in. 10/10 don’t recommend”? I think what makes it so funny is that it’s true. Adulthood is way more overrated than we thought it would be when we were looking forward to it.

Remember being a kid and being excited for birthdays that made you another year older? Another year closer to becoming a bone fide grownup? Little did we know that birthdays come faster the older we get and that one day we would look back fondly on those carefree kid days, wishing we could go relive those glory days. Maybe as a species we are just never happy with what stage of life we are currently in. Whoa, sorry about that. I left the window cracked and a teensy bit of philosophical musing made its way in. Here, let me close that real quick.

I’m not sure which part of adulthood that I was excited for. Was it the no set bedtime? Most nights I’m struggling to stay up late enough to put the 11-year-old to bed. My DVR is going to go on strike soon if I can’t manage to stay awake to watch some of these accumulated shows.

Was it all the spending money that I would have from having a job? Hold on, the mortgage, grocery bill, utilities and children have come to take their share first. Oh look, I’m left with $41.97. Boy, I sure hope I don’t spend it all in one place!

Oh, I know, maybe it was owning my very own house one day, something that was exciting to me since we rented most of my childhood. What do you mean the washer broke, the clutter always need to be sorted and the project list is never ending? Hold on, I’m the one who has to clean it too? Doesn’t it come with its own cleaning service? It’s not self cleaning? This is a load of straight BS.

It may have been that I could one day be able to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I probably didn’t account for a shitty metabolism that makes it so I have to watch my caloric intake stricter than a Catholic nun running a convent. Or that acid reflux would dictate specific foods it will allow without Tums to needing to run interference. Or that I find myself saying things like, “Oh, I can’t eat that anymore. Goes straight through me.”

Ah, I bet it was having my own family one day. Being a mother will be magical and amazing, right? Sure, for a total accumulation of 12 days over the course of 18 years. You’re either too tired  or too stressed to appreciate motherhood. You’re being parent shamed, being given unsolicited parenting advice or too busy running from karate to baseball to soccer to know which end is up. By the time hormones enter the picture and the teen years hit, you’re just some sort of perpetually exhausted mombie with the memory and attention span of Dory in Finding Nemo.

Oh, I know, it was getting to create magical memories on family vacations, wasn’t it? Have you ever gone on vacations with your family? Sure, you love the crap out of them but they are also the ones who push your buttons in 3.2 seconds flat. Now cram all of you together, all day and all night, for a 10 day time period. Stir together and then bam! Like a can of shaken soda, watch as someone will lose their shit. Usually the mom since we always seem to get a bad rap in all the movies and tv shows. But in our defense, who is the one that 85% of the time has planned the vacation, packed the vacation, budgeted for vacation and made sure everyone had what they needed only to spend some very not-the-least-bit-relaxing relaxing time off with bickering children in various states of sandy half naked state of undress? (Because ours were usually a beach vacation of some type.)

I think they should raise the age of adulthood to 25. It’s not fair that we only get 18 years of being a kid before we are expected to choose a career and become functioning members of society. Hell, I know a lot of mid-forties aged people who haven’t been able to reach functioning level yet and that’s A LOT of years older than 18. Plus, how lopsided is it that we only get to enjoy 18 blissful child years before society gives us the stressed mess starter pack and a pat on the back?

I think I'd like a do over.

Need more mayhem in your life? You can find me on FaceBook (modern mom mayhem) or Instagram (@modernmommayhem). Feel free to share your own mayhem and drop me a line at modernmommayhem@gmail.com.