Ask Lemmy

"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.