LITTLE TREAT: The Exact Moment You Realise You're An Adult

Mamamia Out Loud

The hosts of Mamamia's Out Loud podcast discuss George Mack's essay "Adults Don't Exist," exploring the widespread realization that no one receives an official transition into adulthood and that everyone is essentially navigating life without a

Key takeaways

• George Mack's essay argues that the cultural expectation of an official 'adult' ceremony is a myth, leaving most people to figure things out as they go.
• Mozart died in debt writing begging letters, while Nikola Tesla lived alone on milk and crackers, contradicting their genius reputations with profound personal disorganization.

Main topics

• The myth of adulthood and 'adulting' culture
• Personal milestones of stepping into responsibility

Notable quotes

"George Mack says that we're all suffering from something that he calls adult syndrome, which is the shock of working out that the grownups that you are measuring yourself against are just flawed former children who are winging it and they're a bit taller."

Conclusion

The episode reframes adulthood not as a destination of perfection, but as an ongoing practice of taking

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) You're listening Speaker 2 (0:01) to a Mamma Mia podcast. Speaker 2 (0:07) Hello Outlouders, Holly Wainwright here. Now depending on where you are in the country, it's either Labor Day, the King's Birthday or just a regular old Monday. And if you're in regular old Monday land, I'm sorry because I will be maybe at the beach if it's sunny, maybe just eating more food than usual, hanging out with my family. Anyway, we are having a little day off because where we are, it is a public holiday. So instead of your regular show. We are giving you a peek behind the paywall at one of our subscribe episodes. Now, this one is Mia, Em and myself. And it's all about an essay that we read and that really made us all think called Adults Don't Exist. The idea is that we all spend large parts of our life waiting for someone to tap us on the shoulder and tell us that we're officially grown up. Or we expect the adults to arrive and solve our problems. And then suddenly we realise, oh no, I am the adult here. I've got an example. that I still squirm about now, about the moment I realised I had to grow up. Anyway, please enjoy this. And if you want more episodes like this that get a little bit personal, a little bit behind the scenes, subscribe to Mamma Mia and you'll never miss an episode of Out Loud. See you soon. Speaker 1 (1:19) There was an essay that I wanted to discuss with you both that has been doing the rounds. It's by a guy called something, something. George Mack is his name and it's called Adults Don't Exist. Speaker 3 (1:32) And Speaker 1 (1:32) this really appealed to me because I'm at the age, you know, 50. How old are we, Hol? 54. We're 54. Where you would really think that we would be adults by now. But the premise of this essay. I certainly wouldn't think of you as an adult, Em. Speaker 3 (1:48) Really? Oh, she's 30. I'm like, yeah. Am I like forever 21 in your eyes? Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1 (1:53) You just don't give off big adult energy, but then I don't think I do either. Holly does. Do I? Yeah, I think she does. But basically the premise of this is that adulting was something that people used to talk about. for Speaker 2 (2:08) a Speaker 1 (2:08) while. They're millennials. Oh, I'm adulting. I'm doing a grown up thing. I'm Speaker 3 (2:13) a Speaker 1 (2:13) 28 year old toddler. Yeah, exactly. But you know, the premise of this is that somewhere in your twenties, you assume that there's going to be some kind of ceremony, right? Like there's like, you know, someone's going to tap you on the shoulder and go, Hey, here's the key. You are now an adult. You have crossed over the Rubicon. Speaker 2 (2:30) Come into the room. We'll tell you all the things about how the world works. Speaker 1 (2:33) You can get off the kids table. Come and sit at the big kids table. At the adults' table. And then that doesn't happen. And then you turn 30 and 40 and 50 and you might have a family, you might have, well, undoubtedly, you could not possibly get to any of those ages, even yours, Em, and not have had to deal with some really adult shit, you know, heartbreak, grief, mental health issues, physical health issues. Speaker 2 (2:59) Money problems. Money problems, Speaker 1 (3:01) all the things. And does it ever come? that moment. We think of adults as something that someone else is. Like, Hol, if you had to think of an adult, who would it be? Speaker 2 (3:11) Not you. Not me. Who's the most adult person? Well, I Speaker 1 (3:16) like Barack Obama. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Speaker 2 (3:19) Yeah. I Speaker 1 (3:19) think Oprah's an adult. Oprah's definitely an adult. And I'm kind of stopping there. Speaker 2 (3:24) That's interesting, isn't it? Because leaders, political leaders, you want to think they are, but then Trump's got big toddler energy. Good heavens above. Maybe he's brought back the adult toddler. Speaker 1 (3:34) Yeah. George Mack says that we're all suffering from something that he calls adult syndrome, which is the shock of working out that the grownups that you are measuring yourself against are just flawed former children who are winging it and they're a bit taller. And the twist is that You would think that's depressing. It's like no one's coming to save you. But he says it's actually the most freeing thing that you can discover. So before we unpack that, I just want to go through. I've listed some of the iconic people, most of the men, funnily enough, who you would think of as being adults. Very Speaker 2 (4:06) serious, big brains. Serious, big Speaker 1 (4:08) brains. And he talks about what the actuality of their life was. Throw me a couple of your favourites. So on this Speaker 2 (4:15) list, there is Mozart. very famous and widely held to be a genius, lived beyond his means, buried in debt, wrote begging letters to friends, died at 35 with no money and no headstone. Speaker 1 (4:27) Doesn't sound very adult, does it? Nikola Tesla fell in love with a Speaker 2 (4:31) white pigeon and said so out loud in those words, died alone in a hotel room living on milk and crackers. Speaker 1 (4:37) I thought that was maybe the person who invented the Tesla. It's inspired by Speaker 2 (4:41) him. Speaker 1 (4:42) Thank you. It was inspired by him, but he invented something. Like the current of something electricity. Something that basically the whole world runs on now. So like pretty smart guy. The Speaker 2 (4:54) point of these is that these people had a childlike disorganisation. This one's really sad. They didn't Speaker 3 (5:02) have their shit together. They didn't have their shit together. Napoleon, crippling hemorrhoids, known to three people, 20 leeches applied to his backside before battle. Like that's just mean. Speaker 1 (5:12) Well, I thought that was interesting because, like, Napoleon is, I don't know a lot about history, but Napoleon I think is, like, quite a. Speaker 2 (5:18) Yeah, he's a general. Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:20) He was considered to have his shit together, right? Speaker 2 (5:22) And be, like, a war Speaker 1 (5:23) genius. But you can have your Speaker 2 (5:24) shit together and have hemorrhoids. Speaker 1 (5:26) Well. Speaker 2 (5:27) Well, yeah. Quite literally. But I think that because the crux of all this is what we think an adult is, right? Yeah. And when we say things like, oh, thank God there's an adult in the room. Yes. Or we say. When are the adults Speaker 1 (5:39) coming? Yes. Speaker 2 (5:39) Or you say. well, you're the adult, so, like, what do we mean? And I think that's our definition is, to your point, that someone who has their shit together, right? Yeah. Or someone Speaker 3 (5:49) who just, for me, I think it's someone who knows a lot, like, because I always put old and wise together.