When will we grow up?

Ironing? Pensions? Dry sherry? Are these the passions of proper adults? If you're thirtysomething and your Mature Person button hasn't activated, don't worry, you're not alone I HAVE just returned from a weekend with my closest friends. It's an annual ritual: we drive from Lanarkshire/London, meet in the middle (Yorkshire) and unload wine, food and our assorted offspring. We met 17 years ago when we worked together on a teenage magazine; a piffling excuse for a job that gives its staff permission to blag free CDs and mascara and muse on the most effective kissing techniques. We had nothing to spend our money on but shoes, alcohol and rent and functioned perfectly well on around four hours' sleep, appearing only half- dead, rather than fully deceased.

Fast forward to September 2001. Between the three of us we have accumulated two husbands, one long-term partner, five pre-school kids, two people carriers, two supersexy Smeg fridges, three Dysons and several of those useless things to carve balls out of melons.

We are the people we used to snort at. If we have parties now, the food served is more substantial than a partially defrosted hunk of garlic bread. No gatecrashes come, ever. A 21-year-old would rather sit on the pavement in the rain than be invited in. One of the Yorkshire group, whose possessions once amounted to little more than a teetering heap of Seventies funk albums and a leg waxer, now owns an extremely strokeable CP Hart toilet and a second home on the Isle of Wight. When young people see us, they either start yawning involuntarily or inhale our old people's smell and start retching.

You'd think, then, that when we get together - we are, after all, marching swiftly towards 40 - we talk pensions and ISAs or, when things get really fruity, support tights and enormous belly- constricting knickers. And of course we don't. No one does. Back in the early Eighties, when we might have woken up in unfamiliar locations wedged under a stranger's armpit, we were silly and trivial and rude. We still are, nearly two decades later. We might look like adults - wrinkled, knackered, grinding our teeth - but underneath we're barely 20. We can't be fagged with growing up. We still struggle with forms (our parents: "Have you filled in that tax return yet?").

US Marketing Guru Faith Popcorn has identified a trend called down- aging: "Nostalgic for their carefree childhood, baby boomers find comfort in familiar pursuits and products from their youth." She points out that 80 per cent of Disney stores' sales are by adults for adults; in ten years the average age of a Harley Davidson customer has risen from 34 to 42; in seven years, fitness club membership in the 39-54 age bracket has risen by 64 per cent.

It's a bile-inducing image: ageing biker squished into thigh- constricting leathers teamed with Daffy Duck baseball cap, wheezing on the Stairmaster. But Angus Lawrie, Marketing and Public Relations Manager for the G1 Group (owners of Glasgow venues The Corinthian and Arta) sees a happier picture: "We're definitely seeing a new adultescence, as it's called. A putting off of growing up. We don't feel like mature adults until we're at least 35. In middle England you might see people growing old and dull, but it's not happening here. We want to be out, spending money - we've worked hard enough for it - eating and drinking and socialising and staying out till two, three am, even on a week night."

What, even when there's ironing to be done? "That's right. Take our target market for Arta - around 25-55. They're cosmopolitan people, mainly in media, creative and PR jobs. They don't want to invite friends round and mess up their lovely homes; they want to be out, seeing live bands or comedy acts or dancing to salsa music, and get a taxi home to a tidy flat."

So confident is G1 Group in the affluent older market that a new venue, Gong, is opening in Vinicombe Street, off Byers Road in Glasgow's west end, "for punters who've outgrown sweaty clubs playing house music all night. They wear expensive, labelly clothes that they don't want ruined so they want to sit on nice seats." Lawrie stresses that it's not about doddery oldsters out on the pull: "The people who come to The Corinthian and Arta are old enough to have established their peer group and just want to relax. We see lots of groups of women simply wanting to chat and have a laugh, not pick anyone up."

When you're really young - as opposed to pretend young - you don't think you'll wind up this way. You imagine that at some point (30? 40?) your Mature Person button will activate; there you'll be, a fully-fledged adult with eight matching dining chairs and an inability to like anyone on Top of the Pops. Give it a few months and you'll have your very own airing cupboard full of neatly folded bedlinen.

We're informed by magazines such as Elle Decoration that New Housewives are all the rage; that we're sprinkling our laundry with lavender water and becoming Really Good at Cakes. But who do you know under 65 who derives any joy from dusting? It's not happening. We're growing less inclined to imitate our parents. A friend forces her children to "enjoy" picnic lunches in anything other than blizzard conditions simply to avoid washing up. New Housework appears to amount to the lighting of scented candles, the plumping up of pillows and the liberal squirting of expensive home fragrance. It is not about anything to do with a toilet brush.

Fiona McKenzie, 37, a health and safety officer from South Lanarkshire, has children of five and 15 months. "We're more interested in having fun and we know there's more to life that domesticity; we're lucky in that we have the appliances and money to give us freedom. We don't have to stand watching the twin tub." McKenzie cites holidays and a social life as high on her list of priorities: "Steve Biddulph [childcare guru and author of The Secrets of Happy Children, Thorsons] tells us to look after self, relationship and children, in that order. I've heard older people say, "See these women putting themselves before their children?" as if it's outrageous. But we are more self-orientated than our mothers were. I spend a fair amount on self development books and courses and look upon it as giving myself an MOT." If we're dead set on avoiding fully-fledged adulthood, the logical step is to skip the marriage and/ or kids bit altogether. We use the term "childfree" or "non-parent" (as opposed to sad-sounding "childless") and few eyebrows are raised if we opt out from the spattered-carrot-puree route. According to literature produced by the British Association for Non-Parents (BON), "We are choosing to have fewer children, later in life, more spaced out. We are controlling our fertility. Deciding not to have children is simply part of that spectrum of choice." As Angus Lawrie observes, "People of my parents' generation had fewer options. They took on responsibilities at a younger age. Now, even if they do have children, women are more likely to resume the career they've worked so hard for. I'm 30 and recently married; we don't have children and may keep it that way. I see more of my contemporaries making the same decision."

A quarter of women born in 1974 will be childfree when they reach 45. Women are having 1.7 babies on average. It seems that we are reluctant to put our careers on hold. In the early Fifties one out of four women worked; now three out of four do. We are often postponing marriage at least until our 30s.

Ben Renshaw, a relationship counsellor and author of Success But Something Missing (Vermilion) says, "The emotional make-up of women indicates that they do still want a stable relationship, but that urge is kicking in much later on. Right through the 20s, dating seems more appealing. It's only recently - and we're in our mid-30s - that my wife and I have seen a flurry of marriages and babies in our circle of friends." Equally, we are unwilling to put up with a partner who's past their sell-by date. Kate Winslet's brief marriage has ended before her daughter's first birthday. When one of my friend's divorce was finalised she invited the girls around and held a match to a photograph of her ex; everyone whooped and glugged their wine as he went up in smoke. Another friend, who is 40 and about to celebrate her tenth wedding anniversary, realised with shock that she is the only one in her peer group to have avoided divorce ("So far," she said with a shrug), although she has had counselling via Relate.

Paparazzi shots of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were captioned, "Still crazy about each other after a year" as if making the 12- month mark without marching towards the solicitors is some remarkable achievement. Ben Renshaw agrees: "Parting is still as painful as ever but, in a social context, there is certainly less stigma attached. After all, there's a good chance that you have witnessed your own parents separating. Time is the most highly prized commodity and we simply don't want to be in relationships which are clearly not working."

We're equally self-orientated in our attitude to work. Increasingly, we are awarding ourselves duvet days and over- stretched lunch-breaks. It's not that we lack commitment. "I see it as a desire to express a rebellious streak," says Gladena McMahon, a psychotherapist and spokesperson for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. "We don't like to think of ourselves as goodie goodies.

"Of course there is a clear distinction between allowing yourself the occasional day off - in essence, taking responsibility for your own mental health - and calling in sick once a fortnight." The odd sickie, she maintains, "may be wrong in the moral sense, but we're getting a kick from the illicitness, the donning of scarf and dark glasses and sneaking off for a day's shopping. It's our way of saying we're not owned by anyone."

It smacks of skiving double physics in favour of a fag round the back of the gym hall. And to real young people, our petty rebellions seem faintly pathetic. If we do drink too much/stay out late, we have to put on a posh, "I am sober" voice for the babysitter. It's hard to pretend that children don't exist, even if we turn the stereo up full blast and lash them tightly to their bunk beds.

Amanda McLean, a pharmacist from Dolphinton, has three children aged between two and 11. Her 40th birthday is "looming round the corner", yet she admits: "I don't feel grown up. I feel aged sometimes, but there's a subtle difference. The responsibility I feel comes from the children - that's a real, stomach-gripping sensation especially if they're ill. I don't feel responsible for inanimate objects like the cars or house."

McLean blames our perpetual immaturity on the media: "My generation has so much exposure to other people's lives - real or imagined - that we feel as if we can have all that too. We don't save up for anything; it's all accessible immediately. My parents' generation recycled Clingfilm and plastic bags. Wasn't there a thrift Brownie badge? Life seems too short for all that." Yet are we really different? Or just arrogant (us = lively and fascinating; our parents = tedious dullards)? Russell Ferguson, a Glasgow-based chartered marketer at www.rfm.co.uk says, "The post-war bulge is 40 plus now and represents a huge mass of the population. It's a group that's not always targeted correctly; there's still a lot of focus on what 25- year-olds want because they're cool and trendy. Yet it's the older bracket who are spending more per week on clothes. They are generally more affluent with more spare time."

He cites a colleague in her 20s who regularly goes clubbing with her 50 plus parents: "It's not unusual," he says. "There's huge potential for bars and clubs that aren't solely geared to the Ibiza experience."

So where will it lead us? Hopefully not down the Ab Fab route with a face frozen from too many Botox shots. Surely someone will tell us if we've turned into crap dancers. One of the Yorkshire gang admitted, "I asked my hairdresser if he thought I could still carry long hair [she's 39]. He looked a bit doubtful and said, "Well, I wouldn't go much longer."

We laughed and drank more wine and gossiped about old colleagues, including one women who fell in love with a Cuban while holidaying in Havana. She married him and, at 45, is expecting her first child.

We relished every detail until someone produced the new Monsoon Home catalogue and we pored over swanky cushions and light fittings, virtually licking the pages. For a bunch of adultescents pushing 40, you can't get much sexier than thatu

Copyright 2001
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