A new study out this week found that people only really find contentment when they turn 44. We're not massively surprised - we can only presume (hope) that this is when the mad dash of trying find somewhere to live, work out if you're in the right career, and if you manage to squeeze it in, start a family begins to slow down a bit.
And let's be honest, your 30s are a weird decade - for one thing, you can't quite work out how you've ended up paying childcare fees when you're still trying to pay off your student loan. And while half your mates are raving in Ibiza next weekend, the other half will be front of the queue at Peppa Pig world at 8AM on Sunday morning. No wonder we're all freaking out.
So here, in no particular order, are 30 reasons why your 30s are a bit of a shit show/the weirdest decade ever. And don't feel too bad - to paraphrase George Osborne circa 2012 - we're all in this together.
1. The great egg race
Mother Nature’s biggest joke was giving women a fertility timer. And not men. The day you turn 35, every headline will scream it at you, every text from your mum will hint heavily at it: you are now on borrowed time.
2. But should you be pregnant, you are officially a MATURE mother
A midwife will casually drop the term 'geriatric mother' during an examination and you will have to avoid a sharp intake of breath because she probably has her hand up your front bum.
3. You have to tick a new category in surveys now
Yes, you are in your thirties – but as far as insurance risk assessors care, you might as well be FORTY ONE.
4. You have the beginnings of grey hair
But not enough for it to be your thing, or look like someone at Bleach did it to you on purpose.
5. Suddenly out of nowhere, something will happen to one of your teeth
And you will have to pay £2000 to fix it.
6. When male TV stars are described as “the thinking woman’s crumpet” the woman they are talking about is you.
7. Instragram serves you ads for linen summer dresses
And you click on them.
8. You had to ask someone to show you how to do Instagram stories
You used to just know this stuff.
9. At 36, you are older than Anne Bancroft when she played Mrs Robinson in The Graduate.
10. You shrugged off a skincare routine in your twenties, and now you have to get one and fast
But alas, it is too late. Helloooo hyperpigmentation!
11. You are interested in Farrow and Ball’s new colours.
12. You are 37. Princess Diana was dead by your age
Oh god.
13. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein at 21. Patti Smith wrote Horses at 29. Germaine Greer wrote the Female Eunuch at 31
You started building a website in Squarespace but never finished and it is still out there.
14. It’s Friday. But your get up and go drinking has gone to bed with Netflix.
15. And if you do want to go out, all your friends need actual notice now
They either need babysitters or they are on dates or doing pilates. It is no longer a given that you can summon a group of drinkers at the flick of a whatsapp group message.
16. You want to go on a body bootcamp retreat in Ibiza, but you have to buy a new boiler.
17. Somehow you are on the White Company mailing list
What’s worse: there are things you want to buy that aren’t just towels.
18. You have already been in the working world between one and two decades
That should mean you’re on the right career path and in your professional prime. But you think you might want to give up your job and do pottery.
19. You like cookery books more than fashion books.
20. You have only just realised that the body you had in your 20s, the one you thought was half a stone too heavy, was actually perfect.
21. You have been described as more Port Elliot than Primavera Sound.
22. You get given books about gin for Christmas.
23. You feel ready to buy a house, but the average mortgage is nearly 8 times annual salary
If you live in some parts of London, that goes up to about 38 times average salary. So even if you spend NOTHING and pay no tax you might have to wait four decades before you can buy somewhere. At which point you’ll be in your 70s and ready to downsize.
24. You bumped into the toddler you used to babysit, and he is now 6’4’’ and has a better job than you.
25. Mom jeans actually fit you really well.
26. You find the music in all high street shops too loud, but would rather die of tinnitus than say so.
27. If you’re balancing mumhood with a career, your clothes will only ever be 80 percent clean, your work only 80 percent good, and your children 80 percent well behaved
Your 30s is about living with a failure margin.
28. You should probably start caring about your pension
Really, you should.