I don't know your mother, but as a mother of two grown children I can tell you this: The only things I look back on with regret are the chances I didn't take. I should have gone to engineering school, but was never encouraged toward it. I finally ended up teaching elementary school. I thought it would be a very rewarding job. It isn't. The amount of disrespect we receive from our administration to the parents and then the students is ridiculous. My husband is now in prison for 30 months and I am barely able to keep up with the bills. I wish I had done more with my life. Now I am 3 years from collecting medicare, living alone and my mother had a severe stroke on Jan 2nd.

Think of yourself first. What is it that you want to do? Find a way to do it. If marriage and children are in the cards, that will come. Don't let others dictate where you should be and what you should be doing! Life is much shorter than you think. Go after it with gusto, while you still have time to reach your goals. Best of luck to you.

I get the same from my family, even people around me judge me on my life. You know what it doesn't matter what they think but it still brings you down

I just wanna leave this quote that I recently came by and it really resonated with me:

"just as a gerneral note, you should eliminate any thought that there is an expectation that you do anything by any age. you dont have to be married with kids by 25. its okay to be 16 and never been kissed. theres nothing wrong with you if you havent graduated from college by 22. You arent a failure because you dont have your dream job at 30. there are no rules to life. You dont get special points for achieving certain things by a deadline. Just go at your own speed. It's not a race."

These words really help me get some perspective! Society has shaped so many notions and placed certain pressures on the way we live and its easy to forget to put your wants and needs first and live a life that is expected :/ i just quit medical school after 3 years because i wasnt happy doing something that was expected of me... we gotta live our lives for ourselves... not for our parents or our friends or whoever else!

I wish you all the best!!!

thank you all for your responses. i am happy to see other perspectives.

Well, to add another perspective, my life's been somewhat the same way. Only real difference is I'm the one who's being hard on myself. I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm single, working part-time at a theater...and I don't know if I see my life going too much farther. :/ However, that definitely does NOT measure a person's worth. Nothing really does. If you feel like you're doing something with your life, even with the tiniest of steps you take, then you've done something. You said you live on your own and you're in school while you're working, right? That's a HUGE thing right there! You're doing more than enough for yourself.

I know how you feel....honestly, you shouldn't feel bad about where you are in life... you're doing better than alOt of people...including myself....I tried going to jobcorps, but my marijuana addiction jeopardized it for me..twice. Now, I just got a job working at a restaurant making 8.25 an hour...living with my mother and her verbally/mentally abusive boyfriend who fight constantly..I have no biological siblings, and most everyone in my family i feel is ashamed of me...especially my grandmother....I am talented, I know this...and had such high hopes for my future, everybody did...now it seems like this job is my only way out...I want so desperately to go to school, college...I was supposed to be half way through my studies by now...I want to major in psychology...and help people like myself who feel they have no hope...but how can I get there when i have no car, no house, and it seems, most times, no help?.. I live in FL, and the only one I feel i can talk to about Any and Everything is my boyfriend who stays hundereds of miles away, in KY...it's hard....
Anyway...I won't ramble on about it....
My point is that, you should feel so proud...you're where someone else strives to be in life...even if it is not exactly where you want to be yet...be proud, you are on your way...
If you need to talk anytime..I am all ears.

-Chella.

wow. it means so much to read all these posts. living alone can be a good and bad thing. sometimes i get lonly......i have isolated myself from friends.......family because theres too much issues....i feel like people are nkt interested in talking to someone with problems....going to school as a commuter is no fun....harder to make friends.....i am single....but o and off with bf....hes supportive....but its not the same when one needs family support........

I think millennials have inherited an entirely different planet from us generation y folk. I had my first child at 25. My mother had her first child at 21`. See a trend?

I look at people in their 30s and 20s and ... I end up thinking 'dude, i owned my first house at 27. What are you DOING?'

But it's the generation shift. Your world is not our world. The pressures are not the same pressures. I could ALWAYS get a job. Always. As a high school graduate. And full time, and enough to live on. Still can - I fluked that generation. My parents fluked the generation of cheap houses and 3% mortgages. But what have your generation got? A pile of shit is what you've got. Your parents' debts, overcrowding, overpopulation, high crime rates, social breakdown, absolutely no playing field for relationships, marriage, sex. That stuff's just all over the show. It's like playing aussie rules rugby. No bloody rules. No stability, no consistency, no security!

So yeah, not surprised you haven't started up yet. I watched my sister, generation z, try, fail, try, fail. Got a teaching degree just as the bottom fell out of teaching. She's now in australia in quality control and compliance in a giant engineering firm using neither her dance degree, nor her english degree, nor her teaching degree... far out.

In her 30s. No kids. probably will miss out. I have an accountant at work, late 30s. getting grey hair. Just broke up with her boyfriend... no kids for her.

You just take your life at your own pace. You inherited this screwed up world from your parents who didn't look after it. They have no say in where you should be 'up to' at your age. And it's not a race.

You may be the last generation of people who have any quality of life at all. Take it at your own pace. Enjoy the dental care and antibiotics. There's no rush. There's nowhere you have to be. And the way things are looking, there's nowhere to go, anyway.

Live your own life, your way, in your context, your conditions, on your own terms. Love your mother, but listen to her with your fingers in your ears. All her off-track nagging means is 'i love you.' She speaks to you through a perspex wall of time.

You are working, going to school and you live on your own. I think that all is an accomplishment.
So please pat yourself on the back!
Are you ok with you?
People judge. I know, when I was a working mom all I got when asked what do you do? was really you work and you're not home with your daughter? Then when I was able to be a stay at home mom the response I got was you don't work what do you do then?
As if I was lower than low because I didn't work outside the home.
No matter what you do everyone will have an opinion.
Yours is the only one that matters.
Opinion :
noun- a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

By the time I was your age. I was divorced, had a 5 yr old and was living back home with my mom.
So as you can see, in a lot of ways I was not exactly an accomplished person.
Now 20 yrs later -- my daughter is grown I am married I own my own home, a brand new car. I run my own business a small corporation in fact. I also work for the business. I have no debt, a six month emergency fund,

What do you want?
Who do you want to be?
Are you happy with your life or do you want to change it?

That is what matters.........not what others think.

You're already doing a lot with your life. You're working, going to school and living on your own. Now it's time to get out of the isolation. Join a church, join a meetup group online or start your own meetup group. Do you have family you are close to? Any brothers or sisters? My son is 18 but he spends a lot of time with us doing things that are social. I enjoy him so much that I am always glad to spent time with him.

Whatever anyone says to you, remind yourself you can "take what you need and leave the rest."

Sometimes, people project their dissatisfaction with their own lives onto others. Othertimes, those who care about us see our potential and they just don't know how to promote it except to point out we haven't reached it or how we haven't. Sometimes people push because of their anxieties about the passing of time. They are filled with regrets and fears. Whether she spoke them out of concern, bitterness, or fear... your mother's words obviously hurt you because you felt judged. No matter how sweet or rocky our relationships with our mothers, there is an inherent desire to please. Take a step back to get a new perspective. This is about her, not you. If you are satisfied where you are right now, that is what matters. Instead of feeling hurt yourself, try to feel for hers.

Oddly, when people cause an emotional reaction in us, it is because they need us to respond to quell the loneliness they feel in their own pain. Ask her about the dreams she has had in life. Ask her how she feels about you being an adult. Ask her about the strengths she sees in you. Affirm her feelings as she replies. Open up to her about the choices you have made and why. Above all else, let her know you appreciate she takes an interest in your life, you are grateful for her givivg you life, for what she has taught you, and for her continuing to take an interest. Reassure her she has done the best she can and the rest is up ro you... but you will always need her because she will always be your mother. It took me 7 years of therapy to realize my mom is a person just like me. Hope this helps.