If I say that our house has some young adults and some, uh, adulter adults

[conuly]

Is there another way of expressing that second concept that doesn't sound quite so silly? I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but some of us have much more practice being adults than others, also, we've got that frontal lobe development stuff going on. (Man, my knowledge of neurology is crap, but you know what I mean. We're closer to being finished cooking and our decision making is less screwy.) Anyway, sometimes it's useful to have a way to say this.

On the other hand, the inherent silliness of "adulter adult" might make spelling out the difference a bit less offensive.

I'm gonna backdate this. Jenn sometimes reads my journal, so I'll give this a date in March so she doesn't see it, because she's going to laugh at me. Usually, of course, I date all my posts ahead so that if I miss a day you can't see it by looking at my calendar.

Comments

[conuly]

Though most of those contexts are somewhere in the middle, as in "Listen, you probably ought to know this by now, but just in case, as the adulter adult I feel I should tell you that you need to turn the handles in when cooking. Haven't seen you screwing it up, but as I'm cooking and you're in the room I may as well take a moment!" or "Yes, I did interrupt your private conversation, because there's only five of us at this table and it's your mother's birthday, so as the, um, adulter adult I think you should know this is a no side convo situation."

[silveradept]

Ah. In those situations, I would default to "the more experienced adult" if I were feeling formal, or possibly "the old fart" if I were feeling self-deprecating.