Brits say they don't feel like a proper adult until nearly 30 -- why?

We legally become adults in the UK when we’re 18. We can buy a round at the pub, open a bank account in our own name, get a tattoo, and serve on a jury – but that doesn’t necessarily mean we feel like adults.

A decade later, aged 28, I still regularly feel like two toddlers masquerading in an overcoat despite having a full-time job, a home I can afford to rent, and two plants I haven’t killed.

And I’m not alone. New research has found most Brits (59%) don’t feel like ‘proper adults’ until they’re at least 29-years-old. And a quarter of the people surveyed by Nottingham Building Society believed they wouldn’t feel like an adult until the age of 60 – or over.

So why the discrepancy – between when we legally become a grown up – and when we feel like one? Have our elders always felt this way, or are millennials feeling this because traditionally “adult” milestones – like home ownership – are increasingly out of reach, or postponed until later in life?