I’d love a midlife crisis – but as a millennial, I can’t afford one

I did buy an MG last year... but somehow an electric sports car doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it? writes Kat Brown

Another tragic day for our nostalgic icons – this time, it’s that trope for the ages; the midlife crisis, which looks to be in trouble as millennials have said they simply cannot afford to engage in behaviours that make everyone else point and laugh any more than usual.

In a survey of 1,000 millennials by the US’s Thriving Center of Psychology, 81 per cent said they couldn’t afford to have a midlife crisis. More than half said they didn’t have time for one, but half said they’d probably have one anyway, in the Eeyore-laden tones of one expecting the washing machine to pack in at any moment.

In the past, there were very clear parameters for what constituted a midlife crisis: Ferrari, motorbike, makeover, extreme sports, younger dates and, if Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes, hammering your car into the back of someone else’s while declaring, “Face it girls, I’m older and I have more insurance.”

Now, though, things are different. Twentysomethings have taken the edge off the sports car market by racing around Chelsea. Motorbikes are even thinner on the ground, although my husband is partial to an electric scooter to really experience life on the edge. Of my dwindling biker friends, Anna and her partner Andy are blood bikers, which sounds excitingly midlife crisis-y until you learn that it’s a team of volunteers who transport medical supplies for the NHS.

More likely in my neck of the woods in Streatham are bikes. There was great excitement in my street a few weeks back when a BikeNest materialised outside number 67 – but who’s got the energy? We’re more likely to see hordes of urban forest and Lime bikes chucked outside the Co-op.

What about the quintessential midlife crisis Ferrari? I feel on firmer ground as my husband and I got a new MG last year – but we rent it... and it’s electric because of Ulez... and a five-door so we can fit the dog in the back seat. Damn. Also, Instagram has seen interiors take over where cars used to lead. Posting photos of your DIY panelling and the paint you’ve used on your skirting boards is the equivalent of waxing the car on a Sunday.

In other areas, midlife tropes are alive and well, but only because millennials have been doing them for ages. We all got into running, cycling and pilates in our twenties – I ran my midlife crisis marathon at 31, well ahead of schedule – and established sensible skin routines.

I haven’t yet had “tweakments” because I have a good dermatologist, and ADHD means that I spend so much time researching that I get paralysed by indecision. A late-40s pal who got a mini face-lift recently looked so good beforehand that the results were invisible to the naked eye.

Equally, the conversation about hair transplants is fascinating given the omertà that has long existed among men about discussing practically anything. I will be visiting my dentist for some cosmetic work, but this is less due to giving my mouth a makeover and more that I chipped one of my veneers on Monday while eating a rice cake. Gentlemen, form an orderly queue, please, lest my midlife hotness overwhelm you.

But I suspect the main reason midlife crises aren’t on the cards is that millennials have been in a state of perpetual struggle for the last 20 years. You have a quarter-life crisis in your mid-20s when you realise Brandon Flowers is your age and you’ll never be a platinum-selling rock star, then you have the list of things to do before you’re 30.

You’ve got newspapers barking at you to have kids before you’re 35, but you can’t afford to buy a property unless you’re a banker or your parents give you a hand. Oh, and then the financial crisis in 2008 which we still don’t seem to have recovered from. Perhaps the real midlife crisis is the one we’ve been in all along...

The market is so much less secure than for previous generations – no wonder millennials have been making big changes in their careers, often around entrepreneurship. My dad worked in the same firm his entire career, whereas I was made redundant four times by 34.

A true midlife crisis is about raging against the status quo, and how can you when the market is so uncertain and career prospects post-50 are famously iffy? There isn’t time to react against convention when things are still unsettled. Maybe we’ll upcycle some furniture or get really into pottery.

But the truly wobbly crisis will need to wait until things are more stable – shall we circle back in 10 years?