Hello, my dear friends and gummy bears,
This essay has taken me six weeks to write. In all my essays, I try to learn as much as I possibly can about the subject to inform my opinions. I scan everything from Reddit forums to peer-reviewed research to YouTube videos, tweets, TikToks, overheard conversations, dreams, and visions – all with the goal of presenting a comprehensive, informed take to present to you. While I often refer to my writing as a ‘hot take,’ it’s anything but.
Anyway, this essay has taken me six weeks to write. Why? Because I couldn’t find enough mainstream evidence to substantiate my opinions. I found a think piece here and there and a couple of tabloid rants, but that was it. So naturally, I felt a bit nervous because I had a very strong opinion but not enough evidence to defend it.
So what was I to do? I felt like abandoning it. Could I trust that my perspective and opinions might have some merit even if they feel a little bit solitary? Does my opinion actually matter? I felt deeply uncomfortable with that idea, which is why I dillydallied for so long.
Here’s what I’ve decided to do
I’ve divided this essay into two parts. Part one will sound a little disgruntled and opinion-focused, which I’m learning is okay. It’s fine to not like things. It’s okay to have an opinion on the internet – Lord knows there are plenty of idiots that don’t feel even a little bit uncomfortable sharing theirs. Part two will include more practical, implementable ideas.
I’m also deciding that it’s okay to be wrong, and to be wrong in public. There’s plenty for me to understand as I grow as a writer and as an individual. There are important perspectives that I may know nothing about. I’m open to learning.
So, I’m adding a section at the end of this essay called ‘Post-Publishing Perspectives That Matter’ where I will add anything that you, the reader, share with me about this subject. It doesn’t have to be deep, it can just be your thoughts, your ideas, the things you disagree or agree with, your feelings, ANYTHING.
This is my commitment to continuing the conversation and remaining open-minded and teachable. It also helps ease the discomfort I have over this unpopular opinion.
Are we ready? I’m not. But let’s do this.
I hate the word adulting
Rather, I hate the idea that ‘adulting’ exists. I hate the way the word is used. I don’t hate it from a linguistic point of view, like, sure, turn whatever you want into a verb. I don’t care about grammar – never have, never will. But the idea that adulting is a thing gives me the ick.
For the uninitiated, adulting is a word used to describe the burden of grown-up responsibilities. It has become a catch-all for any task associated with traditional adulthood:
Making your own doctor’s appointments, paying bills, coordinating schedules with friends, doing laundry, cooking a meal, having a favorite spatula, going to work, doing your job, paying your taxes, partying less, buying groceries on the weekend. You get the idea.
The word ‘adulting’ became a part of the cultural lexicon only about a decade ago. Kelly Williams Brown published a book in 2013 called, “Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps,” where she introduced the idea that ‘adulthood’ wasn’t a concrete state but a verb. Adulthood is a series of small, daily decisions that turned you into a competent, well-adjusted member of society.
This quirky manual delivered practical advice on everything from cleaning your house, saving money, navigating friendships, and buying bulk toilet paper. One piece of advice was, ‘Don’t put tacos in your handbag.’ So clearly, the book was about being mature when it was much easier not to be.
In 2013, most millennials were coming of age and were expected to hit some of the traditional adulthood milestones, and while the book was massively successful, the term ‘adulting’ took on a life of its own.
Fun side fact: I managed to find the very first mention of ‘adulting’ as a verb on Twitter from way, way back in 2008 when Twitter itself was a baby.
The use of the term ‘adulting’ skyrocketed around the 2014–2018. In 2016, it was one of the candidates for Oxford Dictionary’s Word of The Year (this is a thing), along with ‘woke’ and ‘xenophobia.’ Another fun side fact is that 2016 was the year of Brexit, so I guess those words make sense. Sad-lol.
Okay, back to it.
Okay, no, sorry, please can I have just one more fun side fact, last one, I promise!!!!
Did you know that Oxford Dictonary’s Word of The Year for 2015 was… 😂
Like 😂 the emoji. I’m not making this up.
Okay, NOW I swear, back to the subject at hand.
WHY, then, are we talking about adulting in the year of our Lord 2023?
The word woke has long been relegated to its status as a weird relic that means little to nothing. The emoji 😂 is now considered cringe and old-fashioned.
How has adulting remained evergreen? And why? It makes sense to ask the author of the adulting manual that started it all, and luckily, ten years later, someone did.
Here’s what she said: “I am so sorry for it. It haunts me.”
It haunts me, too, Kelly!!!
In fact, just this week, I looked up #adulting on Twitter, and the conversations around it haven’t changed one bit. We haven’t gotten over ‘adulting’ yet. So, let’s sit down and discuss.
Why am I so irrationally riled up about adulting?
Three key reasons
- It’s not that I don’t fall under the same category of people as ‘adult.’ This is an in-group opinion. The call is coming from inside the house. I’m a millennial in many wonderful and also cringey ways. I have frequently failed at basic adult tasks, BUT – I just don’t like the word. And so, whenever I have strong feelings about something (and I usually have the strongest feelings about the dumbest things), I take it upon myself to learn and understand why that might be. Is it possible to dislike something without reason, i.e. just cuz? Is there some underlying reason for the disdain that I’m unaware of?
- I, along with most people that say adulting, are most certainly grownups. Why are we so amused/baffled/upset by our existence as adults. If this is an affliction that we’re all coping with, it’s worth exploring.
- While I agree that most stuff on the internet can fall under the umbrella of being ‘not that serious,’ I think this merits a discussion. I understand that most people use it casually. For fun. But it’s also fun to examine popular culture (for me). I’m having the best time right now.
Adulting is hard
I’m not gonna dive into the sociological, political, and economic reasons for why millennials have been dealt a lousy hand in life. Pew Research does a better job of that than I do.
If I were to ask most people my age (30!!!) if they see themselves as an adult, I can guarantee there’d be some uncomfortable shuffling. There’d be a ‘Yes–but.’ That’s not because I hang out with a bunch of juvenile ninnies. It’s because the five traditional markers for adulthood – finishing your education, leaving home, finding work, finding a life partner, and having kids – haven’t necessarily been a priority for everyone. Or, in some cases, they haven’t been accessible options.
This is why the transition from adolescence to adulthood has become increasingly nebulous. In fact, this isn’t a new realization. In 2000 (twenty-three whole years ago), an insightful person named Jeffery Arnett proposed an in-between stage, a sort of halfway house between adolescence and adulthood that he called ‘emerging adulthood.’
If you consider the fact that this was in 2000, that means the oldest millennials would’ve been nineteen and the youngest would’be been six years old. This means that his recommendations and ideas weren’t just about today’s quintessential millennials. It was based on his observations of Gen X, i.e., the parents of Gen Z. Turns out, they weren’t as well-adjusted as we’d like to think.
According to his proposal, “Emerging adults do not see themselves as adolescents, but many of them also do not see themselves entirely as adults.” Agree, Jeffry.
“Emerging adulthood differs both from adolescence and from young adulthood in that it is, to some extent, defined by its heterogeneity. In emerging adulthood, there is little that is normative.” We’re two-for-two on this, Jeff. Super agree. What even is normal. Everyone is doing different things in life.
Then, his paper recommends looking at adulthood through a different lens (not the anxiety-inducing list of five that I shared earlier).
“The locus on identity issues in emerging adulthood can be seen in the three main areas of identity exploration: love, work, and worldviews. Identity formation involves trying out various life possibilities and gradually moving toward making enduring decisions.” Jeffery, here is a forehead kiss for you. I cannot express how much I love this take. I feel like love, work (or purpose), and worldviews are far more holistic and important indicators of adulthood than procreation and marriage.
Taking from his research:
“When our mothers were our age, they were engaged. They at least had some idea what they were going to do with their lives. I, on the other hand, will have a dual degree in majors that are ambiguous at best and impractical at worst (English and political science), no ring on my finger, and no idea who I am, much less what I want to do. Sometimes, when I look out across the wide expanse that is my future, I can see beyond the void. I realize that having nothing ahead to count on means I now have to count on myself, that having no direction means forging one of my own.”
Kristen, aged 22, in the year 1999
So yes, Kristen, Jeffery, and Kelly – adulthood IS hard, confusing, and ambiguous.
You are not a smol baby 🥺 🥺 🥺 🥺
Please allow me to get emotional and riled up here.
First off, hats off to my fellow Millennials for turning adulthood into a hobby/art form – a blend of carefree escapades and quasi-responsibilities. Adulting no longer refers solely to marriage and kids, which is great. But adulting has become frilly.
Here’s what the narrative about ‘adulting’ is today – I literally JUST looked this up on Twitter. I didn’t dig hard and cherry-pick the worst of the lot. These were all shared this week.
Do we really expect a trophy for putting away our clothes? Is it really baffling that your childhood relationships (people you knew when you were obviously not an adult) might have evolved now that you’re all grown up? Are we really vexed about the fact that we need to do laundry?
Call me a cranky old mom. You might actually be onto something, and I’ll take it. These sound whiny and infantile to me.
In a fiery opinion piece by Danielle Tullo that’s worth a read (although it borders on being a little too scathing), she says:
“The people who use this term are always people who think it’s “quirky” to be incompetent. It’s not “cute” or “quirky” to not understand how to do your laundry or change a lightbulb when you’re pushing 40. It’s a singularly millennial immaturity that reduces being a grown-up to a hobby.”
Whenever I’m confronted with this version of adulting, I always wonder: If not adulting, then what? What sounds like a desirable alternative? If you ‘cannot adult today,’ what would you like to do instead? Embark on a lifelong quest for the Fountain of Youth? Make the trip to Neverland to hang out with Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Captain Hook, and the Lost Boys?
How can you desire the privileges of adulthood but detest the responsibilities intrinsic to it?
This life doesn’t exist. It’s an illusion. Adulting implies that being an adult is not essential to growing up. It reduces being an adult to a life choice you’re hesitant to fully buy into.
If you opt out of ‘adulting,’ you’re just a giant baby. And from my experience of nearly one year of hanging out with a baby 24/7, let me let you in on a little secret: Being a baby sucks. You’re at the mercy of the adults around you. You’re completely helpless and vulnerable all the damn time. Your brain isn’t fully developed. You have no agency, and nobody takes your opinions seriously. You can’t make a single decision.
But youth was so carefree and amazing
All my friends lived close by. We saw each other everyday at school. There were no bills to pay. No kids to look after. No boss to suck up to. No debt. No taxes. No laundry.
Sure, childhood and adolescence were carefree and amazing, but I’ve only gained that perspective in retrospect.
I NOW know that schoolyard politics and high school drama wasn’t the biggest problem in the world. I now know that exams and grades don’t define the entire course of my life. I now know that if someone tells my secrets to everyone, I will eventually be able to trust again. I now know that all those annoying rules that my parents had for me actually made some sense. I did not know all this back then.
So childhood was, in many ways, as baffling as adulthood. Similarly, adulthood isn’t just tax returns and mysterious back pains; it has wonderful things about it, too. In fact, maybe adulthood feels overwhelming because deep down, we’re still those kids, but with the addition of bills, bosses, and, yes, the friggin laundry.
Part of the reason for this confusion and unpreparedness for adulthood is because, as children, we believe that adults are a fundamentally different species. We think that at some point, we’re transformed into capable, functional, child-bearing, job-having, laundry-doing people. That viewpoint is rubbish.
Adults are simply learning as they go, armed with more experience, life lessons, and hopefully, the tools to manage themselves with dignity. But still, their feelings get hurt. Adults get scared of things. They cry when their friends let them down. They feel sad, angry, lonely, and lost. They also love having fun. They like to laugh. They care about things. They experience pure, ‘child-like’ joy.
The reason that my peers and I feel like adulthood took us by surprise might be because we thought childhood and adolescence would ‘prepare’ us for adulthood. But nothing truly prepares you for it. It’s mostly a cycle of living and learning, and the best adults I know – the adult-iest of adults – are people that have committed to doing just that.
Now I know this whole take is coming across much stronger than we’re all comfortable with. I also know that most references to adulting are made lightheartedly as a way of easing the crappiness of doing annoying things. ‘It’s not that serious’ – I hear it. Please know that I have nothing against celebrating small wins.
I absolutely support the idea of embracing whimsy. I think we should be excited about having a favorite spatula; I have one too. But I also think that the idea and narrative around ‘adulting’ isn’t actually something that naturally occurred to us. I think it’s almost entirely driven by internet culture, similar to how we all collectively decided to have an opinion about pineapple on pizza. Did any of us truly care about this, or did the internet just tell us it was a quirky personality trait?
Adulting made its way into our consciousness because of too many meme-oriented jokes about the millennial experience that harp on the sadness of leaving our young years behind when everything in our society tells us that youth is the only time we’re relevant.
The popular ‘adulting’ narrative is tied to youth and – girls.
Correction – women. We’re uncomfortable with the word ‘women’ and prefer calling ourselves girls, but that’s a subject for a different day.
Even just a random search on Twitter for #adulting tosses up tweets almost entirely by women. Is this because women are typically expected to be responsible for domestic, ‘adulting’ tasks like laundry, cooking, and housekeeping? Or is there something murkier?
Here’s what annoys me the most:
Out of all the women I’ve encountered that talk about adulting, NONE of them are incompetent babies. They aren’t damsels in distress. On the contrary, they’re successful, thriving entrepreneurs, they’ve received amazing accolades at their jobs, they make it a priority to work on themselves, they’ve navigated wildly difficult life changes, they’re raising children, investing their money, and, in general, being nothing short of marvelous.
SO WHYYYYY. Why does this weird dichotomy exist? Why does a woman who’s just steered her startup through an economic crisis choose to share the fact that she ate a vegetable today? #adultingwin
Why has it become the cultural norm for women to sell themselves short in this way? Danielle Tullo’s article addresses it succinctly:
“Women who use the term aren’t deeply impressed with themselves for doing basic adult tasks like laundry. They know it’s not a huge achievement, and though millennial-bashers think 20-somethings want a trophy for purchasing car insurance or managing to regularly put on clean underwear, they really don’t. The reality is that it’s easier to share, “Ate something that wasn’t Nutella for dinner tonight #adulting” on social media than it is to share, “I kicked ass at work this week and have some awesome things about to happen in my career #adulting.”
Let’s think about that for a moment.
Women are rightfully wary of this kind of self-promotion, which perhaps explains why they are seemingly more likely to use the word ‘adulting.’ My peers and I find it easier to sidestep the spotlight when it comes to our genuine achievements. In a society that often equates a woman’s self-assuredness and confidence with arrogance, it becomes easier to play the smol baby card.
The online sharing of our #adultingwins isn’t so much an ode to incompetence but rather a shield against the incessant reminder that a woman’s most valuable currency is not wisdom or experience, but perpetual youth.
This article in the Washington Post, appropriately titled, “The word ‘adulting’ is gross. It’s also sexist,” elaborates:
“I hate the word adulting because it’s a self-infantilizing rejection of female maturity in a culture that already has almost no love for grown-up women — deploying “adulting” to describe what’s otherwise known as “life” is a sure way for a woman not to be seen as an adult.”
Okay I’m done, can we be friends again?
I’m not trying to be a killjoy or ruffle feathers for the heck of it. I’m not trying to undermine anyone who has worked at learning to be independent and responsible. I’ve struggled with ‘adulting’ too, and while I still dislike the term, it’s not because I know how to ‘adult’ any better than the next person.
Despite ticking off most of the five adulthood milestones, I’m awful at so many grown-up things. I’m terrible at scheduling. I have help with taking care of my home and laundry and I still sometimes take days to put my clothes away. I’m bad at having tough conversations.
And all of this is in spite of having the immense privilege of a stable, healthy, and happy childhood with loving and supportive parents. For people who came from a less-than-perfect home, for those who experienced trauma, or faced systemic marginalization – adulting can be a harder conundrum to navigate.
For this group, adulting isn’t just a sassy hashtag but a very real, daily battle, marked by the unpredictability of their past where the lines between childhood and adulthood were blurred far too early. It’s a relentless struggle to unlearn survival tactics that once shielded them, to redefine trust, and to build life skills without the guidebook many take for granted.
When people who have faced these challenges step into the adult world, their challenges are probably twofold: managing the present while untangling the past. Adulting, for them, might look like healing, rebuilding, and crafting a sense of self from scattered pieces.
They don’t just need agency, but understanding and empathy.
Most of us will have encountered seasons in our lives where we’ve behaved a little badly, done the wrong thing, and screwed up. Or we’ve floundered around with basic adult tasks and messed things up. I think it’d be better for our confidence and our sense of self if we considered those missteps as an essential part of ‘adulting’ rather than a sign of unpreparedness.
While traditional markers of adulthood, such as marriage, homeownership, stable employment, and parenthood, hold merit, they aren’t universal yardsticks. They’re pathways, not prescriptions.
Embracing the smol baby persona can offer a fleeting refuge when adulting feels scary, but we need to prevent this retreat from becoming a permanent sanctuary. If we let the fleeting appeal of immaturity dictate our identity, we risk becoming malleable tools, easily influenced by a society that benefits from our hesitance to fully mature. Remaining ‘forever young’ might sound poetic, but it often serves the ulterior motive of a consumerist world, making us easily moldable to shifting political and cultural whims.
We will never make the world a better place if we tap out and expect ‘real adults’ to tackle real challenges. True adulthood is a commitment to navigate the complexities of our evolving selves, maintain our integrity, and resist the seductive charm of unending naivety.
A refined vision of adulthood might involve working hard at something that matters to you, mindful self-care, extending kindness to others, being less self-centered, and investing in pursuits beyond our own immediate gratification.
Even if infantilization is being pushed upon us, even if the helplessness we feel has a tangible basis in reality, even if adulting really does suck!!!! – we can still choose to see ourselves as capable of changing our own lives and the world around us. Our legacy rests in this belief.
As promised –
Post-Publishing Perspectives That Matter
Adulting alone is harder. If you have a companion / partner to help you navigate all these firsts, it becomes less scary and there’s someone to share the worries and anxieties with. And someone to share the tasks with. Going from being an emerging adult to an actual adult all by yourself (meaning, unattached) takes way more grit.
Adulting is generally used playfully. To celebrate the small wins and little tasks to make them feel less like a pain in the 🍑. Using the term on the internet the way we do is also this generations way of saying, I may not be married but I still adulted today. I may not have a home but hey I had my moment today, I baked a cake from scratch. And no matter how much we talk about aging gracefully, everyone deep down wants to hold on to their youth in some way. This is probably a way to bridge that gap. To raise your hand and say yeah I did this, I’m old. But I’m also young enough to want to celebrate that.
Housework wasn’t adult work it was everyone’s work. Back when the world was more agricultural, children and adolescents (for better or for worse) had real responsibilities pertaining to the house. They used to have a lot more responsibilities than they do now.
With each generation, parents seem to be trying to delay adulthood. They think they’re giving their children a better life by only encouraging freedom or on the opposite end, only pushing education. Their kids then see increased responsibilities in life as a burden rather than a reward when you’ve been addicted to the flashing lights and instant gratification your whole life. Every endeavor turns into a contemplation of how one can best serve self and adding on extra work for the sake of others certainly doesn’t do that.
Adulting is empowering. “I love adulting and I love being an adult. I know myself a lot better now (always an ongoing process). When I listen to my young students talking about their life, my only thought is – ‘I would NEVER want to be your age ever again.’ Being an adult is the sweet spot of life where you get to do the things which you couldn’t get to do when you were younger because of lack of money or parental authority.”
Having your own child reshapes the narrative around adulthood, especially if you grew up in a home without an adult. Adulting takes on a new meaning because you see the value of the grubby adult tasks; you see how they’re shaping someone’s childhood, and you can do them more joyfully.
Acknowledging that you’re an adult doesn’t mean you have to know everything. “I also have slowly been realizing that it’s not such a big deal saying that I’m an adult and I don’t need to know everything to be one. I’m learning as I go. My parents also probably didn’t know everything when they had me but they knew more than me and that was enough.”
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