How to Adult: Stephen Wildish

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But demographic pressures, labor-market conditions, and social norms have evolved a lot in the past decade, and the concerns of people in their 20s and 30s are not what they were in 2013. Businesses such as hotels, car rental agencies and restaurants often require a credit card to hold reservations. A debit card won’t always do, unless it is one with a mastercard or visa logo on it. And while we’re speaking fundamental truths, let me also say that adulting is at times delicious. Believe it or not, this adulting thing? You’ll want to.

Paying bills on time and writing thank you letters, funnily enough, didn’t turn out to be the blueprint for growing up that we’d hoped it might be (although I still do both). There wasn’t much room for making mistakes in this version of adulting – which is, of course, the only way to become truly adult. Plus, in highlighting our extended adolescence, did it compound the millennial stereotype of a generation of fragile, self-obsessed snowflakes who can’t get a mortgage because we eat too much brunch? Our modern understanding of childhood was invented in the late 19th century, and I wonder if our contemporary idea of what it means to be an adult emerged out of that same definitional project: being an adult is to be a not-kid. Kids are dependent on others and need constant care. Therefore, adults are independent and can look after themselves. Parents have been marooned without child care, and child-free people have been wondering how they can offer help when young parents seem so unaccustomed to asking for it. Step 254 in Adulting is “Hang up or fold things, as they prefer.” Okay, but allow me to propose Step 536 for the 2023 edition: Don’t worry about the mess. Emiko Tamagawaproduced and edited this interview for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Serena McMahonadapted it for the web. Now that you’ve set up your accounts, you’ll need to fund them properly. This means creating a budget to help you curb spending and put some money into savings.Something I appreciated about this story was the inclusion of believable established relationships. Chase's single healthy friendship with fellow child star Spencer Rome and Olivia's damaged sisterhood with Neve were both truly indicative of their traumas and histories, but also provided so much extra nuance and depth to their characters. In so many ways, this story was everything I wanted it to be, before I knew I wanted it to be that. Author Liz Talley put the above trigger warning in the front of Adulting which I appreciate and I almost didn’t read the book, but since I’ve been on a Liz Talley binge read lately I went ahead and started it and I’m so glad I did. Liz has the ability to write women and their friendships with one another in such a way that you want to insert yourself into the story and become a character. This book was no different despite that none of the women in this story were close at the beginning and that included the two sisters. A story of change, of acceptance, of forgiveness, of building new relationships and of hope, Adulting was an amazing women’s fiction novel. I will also go out on a limb and say this is probably one of those books you will either love or you will hate. There was a lot of pressure, in the years following the 2008 housing crisis, to perform genuflections to the markers of neoliberal success: saving for a first home, dressing for the jobs we wanted, killing it at work before settling down to raise kids with the domestic partners with whom, in those halcyon days, we expected to equally and fairly divide our household labor. Olivia’s program is unique and not standard therapy and so they head up to a cabin in the woods of northern California Olivia recently inherited along with her sister where Chase will learn how to “adult” something she missed out on as between her mom/manager and everyone else she has never had to do much on her own. I’ll admit, Olivia’s tough love approach seemed a bit harsh at first yet not because Chase was a spoiled celebrity with no clue how the real world works. I honestly loved watching Chase go from angry and begrudging to resigned and finally to acceptance while learning how to be a better person and how to take care of a home, personal finances, and life in general. Every time Chase did something and cheered herself on, I cheered for her as well. Yes she was spoiled and vapid at the start but it was also easy to see that she was running from the things in her life that hurt her. Marry and have children. Okay, sure, if you feel like it. Or you may remain both single and childless. Or maybe you’ll have a lifelong partner without a religion or state sanctifying your union. And maybe you and your partner will have children, or maybe you won’t. Or you may have children without having a partner. Neither marrying nor having children is any longer a requirement of adulthood.

Through it all, the message about adulting remained the same: the goal was to get onto that traditional life path. The one you’re supposed to follow. Meet a partner, buy a home, start a family. All while nailing it at work, being an amazing friend and having the perfect wardrobe. Adulting can’t be boiled down to just 10 steps. It’s a very philosophical conversation about what life is, when life feels good, and what gets in our way.’ I've read several other books by Liz Talley and always loved them, especially her Morning Glory series, but I loved Adulting in a different way. In fact I reached out via FB to tell her I was enjoying the book immensely and that Neve had just arrived. I never message an author to fangirl while I'm still barely into the book! To you’re struggling to find fulfillment, deeply reflect on what you’re skilled at and what you love, she says. She suggests also asking yourself where you feel safe, connected and belonged. This story had a compelling premise and started out believably, powerfully even. The pacing was good, and the author might be a therapist, she seemed so knowledgeable about human development and therapy. The description of life at the cabin rang true and the surroundings were lovely. The relationship between Olivia and her sister was relatable and beautiful.Adulting ~~ wow! This book is one that will hit you right in the feels and keep hitting you. While this starts out seeming like it's a book about another spoiled actress trying to turn her life around, but no. It's not. Well, it is, but it's deeper than that and provides so much "adulting" that you will find yourself cheering. The whole world needs to learn how to adult if you ask me and this book is a darn good place to start! Holed up in my parents’ guest room, Dan and I folded our bodies into each other as quietly as possible, and then sleep inevitably came. One night, we dreamed out loud about living a slower-paced life on this island. Dan could easily be a handyman. He understands how things work, likes to be helpful, and loves to make things. Being more of a people-person, maybe I would work selling fried clams near the beach, or T-shirts. Then we started really fantasizing. Maybe we could open a little inn to serve the tourists who make this their summertime mecca, and relax into a much slower-paced life during the other eight months of the year. But we’d always end these conversations with a wistful sigh. We were twenty-five (Dan) and twenty-six (me), and I’d just graduated from a powerhouse law school. Slower-paced didn’t seem the right speed for our age and stage of life. In childhood, we’re completely cared for by others. And at the end of our lives, if we're fortunate, we are also cared for to a large extent by others who are a little bit more hale and hearty,” she says. “Adulthood is that sweet, delicious set of independent years — decades, we hope — where we're well and able to make our own way.” At first I didn't think I was going to like this book. I wasn't drawn to a book about an entitled actress who wouldn't accept the help she didn't have to pay for. As the story went on and we got to know the characters better, I started to like the story better. Both of the women have issues in their pasts that have turned them into the women that they are today. Sometimes you might long to be a kid again. (Not to be the actual diapered or play-dating child, but at least to feel taken care of.) Is it scary out there in the wide-open landscape of life where you fend for yourself and where anything is possible? Yeah.

What I liked: the overall thesis of the book, that we all have agency and the ability to take care of ourselves if we apply ourselves. Further, life can be a crap sandwich and it is important to learn to manage disappointment. Plus, there was a solid ‘Karate Kid’ reference. Her breakthrough came with an assist from a handwritten letter sent by a Washington University student named Kristine. Lythcott-Haims’s first book, Kristine wrote, had helped her see how her parents’ heavy-handedness had left her a little “underbaked.” Just that day she’d had to push her mom to let her 16-year-old brother slice his own salami. Kristine didn’t want to obsess on blame; she wanted to claim her agency—and to foster it in her brother. How could she? What does it mean to be an adult? In the twentieth century, psychologists came up with five markers of adulthood: finish your education, get a job, leave home, marry, and have children. Since then, every generation has been held to those same markers. Yet so much has changed about the world and living in it since that sequence was formulated. All of those markers are choices, and they’re all valid, but any one person’s choices along those lines do not make them more or less an adult.

More things I liked about the book: how it emphasized the importance of moving towards change on your own terms. People like to think, with mental health and substance abuse, that interventions work. And for some people, it does. But there's a thing called motivational interviewing. We can't force a client to change, as much as we might like to for their own good; they have to get to that point themselves. And I think this book did a wonderful job showing that, both in Chase AND in Olivia, even though Olivia was the therapist. Nobody can force us to change. They can try, and we can accommodate. But that doesn't mean we will get the most out of our recovery. By getting to that place when we're ready, with a little bit of help along the way, we are capable of many things. Julie’s career, her way of being in relationships, the way she shares the stories in the book, all embody to me that reinvention process—that constant change is actually the way that we are becoming ourselves,” Watkinson says. “And I find that really compelling and really beautiful and not the common narrative that always gets shared.” Going through this book has been the perfect balance of uncomfortable and loving,” says Michelle Goldring, ’10, MA, ’11, who is part of a group of alumni who began discussing advance copies of Your Turn on Zoom this winter. A corporate attorney who recently shifted into the HR side of law, Goldring didn’t personally know “Dean Julie” at Stanford—they embraced once in White Plaza when Goldring was giving out “free hugs”—but the voice in the book feels intensely familiar to her. “Reading this book sounds like sitting down in her office or sitting with my favorite people who I knew at Stanford who kind of set me straight.” She’s not critiquing that parenting style, but rather letting young folks know that “some of you are a little underbaked because you were overmanaged,” she says. Lythcott-Haims has plenty of experience to draw from. She’s a mother to two young adults and advised young people for years when she was the dean of freshmen at Stanford University. And, of course, she once faced the journey herself.

Adulting introduces us to Chase, Olivia, and Neve as the primary characters and what wonderful characters they are! Chase - think Lindsay Lohan or Brittany Spears. Chase made me laugh, made my heart hurt for her, and made me want every happy thing for her. Olivia was the bomb and the relationship that developed between the three ladies just kept throwing new curves and surprises my way. But there is no hard and fast set of rules that adults must live by, she says, which is why she altered the definition of adult to be “the stage of life between childhood and death.”If all you've been taught is don't talk to strangers, you're going to be terribly bewildered and ill-equipped when you leave your parents’ home and go out into the workplace or the military or college and discover that your life is full of strangers,” she says. I very much believe in the power of our personal stories to help others feel less alone and more seen and supported.’ Yes, you should have fun,” she writes. “But at the same time, you’re supposed to be figuring out who you are and what you’re good at, how you’re going to make a living, who you want in your life, and how you’re going to make things better in the world, so you need to get going on that.” I suggest starting out with only one, as to not get into trouble with overspending. You should also try and pay the full statement balance each month to avoid unnecessary interest charges. 2. Budgeting and Debt Consolidation There are a few good credit cards out there, designed to help you build credit when you’re just starting out. The limits will not be as high and some even offer rewards.