Adulting

My gums felt puffy and tender. Gingerly, I ran my tongue over my molars and felt the telltale sharp signs of new teeth coming in behind them. No, I was not 6 years old. I was 22, working my first full time job, and I knew that my wisdom teeth had decided to surface. Sideways, into a mouth that did not have space for them. 

I called my mom. 

“And my teeth hurt, and my gums hurt, and can you call the dentist?”

“Sure,” she replied. “Here’s his number.” 

“But what do I say?” I wailed. 

“Tell him you think your wisdom teeth are coming in and you need to know if they should be extracted.”

I snuffled and hemmed and hawed and finally made the call. 

“Yep, sounds like it,” our kind, warm, family dentist responded. “We can take them out here if your dental insurance covers this practice.”

Another rude awakening. As I was no longer on my parents’ medical or dental plan because I was over 21 and had my own job, this fell on me. And unfortunately, my dental insurance did not include our family dentist’s practice. I asked if he could make an exception. He laughed and said it was the insurance company’s decision, not his. 

He recommended an oral surgeon, who I called and made an appointment with. A few weeks later, I went under the knife, my insurance paid the cost, and I wound up in bed with swollen cheeks, high on codeine, and out of it for the next 4 days. 

Adulthood. Not fun. 

So I thought as I crossed the threshold of adolescent/ college student/ young person to adult/ young professional/responsible for all things financial and medical. 

Whenever and wherever that threshold happens for you, it is a moment of reckoning. 

Studies over the last few years have coined a new phrase for this emerging trend of being able to do basic adult skills that our parents seem to do without thinking and really without stress. 

Adulting

Which can mean anything from paying your bills, buying groceries, buying car insurance, setting up a budget, following that budget, and making your bed. 

Adulting has become so popular as a term that it’s used as a hashtag to celebrate “fulfilling your basic responsibility as a human”. 

Adulting skills have also become so unknown that universities are setting up “adulting classes” to teach young people how to grow up. Their classes including things like putting together a monthly budget, nutrition basics, cleaning a house basics, dealing with conflict, negotiating relationships, changing sheets, and cooking. 

In other words, normal skills that we need to thrive. 

I had a friend in college who was asking around for help in his second year to put sheets on his bed. He really had no clue. I heard another story of a friend of a friend who never washed the dishes. He ate his tv dinner and then pushed the dirty plate under the cushions of the couch. At the end of the year, he threw away the couch. I had another friend whose mom still ordered her meal when they went out to eat. These are just a few examples of not growing up. And one of the reasons, I think, we’ve gotten to this point of not growing up is because we don’t have to. 

1/3 of millennials live at home with their parents until their mid 30s. They are on their family’s Netflix account, their parents pay their phone bill, and the fridge is usually well stocked without them having to pay a cent. ¾ of parents remind their 18-28 year old children of deadlines or make appointments for them including to see doctors. 

We’ve gone from being adolescents and students who worked hard to get good grades, held down a part time job, got involved with social life (in short, mostly, it was all about us) to being professionals who work hard to keep our job and earn an income, have a gym membership, and have plans on weekends. It’s still all about us. 

Now, I realise this is a huge generalisation. But I read an article series recently that followed the spending habits of twenty to thirty year olds by walking the reader through each person’s day. Work, ordering food, gym, nights out, and Netflix seemed to be the pinnacle of existence for most of them. Very few had children, spouses, or someone who was dependent on them. Very few made plans to meet friends face to face or got involved with something that didn’t have to do with their own comfort. 

As things like home ownership, marriage, and having kids happen later and later, it’s hard to judge the transition point between adolescence and adult, or young professional and adult. 

On top of that, so much of our lives can be lived virtually. As our lives have gone more online, we have held ourselves back from getting our hands dirty (physically and metaphorically speaking). Making mistakes, messing up a meal, saying the wrong thing when trying to say the right thing, fixing something broken. These happen through real experience, not through youtube or twitter. And it’s by leaning into these experiences that we actually grow in responsibility and maturity. 

Perhaps some of us have a fear of being settled. Or getting old. Or we’ve internalised the false sense that our youth really is the best days of our lives. Growing up is not a negative thing. It can lead to greater peace and sense of self. It also breaks us out of our self-centred bubbles because we have to involve ourselves with others.  

So, at the end of the day, choosing to “adult” is also choosing to grow into happiness.