How to Adult: Stephen Wildish

Product Information

Brown does not plan to have kids, and she’s interested in the formation of meaningful relationships with kids and young people. “That’s something that’s brought me a lot of joy,” she said. This topic is coming up a lot lately. For her newsletter Culture Study, Anne Helen Petersen wrote about caring for others and allowing oneself to be cared for. The cookbook author Samin Nosrat described the “anti-nuclear family” she eats with every Tuesday. “Chosen families” are lifelines for queer communities, and the concept is becoming more widely discussed.

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. 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. 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. This is the one book you need to read if you’re ready to take up the challenge of becoming your true and vital adult self. It is filled with great stories of people just like you, told by a master storyteller. We need more adults in the world and it really is Your Turn.” 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?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 is the perfect mix of romance, finding help in an unexpected source and growing up. Chase is an actress but after unsuccessful trips to rehab and breaking parole there is only one person willing to give her a second chance. Olivia is a successful therapist but now her employees typically work with patients. She doesn’t want to work with Chase and Chase is even less willing to work with her. Once they start working together, Chase and Olivia help each other. Addiction and sexual assault are mentioned in Adulting. Adulting shows how Hollywood and acting affects people. Chase doesn’t know how to adult, so it is entertaining to see her learning. Adulting really caught my attention and kept my focus throughout. This book really surprised me in a good way. I was expecting a cute romantic comedy, but this book was so much more. I recommend Adulting for fans of romance that like a mix of serious and comedy. All of these are choices, and they’re all valid and up to you, and your choices along these lines do not make you any more or less an adult. Except you must have a way to support yourself. That’s not negotiable. But it’s hardly all there is to adulting.Leave home. Even if you want to, you may not be able to leave home anytime soon, because macroeconomic forces have made it impossible for you to afford to live independently in the town in which you grew up. Multigenerational living works perfectly well in many cultures as long as everyone is doing their fair share. And that’s the key. It may not be realistic to expect you’ll leave home; being an adult is about behaving responsibly and accountably and having freedom and independence in whatever dwelling you call your home.

The characters span political views, socioeconomic statuses and mindsets. Lythcott-Haims purposefully introduces each by race and sexuality. This isn’t a book where people are white and straight unless otherwise noted.

More From This Series

This book touches on deep and sometimes dark and uncomfortable subjects. But it's also light-hearted and fun at other times, with moments of amusement and laughter as well. Though you're guaranteed to get annoyed with Chase in the beginning chapters, and probably with Olivia too. But as stiff as Olivia is in the beginning, she starts to loosen up over time and you really get to know and understand her. I found her plotline with Conrad and Marley's history a lot more interesting than I expected to. It makes me understand better why Olivia chose this line of work, and I really liked the emphasis on family in her plotline. As for Chase, her transformation allows you to see a better and brighter side to her. The side that isn't shrouded by Hollywood lights and fame. The person she really is within, who is finally discovering who she is, what she likes, what she WANTS. Engaging in fun and happiness along the way. Lythcott-Haims’s conversational prose and can-do energy will entice readers . . . emerging with a greater sense of what adulting means and how to proceed with confidence and enthusiasm.”