How to Adult: Stephen Wildish

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I listened to the audiobook narrated by Carly Robins. I really enjoyed her narration and the amount of emotion in her voice. 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. Her proactive advice shines “a very warm light” on young people who may be looking into the future with fear in their eyes, she says. She wants to show them there isn’t one path to becoming an adult, but rather “a wide-open landscape” to take advantage of, she says. Adulting can’t be boiled down to just 10 steps,” she says. “It’s a very philosophical conversation about what life is, when life feels good, and what gets in our way.”

They say there’s no manual for being a grown-up, but former Stanford dean Julie Lythcott-Haims has finally created one —and it’s a must-read. Your Turn is the compassionate, candid, comprehensive guide every young adult needs to navigate smoothly through the world, covering everything from jobs and finances to relationships and emotional health. Julie is part therapist, part tell-it-like-it-is wise older friend whose wisdom will benefit anyone who’s trying to figure out this thing we call life —which is to say, everyone.”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. 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. 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.’ Chase London is an actress who has messed her life up. Drinking and drugs have almost destroyed her career. She has one last chance to get her life together and get this movie role. Olivia Han is the person who is going to be the one to do this for her. But will Chase accept the help and be able to get herself on the right path? 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.

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. 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. Adulting is wanting to, having to and learning how,” she says, a phrase she calls the book’s guiding principles. And it’s hustling. 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. Create a step-by-step plan with a timeline. If you don’t include a timeline, it’s much easier to put it off.

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USA Today bestselling author Liz Talley’s emotional and heart-lifting novel about facing the past, unconditional love, and a woman on the verge of a breakthrough. The result has come with tremendous upsides and a host of challenges, Lythcott-Haims says. In an era when things like COVID-19 and economic hardship are forcing more people to try multigenerational living, she and her mother want to offer an account of why they did it, what was hard and what they learned. It might seem a small pivot—from one side of the parent-child equation to the other—but for Lythcott-Haims, ’89, it proved paralyzing. She’d spent years at Stanford and as a Silicon Valley mom steeped in the habits of parents stage-managing their kids—and as a mother of two, she certainly would admit to having done her fair share of hovering. Overparenting was an area she knew cold. 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.

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.” But unfortunately I do have some complaints. But they aren't anything too major. They didn't take away from my enjoyment of the story. Julie Lythcott-Haims has long been one of America’s finest minds and fiercest voices. Now, with this remarkable book, she establishes herself as something else: the mentor our young people deserve. Your Turn is simultaneously electrifying and reassuring —a jaw-dropping, spine-tingling work that will change many lives.” All around me, people are talking about crumbling care infrastructures and the loneliness that accompanies family care work. For the “sandwich generation,” adulthood has been marked by figuring out how to juggle the competing needs of their children and aging parents. Mutual aid became a practice not just for activist communities but for neighborhoods struggling with exploding housing and food prices, which acutely impacts younger adults.

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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 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. 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. The book is about Chase London, a young actress who very much has partied hard and is on a severe path of destruction. She enters rehabilitation and upon her discharge is set under the care of Olivia, a personal life coach. It is Olivia’s job to attempt to keep Chase on the straight and narrow, determined to ensure she is able to become insured to work on a film. As far as what’s next? She’s considering co-writing a memoir with her 82-year-old mother, which could take parenting and adulting insight into a whole new trimester of life. Her mother joined Lythcott-Haims’s household more than 20 years ago in an arrangement inspired by a goal any helicopter parent could appreciate: trying to afford a house in the Palo Alto Unified School District.