Today after school, I chose not to adult.  Today I tried teenagering.  I called my best friend, and asked “what are you doing”?  He said, I’m working, why?  And I said, “well can you stop working and meet me downstairs and we’ll go get a milkshake before dinner?”  Sure, he said and we drove to the Sonic Drive-In and sucked down our milkshakes.  Then, while we were sitting there, my friend said, I don’t feel like cooking, let’s pick up pizza on the way home so I said “Sure!” and we picked up pizza.  No fruits, no veggies, no salads.  Milkshakes and pizza.  Sure, we knew it wasn’t the healthiest choice, sure I knew I would develop some massive heartburn afterwards, but damn the consequences.  There would be no adulting tonight!

This whole trend with “adulting” right now is interesting.  It makes you wonder if somehow young people aren’t being prepared to do what are considered to be adult things, that it’s something that just “happens” at some point, and when you figure out that you did the responsible thing for once, all of a sudden you’re adulting and you feel the need to brag about it. When you have your own bills and you pay them on time, when you move out of your parent’s house, when you have a real job, you’re in the process of becoming an adult.  It’s perceived by many as something you don’t want to do but you have to do because – well – you’re an adult and that’s what adults do.

So, it seems that for our young people today, “adulting” is a matter of will, not of  developing habits.  So, if at any time they choose not to have the willpower, they can do toddlering, youthing, childing or juveniling instead. They can choose to play video games all day, stay up all night and try to function at work the next day, speak disrespectfully to others or drink irresponsibly with their buddies.  When a person chooses to do less than adulting as a single adult, they of course bear the brunt of the consequences.  However, when we have people to chose to adult by getting married and having children, and then they decide they’re tired of “adulting”, other people, especially the children, suffer the consequences.  After all, the children need to be taught the ways of adulting, but if there is no consistent adult there to do the training, we lose another generation to the false idea that when they reach a certain magic age, all of a sudden they’ll become an adult.

Then if adulting is not a matter of will, but a matter of developing habits, when should that begin?  Well, there is a progression that we know as toddlering, to childing to youthing to teenagering to young adulting.  At each stage, children need to have added responsibilities, even the very youngest and the traits we see at each stage, for instance, having a temper tantrum as a toddler must be worked through so that it doesn’t continue.  When I have 9, 10 and 11 year old students at school who still throw a toddleresque temper tantrum, I know that someone has not received the training and responsibilities needed to move from one stage to another in a healthy way.  My concern is for this child as they continue to grow older but they do not develop the maturity they need for each stage.  What kind of adult will they become?  Or will they become an adult at all?

When I read news stories where we have “adults” defecating on school property, or traveling to Europe while they leave their elementary age children at home by themselves, or trying to heat their urine in a convenient store microwave so they can pass their drug test you really begin to question the training, or lack of, when these people were growing up.  And yes, these were all stories I read just this week. This is more than just someone who doesn’t feel like mowing their lawn or washing their dishes.  This is all about “me” behavior which takes them to the toddlering level of maturity.

What these people fail to realize is that just because you can doesn’t mean you should and that is the crux of what “adulting” is all about. My students at school, as with most kids, believe that when you become an adult that you can do anything you want and nobody can boss you around anymore.  The truth is, there will always be someone you have to answer to but you’re an adult when you know how to handle that responsibly and not in a childish manner.

As a friend shared with me, he is tired of this term and I am too.  Becoming an adult is not something you do, it’s a state of being and the result of that is doing what is right – for yourself, for your family, for your community.  And while it’s okay once in a while for you to have your dessert before dinner, that kind of immature lifestyle is not healthy or a good example for our toddlers, children, youth or teenagers.  So instead of adulting, just be an adult.