Having trouble adulting? Now there’s a class for that
Posted On January 22, 2019
Well, this won’t help combat the millennial stereotype: There apparently is now such a thing as “adulting classes.”
According to CBS News, the classes teach life skills like cooking, sewing, budgeting and time management — you know, those things most of us learned from our parents or through our own trial and error.
I can see the memes now: “What do these things have in common?” in all-caps above pictures of a cassette tape, a rotary phone and a frying pan. “Millennials don’t know what they are.”
Before we laugh too loudly, however, let’s remember that it’s the Baby Boomer and older Gen X parents who failed to teach these kids how to cook chicken parmesan or balance a checkbook or change a tire. And aren’t we the ones who try to redirect attention away from this failing by lamenting that schools no longer teach home economics and personal finance?
To paraphrase the late, great Bernie Mac: We’re some punk parents.
There are some life skills being taught in these classes that millennials should have learned on their own, however – skills like how to have a relationship and conflict resolution. But many millennials are still living at home – 34 percent of Americans between 18 and 34, according to the 2015 Census – instead of getting out and developing those skills the best way they can be learned – through experience.
And, of course, many of them likely grew up communicating through their cell phones.
So if they didn’t learn it from us and they didn’t learn it on their own, they have to learn it somewhere, don’t they? At least they’re trying to do something about it. Better to learn from someone who knows what they’re doing than Johnny down at the bus stop.
Would this all seem so ridiculous if we didn’t stigmatize it with the ridiculous label “adulting?” Would we scoff if we just called it a cooking class? Or a personal finance course?
Come to think of it, can someone check and see if there’s one on small engine repair? Because I could use some adulting lessons on dealing with a busted lawnmower.