Adulting

I love the way adulting has become a verb, usually applied in the negative. “I just can’t adult any more today.” “It’s 10:30 pm. Can I stop adulting now?”

Millennials came up with “adulting.” Their reward for this innovation in self-aware self-mockery? A lot of bashing over their supposed lack of maturity. So allow me, as a straddler of the Generation X/Baby Boomer boundary, to disagree.

One of the chief signs of maturity is a willingness to defer gratification for a better tomorrow. By that measure, a generation that has repeatedly refused to take meaningful action on climate change has nothing to teach millennials about being mature.

Back to the challenges of adulting. While the word is associated with millennials, it’s an experience I think we all feel. The only difference is that some millennials didn’t get the memo that they should never acknowledge that juggling the responsibilities of adulthood is exhausting. That we all drop a variety of balls sometimes.

And that a lot of us perpetually feel like two six-year-olds stacked under an overcoat trying to get into a PG-14 movie.