Young people in the U.S. are flocking to courses like Adulting 101, which teach essential practical skills: how to mend a shirt, choose health insurance, or safely prepare a meal. Offered by colleges, libraries, and even bars during happy hour, these courses tap into the need of a generation aware of its practical shortcomings and lagging behind in achieving independence.
Many of these initiatives stem from former students who have experienced firsthand the disorientation of the transition to adult life. One of them is Raffi Grinberg, who on his first day of work at a large consulting firm found himself faced with the choice of a retirement plan — not knowing where to start. Out of this experience came his book How to Be a Grown Up, which has become a primer for those seeking to approach everyday life with greater awareness. The text guides the reader in a technical but accessible tone, addressing topics such as managing finances, health care bureaucracy and home organization.
As The Economist reports, Grinberg was inspired to write the book during his very first day at Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, right after graduation. He and his colleagues, all young graduates of elite universities, found themselves having to choose between different health insurance plans, decide how much of their salaries to put toward retirement, and tackle other daily financial tasks. “Each of us went out into the hallway and called our parents,” Grinberg says. “We were graduates of prestigious schools, yet we didn’t know where to start.”
Sociologist Keith Hayward, of the University of Copenhagen, analyzed the phenomenon in the essay Infantilized: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood, in which he argues that the origin of this difficulty lies in a profound generational change. According to Hayward, today’s young adults appear less mature than their peers of a few decades ago: they shy away from traditional responsibilities such as marriage, home ownership or child rearing, because-as many students state, “adulthood is difficult.”
The sociologist also points out another aspect: young people in Western culture tend to indulge in childhood fantasies, avoiding confrontation with reality and the models of previous generations. “Parents and grandparents are often perceived as incapable of using Wi-Fi and therefore deemed unreliable even to give life advice. But if these reference figures are missing, an educational vacuum is created,” Hayward notes. “This gives rise to groups of young people who have a real need to learn how to deal with daily life independently.”
