ADULTING: Noun — Engaging in activities typically associated with adulthood.

ADULTING IS HARD!!!! Yes, I am shouting.
A few nights ago, I was ranting to my mother in the kitchen, ‘I am tired of being an adult’ I said. ‘Can I please go back to my nursery school days when I went on excursions meant for older kids in primary school and celebrated my birthday in school, putting on a beautiful dress and a gold necklace’. Oh yes I remember, thanks to my vivid memories and the sweet pictures.
She simply laughed and mimicked me ‘I want to grow up and leave your house for you’. You haven’t seen anything, she concluded.
Sigh!
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, adulting refers to actions and behavior that are considered typical of adults, not children or young people.
A few examples of things adults ought to do include; keeping your home clean, paying your bills on time, learning to cook your meals, saving your money, doing your laundries, making your decisions yourself, managing your time, being independent, taking responsibility for your actions and needs and a lot of other things.
It is safe to say, that if you don’t do any of the above, you just might still be a child.
There are no set rules on how to be an excellent adult. No one teaches you these things and if I might add, nothing truly prepares you to be an adult.
It is generally believed that once you have graduated from the higher institution and served your father’s land by observing the National Youth Service Corp as it is the practice in Nigeria, or learnt a skill or handwork, then you are an adult ready to take the world by storm and shoulder several responsibilities.
However, the reverse is the case.
According to Cosmopolitan.com,” a May 2016 Survey by the Pew Research Center found that 32.1 percent of adults aged 18 to 34 live at home. Many of us don’t need to worry about going to the grocery store alone because our parents’ fridge is already stocked. We don’t have to think about paying the cable bill because our parents have it covered. Growing up may feel optional because for many of us, it is.

Though living at home has not stopped us from achieving things, hiding behind our extended adolescence only undermines our actual achievements’’, the research concluded.
The American Conservative in its article, “Millennials: Stop Talking About Adulting and Become Adults put it succinctly, “today, children grow up without mastering skills that even a generation ago, would have been taken for granted. As a result they arrive at adulthood less capable of living independently. One reason for that is that nowadays many parents are more involved in their children’s lives than in the past”.
“Undoubtedly, the pressure to succeed in adulthood is intense. Our society’s obsession with perfection and optimization raises the stakes higher”, Laura Shear noted in relate.zendesk.com.
In conclusion, there is basically no hard and fast rule about becoming an excellent adult. Simply taking life one step at a time and learning from every mistake made is probably the first rule of the game, if there was any rule.
