As a counseling center professional, I have borne witness to many stories from young adults about what worries them. Whether it is daily life matters that leave them feeling anxious, concerns that leave them feeling down, or just the responsibilities and demands of life that seem unmanageable, these common concerns can simmer at just below boil, that is, until more recently. The COVID-19 pandemic has turned up the heat on so many simmering issues that many feel at a boil more often now than in the past.
A common concern for our young adults is what has been termed “adulting.” Adulting encompasses the responsibilities, sometimes mundane, one must take on and manage as an adult. This can be everything from paying taxes, to buying a refrigerator, to becoming someone’s boss, to making a doctor’s appointment (and going to it), to following a budget, to simply staying home on a Friday night. The pandemic has made an often challenging process even more so because the world is much less predictable, norms are changing, finances can be in flux, and, for many, losses have taken center stage alongside or in place of accomplishments.
Adulting can vary culturally, as some family cultures indicate that parents take a hand in these matters and individual self-reliance is less valued, while other family cultures indicate that young adults become independent and self-sufficient as quickly as possible. Financial standing and the holding of privileges also makes a difference in how much others have done for them versus how much one has had to do for one’s self.
How best can we help young people who are now contemplating their own adulting?
Trial Runs
Emerging adults often look to those who have been there before them. If your young adults are looking to you to continue to take care of the tasks of adult life, you can help, but provide help that sets up trial runs. Offer instruction, direction, references for additional information, and help for the task. Encourage them to complete the task themselves and report back on how it went, knowing this was likely the last time you will help.
Empathy Goes a Long Way; Sympathy Less So
Sympathy can often leave us feeling a need to step in and take care of something or someone. Empathy, instead, leaves us caring for someone, but not necessarily taking care of someone. Due to the added challenges of the pandemic, there is no reason not to empathize with those figuring out adulting, as it can be tougher journey now more than ever. Empathy can provide validation for how a person feels and to offer some emotional support while still allowing for that “test run” to occur.
Loafing Is for Bread
Given financial struggles or that it is more culturally relevant for young adults to live at home, adulting can become highlighted as a process in need of empathy and trial running. One way parents can help with adulting is to ask their young adults to take care of many, if not all, of their own expenses. Young adults can pay for food, rent to contribute to home rent/mortgage, entertainment, and so on. This is not about cutting what may be an important and valued familial cord as much as it is about letting the cord appropriately fray. Even if they have no money whatsoever, young adults can go to work at home to take on many of the duties you might do yourself or might pay others to do.
Cereal, While a Food, Is Not a Meal
I hear so often: “I did not anticipate this.” Or, “I did not plan ahead.” Or, “I did not see that coming.” This is why I also hear so often that cereal was on the home menu twice if not three times in a day for a lot of young adults who forgot to shop, ran out of time to cook, and so on. We can work with our young adults to set up apps, reminders, and other systems so they can plan for the many things that come their way—meal planning is just one example. We can help them establish systems to remind them to take care of their business without actually taking care of the business itself.
And Then, It’s Really About Confidence
Adulting, in the end, has at its core a sense of confidence. This means discovery can be exciting and making mistakes can be a learning experience. With a sense of confidence, can the many trials and errors of adulting be a journey that leads to its own ending? No, probably not. But it at least has benchmarks along the way that remind us that the journey has value in and of itself.
Our job, then, is to steady our anxiousness about the journey of our young adults, the inherent mistakes, and the hopefully rewarding discoveries. Empathy for ourselves, too, is due as this can be difficult to watch and not intervene. But adulting in culturally relevant ways hopefully leads to a lifetime of success, fulfillment, and care. And during the pandemic, these things hold more value now than perhaps they have in past.
Remember that adulting is a process, and processes often need to be repeated and sometimes even endured. We can stand in the space of providing support, reminders, empathy, and encouragement, especially during this current time when so much has already changed.