How to Adult: An Illustrated Guide
“Being an adult is just googling how to do things”
If it wasn’t sad it would be funny, but when my late husband was nearing the end of his days… he asked me whether I wanted to know how he always knew what to do around the house. His question captured my attention because I was desperately worried how I would do his “boy jobs” when he was gone… so I naturally said yes. However his response was a huge anti-climax… he told me that whenever he didn’t know what to do, he just “Googled it”. Seriously?! However, I am over six years into being a widow and Google hasn’t let me down yet!
As a much older 40-plus year old who is passionate about helping others my age to sort out their home admin, I was fascinated to try to find a book that helped me out. As I enjoyed some sunshine on holiday, I read this “How to Adult” guidebook written by Stephen Wildish. The book does a fantastic job of covering the basics:
The importance of sleep,
Getting a job and having a work-life balance,
The maze that is social media,
Household tasks,
Personal grooming (yes, honestly our teenagers seem to need a lesson in this!),
Conversations (again, vital for these creatures we have spawned who do rarely more than grunt at us at the best of times!),
Finances, and
Food and drink.
The Afterword section states that the author is “an idiot who is barely adulting himself” but, joking aside, this book should be a right of passage for all teenagers and young adults, who are most likely existing on baked beans on toast and pesto pasta, and who are unsure how to live in the confusing landscape of the Real World!
So, here’s what I (as a much older adult) thought about it:
What I wanted: Please don’t laugh, I was genuinely hoping for a bit of a lightbulb moment to help with the home admin and paperwork. Although there is a section on finances, it focused more on surviving until pay day and paying bills. However, there is a brief explanation about mortgages and pensions but… NO mention of Wills. As someone who is passionate that everyone who owns anything has a Will, this surprised me, but I guess the book is aimed at post-university young adults with very few items of value!
What I liked: I loved the funky pictures and graphics, and the tone of the book that makes a serious topic entertaining and amusing. The parts that made me smile were things like The Biggest Lies we Tell Ourselves: “Just One more Episode”, “Just One more Slice of Pizza”, “Just a Quiet One Tonight” etc!
“As we will all be dead in a ditch before we know it, it’s also important to do what makes you happy and try not to grow up too much in the adulting process. Even the most adults adults will have a secret childish nature to them, somewhere”