The time, in my early twenties, when I was invited (as a plus one) to a country club holiday dinner dance was the greatest sartorial faux pas of my life. I didn't have any experience with country club anything, let along holiday celebrations. It's a pathetic story, but let's just say I wore the wrong thing. Not inappropriate or scandalous or immodest---none of those are my style anyway, but just the wrong thing, maybe involving a khaki skirt. When I arrived, I realized my mistake, but, of course, it was too late. What I was wearing was "fall business casual", when what I should have been wearing was black and bling. Ironically, the correct thing was hanging in my closet and home, I just didn't know this was the time to bring it out.
Black and bling, Baby, that's what you wear to a country club holiday dinner dance. Since that time, decades, ago, my husband and I have been invited to events much like the holiday country club dinner dance, and now I know what to wear. It was simply a matter of someone telling me, or in my case, not wanting to make the same mistake twice.
That's what I'm talking about with this book: it's simply a matter of learning to adult.
There's been a lot of hype about millennials not being able to adult today, or not being able to adult at all. I actually admire the millennials of today, and I wonder, in the blur of social media, if they just need some good old-fashioned advice sometimes, like I certainly did. That's what Kelly Williams Brown does in her book: Adulting, How To Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easyish Steps, which is a guidebook to grown-up skills. Here are some of her chapters: Get Your Mind Right (you are not a special snowflake), Domesticity, Cooking, Get a Job, Money, Maintenance, Love, Friends and Neighbors, etc, full of practical advice like:
Buy toilet paper in bulk.
Get a stepstool.
Make your bed every morning.
Find a tub cleaner that works for you.
Get some baking supplies.
Make a decent steak.
Send a thank you note.
Do not engage with crazy.
Do not skip oil changes.
Wash your hands.
Treat good-personhood as a basic dating qualifier.
(About toxic relatives) If they won't have a conversation with you, disengage.
No one, ever, will set your boundaries for you. So learn to set them yourself.
and the gems of wisdom go on and on . . .
Even though I read this in my 40's these were good reminders. Because of Brown, I bought a clothes steamer.
What I love the most is that there are things here that took me a long time to learn. Here are my two favorites:
Step 306: Be supportive of depressed or heartbroken friends. "It's rarely as fun to be friends with someone when they are clinically depressed as when they are their normal selves. But everyone, everyone, everyone goes though a hard time every now and again. Do not bolt when this happens. Do not interpret their silence of their sadness as a rejection of you. It doesn't matter that it's a pain . . . it's just what you have to do."
Step 412: A miscarriage should be treated as a death. "A miscarriage is one of the deep pains that people carry around with them. It's not as public or obvious as a death, but you should treat it the same way: Your friend is in anguish, and they have lost something very significant . . . "
What I don't like about this book is that there's a lot of swearing, and content about relationships I respectfully disagree with. I wouldn't want my teens to read it, I think it's more for young adults. You can skip around and find what you like, there's a lot of good stuff regardless.
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