Becoming an adult is inevitable. Everyone has to eventually grow up, (sorry Peter Pan.) However, in this day and age, it seems as though people are fearful of their next steps in life, as the future is unsure. So in a generation which is learning to speak up and against societal pressures, why are we so fearful of our own adulthood?

From a personal stance, the future doesn’t seem to be for fun. It feels burdened with the stresses of things such as bills, student loans, and just trying to make things work in a world that wouldn’t do the same for you.

However, this article further explains that once the adolescent becomes an adult, they are now realizing their fate.

In order to provide a more personalized range of data, we enlisted the help of Google Forms. We questioned various students at Carver HSES, attempting to determine whether they felt as though they were fit enough to successfully become an adult.

Most students said that they do not feel prepared to function well in society, and that they felt silenced by society when trying to voice their concerns. The students also said that they wish more resources such as home economics and financial literacy were available as well.

Feel free to leave your answers below!

What’s your stance on adulting?

The reason why I hate the word adulting is it kind of implies that people will remain perpetual teenagers. We should all keep the child within us. I think that’s very important. That we should all giggle like children, we should play, and we should do things that reinvigorate the child within us. However, you see that now with more and more millennials, that they act like perpetual kids. So to say that you’re adulting, is basically saying ‘I’m basically someone who refuses to grow up, and I’m only going to act like an adult when I chose to engage in this adulting.’ So, I think that it just perpetuates the idea that we should be basically infantile our whole lives.

Personally I’m scared of becoming an adult because I don’t know how to pay my bills and what a stock is, etc, so does that differ from just plain adulting?

Yes, because what you’re feeling is normal at eighteen years old. But if you’re seventeen and eighteen years old using it, or nineteen, that’s fine. Because you haven’t really achieved full adult, independent status. You have to look at who’s saying it. If someone like you is saying it, I think that’s a good thing, because it’s showing that you’re aware of adult responsibilities. But if you’re 25 or 30 or 35 and saying ‘oh i’m going to adult this weekend,’ I would say that you have a problem. So, i think it depends on who’s saying it.

I’d say anyone who’s twenty-five or over saying it, you have a problem.

How prepared do you think the seniors at Carver are?

I think you guys are prepared academically, when I look at my seniors and the amount of stress that they have, I just feel like I don’t know if they’re fully understanding the financial process that's ahead of them.

With everything that they’re gonna need to know, I feel like they’re leaving school not quite sure of what they really need to do and what they really can do. I’m really talking about the financial literacy. That’s my biggest concern.

Not academics, but financial.

We are taking a financial literacy course online. Sign up, take this quiz, very boring. They shoved it in at the end, and not an actual course or a class. How do i take out a loan, I don’t know.

My focus is more about the college aspect. That I feel like students are getting themselves into situations that they might not be able to pay for their college. And it’s not their fault, it’s the fault of the college that write these convoluted letters. I feel like the seniors are leaving, but not really grasping the full financial situation, with basic financial literacy as well.

I’m taking a course in the summer about seniors and financial literacy. I’m going to be doing a lot more it next year. That’s my answer.

Do you think that there should be other steps taken within the school or the families?

There needs to be maybe more connection between families and school. Maybe some workshops, where parents can come say, ‘okay, i have these millions of letters, I don’t understand them. If you sort of tell parents that’s this x loan and y loan, no one’s gonna remember anything. Once they get the letters, they can say,

‘well what do these numbers mean?’

I think there needs to be some sort of time for the parents to meet with school officials.

For example, receiving a test without a formula sheet. There should be some mandatory guide, stating directly that this loan means that you’lll have to pay it back while your child is in college.

Right.

It turns out that Mandell does not hate the term adulting. He just think that it is only appropriate when said by teens. It is interesting to see from an adult’s point of view what steps should be taken to aid in students’ transition into adulthood. If an adult is saying that he is concerned for the youth taking on big responsibilities, shouldn’t society take a hint?

As much as we’d like to avoid the triumphs and troubles that growing older may bring, teenagers are going to learn at some point, everything that they need to learn in order to function well as an adult. The fears that consume them at the moment will not remain permanent, and they will succeed.