There is a time frame in every person’s life in which they’ve reached a level of independence where they understand the scope of their responsibilities but, for whatever reason, they cannot meet all of them. Typically, the unmet responsibilities are covered by the parents of the very guilt-driven and apologetic pseudo-adult.

As a pseudo-adult myself, I’ve come to recognize a few key aspects of my life that ring true for nearly every person in a situation similar to my own. I pay for as much as I can and, thankfully, have parents and grandparents who are willing to help me with the rest.

I go to school full-time, work part-time during the semester and full-time during the summer, and spend quite a bit of time building my resume to go to law school. Pseudo-adulthood is basically a trial period before the real stuff begins. It’s adulthood on easy mode because we’re still learning how to use the controller. We have times of total financial disparity because, even though most of us have support systems to help us, we’re still figuring out how to budget well enough to cover all of our needs.

This is a time of great ingenuity for how to cut corners, and frugality will be a great skill once we really learn how to master it (let’s be honest, we all buy more than we should). We’ll all swallow our pride to work multiple completely undignified jobs to make ends meet. There are nights when all of us are up until the next morning studying or writing a paper, because we put it off for a week to spend time with friends. The reason it’s called pseudo-adulting is because we (usually) get everything done and find a way to make things work. Our way of living is not sustainable past a certain point in our lives (i.e. graduation), and we won’t always be able to count on our parents to bail us out.

This time in our lives is all about learning and, if we are really making an effort to reach true adulthood, it’s completely okay to have a period of pseudo-adulthood. Adult away, my friends.