'Adulting'. If you search the term on Urban Dictionary (because it's not an actual word in a real dictionary), you'll find a few results along the lines of these:
While the term might be viewed as sort of a cute and innocent way for Millennials to Tweet and update Facebook about our brush with what is perceived as grown-up activity, it is actually doing more harm than you may think.
By creating the term 'adulting' and using it as a verb to describe doing something 'adultish' such as cooking a meal for yourself or paying a bill, we as Millennials are discrediting ourselves and making adulthood sound like a choice rather than reality. Expressing a thought such as "I don't want to adult today" comes across as whiny, not cute.
As a Millennial myself, I do understand and appreciate the fun and simplicity in a lighthearted joke. This is the place where most of these kinds of posts are coming from. However, why would you want to undermine our own generation? While this may be the farthest thing from your actual intentions for Tweeting about how you cannot possibly adult today, that is what you're actually accomplishing with your 140 characters or less. Hear me out.
The internet is a wonderful place for anyone with a keyboard to voice their opinions. Recently, Millennials have overtaken the Baby Boomers as the world's largest generation. Being raised during a time of rapidly-advancing technology, it's no question that the Millennials are dominating the internet as well. However, there are plenty of Baby Boomers out there online with us. And some of them have a few things to say about Millennials.
Recently, a hashtag broke out on Twitter called #HowToConfuseAMillennial. It criticized everything ranging from our reliance on autocorrect to our confusion at the sight of a phone booth. Unfortunately, we Millennials are stereotyped as lazy, entitled and narcissistic, to name a few. On any given Millenial's Twitter account you just might find a Tweet about adulting, and a selfie 5 minutes later. But I'm not trying to bash millennials here. This is just how we are commonly perceived, when in reality it isn't right to lump us all under a general consensus of our work ethic and character.
While adulting is commonly used to complain about the hardships of, you know, real life, it is also used to praise oneself on simple tasks. "I took out the trash, cleaned the house and scheduled my own doctor's appointment. Yay adulting!" Praising yourself on little tasks in such a manner might come across even worse than using the term to complain. As a generation who is also criticized for expecting handouts and instant gratification, this sort of praise can come across as immature.
We're not doing ourselves any favors by using the term adulting. By making adulthood sound like a choice we can abandon rather than a reality we must face, we're only affirming the assumption that we're lazy. The truth is, we are (young) adults. Most of us are either in college, working a job, living on our own, or a combination of all three. It doesn't mean we can't ask for help. It doesn't mean we can't make mistakes. And it doesn't mean we can't call up a parent when times get tough. What it does mean is that we have to start owning and taking responsibility for our actions, not brushing them off and maybe doing it tomorrow.
Take pride in the fact that you're grown and can make decisions for yourself. It's not about whether or not we should make an innocent joke about being an adult. What it is about is standing up for our generation and fighting the stereotypes. Despite all the technology we're surrounded by, we don't have it easy in this world; instead of using it to undermine ourselves and support the stereotype, let's cut out the term 'adulting' and respect ourselves as young adults.
