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Adulting Classes for Millenials


OverSword

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I will refrain from commenting on how special this is :D

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Transitioning to adulthood isn't new, but there is a more modern way to describe it: adulting.

Get your car's oil changed? That's adulting. Cook dinner instead of order takeout? That's adulting.

And now a new school in Maine, called the Adulting School, is dedicated to teaching skills like these to fledgling adults so they can become successful grown-ups.

The school offers private social media groups and live events at local bars and restaurants. At these events, attendees can learn skills like how to network as a pro or how to fold a fitted sheet.

Carly Bouchard, 29, sat among a couple of dozen young adults sipping drinks at a Portland restaurant and hoping to uncover their true financial self.

"I'm a financial cripple," Bouchard said.

Although she went to business school, Bouchard said, she now needs the Adulting School.

 

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A happy hour event put on by the Adulting School, where participants learn how to make craft cocktails,

All the essential skills!

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44 minutes ago, Lilly said:

So, its come to this has it...why am I not surprised.

I work at a gas station and often make a ajoke to young people that goes along these lines "buy 2 packs of  cigarettes and save 2 dollars, practice some fiscal responsibility/economy austerity". At first it was a joke about the Greek economy, now I can also darkly mutter that it is also a damning condemnation about their generation's ability to face reality.

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This is what happens after several generations of peace and prosperity. We completely lost the plot

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Doesn't surprise me many of them need help.  These are things most learned from parents but today many families are single parent households which leaves little time to teach these things.

Maybe they should bring back home economics in HS.

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It's a dumb name but if people want to learn a skill that wasn't taught to them, for whatever reason, then good on them.

 

35 minutes ago, Ashotep said:

Doesn't surprise me many of them need help.  These are things most learned from parents but today many families are single parent households which leaves little time to teach these things.

Maybe they should bring back home economics in HS.

My high school did have a mandatory food and health/nutrition class but that's all it covered. 

After High school 12 years ago, I often wished they had a mandatory class for seniors that taught us taxes, accounting, how to build credit, and etc. My parents don't know anything about credit, accounting, or savings, I mean I listened to my dad about credit cards and never got one now I'm a 30 year old with no credit and screwed (I am now slowly building it up).

A class would also be good to cover college related stuff as well like applying for college/trade school and scholarships.

Edited by Odin11
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I don't see how this could be viewed as a bad thing. People recognizing that they don't have a skill and taking steps to correct it is a good thing. I'm a millennial (born 1990), and if I hadn't worked in kitchens/restaurants from 14 - 18, I'd have had no idea how to cook or clean when I moved out on my own; my parents didn't like having me around, let alone take the time to actually teach me any life skills. Highschool didn't teach anything about taxes or budgeting, my parents were **** at it and wouldn't have taught me anything about it even if they weren't, so I had to learn all of that on my own.

Reveling in uselessness is a bad thing, while recognizing that you need to learn a skill that you do not know through no fault of your own is quite another. Cooking, cleaning, taxes, and general life skills should be supplied by schools and parents, but not all of us have the luxury of being given those skills, so you have to figure them out in any way that you can.

Edited by Podo
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2 hours ago, Odin11 said:

I often wished they had a mandatory class for seniors that taught us taxes, accounting, how to build credit, and etc. My parents don't know anything about credit, accounting, or savings, I mean I listened to my dad about credit cards and never got one now I'm a 30 year old with no credit and screwed (I am now slowly building it up).

My brother who is a CPA and financial adviser volunteers at local high schools to teach 9th graders that.

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I feel like I must have raised my kids in a different universe. From the get/go I knew I had the responsibility of teaching my children basic life skills. By the time they were out of High School they knew about balancing a checkbook, cooking basic meals, doing laundry, cleaning the house and so forth. They also learned skills from being in the Boy and Girl Scouts. Both my kids can manage paddling a canoe, are life guard certified, can ride a horse and shoot a gun.

Edited by Lilly
typo
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Sad that people in MY generation need this kind of crap. Some people have anxiety and can't make "phone calls" and other crap. Which is why I said that it was sad. Also very pathetic because I'm 30 and I already do "adult things" because I'm an adult!

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3 hours ago, Lilly said:

I feel like I must have raised my kids in a different universe. From the get/go I knew I had the responsibility of teaching my children basic life skills. By the time they were out of High School they knew about balancing a checkbook, cooking basic meals, doing laundry, cleaning the house and so forth. They also learned skills from being in the Boy and Girl Scouts. Both my kids can manage paddling a canoe, are life guard certified, can ride a horse and shoot a gun.

You raised your kids, period. Not all of us got that from our parents.

Plenty of millennials, both those I have heard of (internet, new, etc) and those that I know, even myself included, weren't "raised" in the way that many think of the term. My parents didn't give two ****s about what I did, as long as I didn't get in trouble with the police. Many parents of my generation (I think that makes them children of boomers, or late boomers? I don't quite know how that works) didn't go a damned thing to prepare us for the world, beyond neglect. I know that in my case and the case of many of my friends, our parents had no interest in actually parenting, instead opting to continue living their lives with their children hanging around in the periphery. Hell, even stuff like basic nutrition was completely unknown to me until I went to highschool and took cooking classes. It's sheer luck that I ended up with a work ethic, a good sense for money, and managed to make enough to put myself through university, get a good job, etc. I did all of it on my own, though; my parents had no hand in anything, because all they did for me was provide a place to live, and even that was a toss-up (I was regularly told never to return during my teen years and bounced around a lot). 

There are a lot of useless people in my generation, for sure. But I'm not entirely convinced that it is all our fault, I guess is my point. Those who don't take steps to correct the gaps in their capabilities deserve all the scorn they draw, but those who actively attempt to rectify their inadequacies, I think, should be left alone. 

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I was lucky when I was a kid.  My parents ran a  pub, so were often working when I was at home.   So I had to do the housework, cook the dinner etc.  

I was never taught how to fold a fitted sheet properly though :o     I am a 51 year old man who cannot fold a fitted sheet properly!   I need counselling!!!  :D

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/24/2017 at 2:38 PM, Podo said:

I don't see how this could be viewed as a bad thing. People recognizing that they don't have a skill and taking steps to correct it is a good thing. I'm a millennial (born 1990), and if I hadn't worked in kitchens/restaurants from 14 - 18, I'd have had no idea how to cook or clean when I moved out on my own; my parents didn't like having me around, let alone take the time to actually teach me any life skills. Highschool didn't teach anything about taxes or budgeting, my parents were **** at it and wouldn't have taught me anything about it even if they weren't, so I had to learn all of that on my own.

Reveling in uselessness is a bad thing, while recognizing that you need to learn a skill that you do not know through no fault of your own is quite another. Cooking, cleaning, taxes, and general life skills should be supplied by schools and parents, but not all of us have the luxury of being given those skills, so you have to figure them out in any way that you can.

2

Well said! I agree. At first, I read the initial post and thought it was insulting, however, I realized that I wished that I would have had classes like this in high school. I'm a "millennial" (1985). I put millennial it in quotes because I don't like the derogatory connotation attached it. There has been a lot of opposing views on the expectations and mindset of millennials compared to the past two generations. You can't blame someone for living or making decisions based on experiences they have had that are circumstantial. Experience and expectations change by generation and it's dependent on what is going on during that period.

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7 hours ago, KNash said:

Well said! I agree. At first, I read the initial post and thought it was insulting, however, I realized that I wished that I would have had classes like this in high school. I'm a "millennial" (1985). I put millennial it in quotes because I don't like the derogatory connotation attached it. There has been a lot of opposing views on the expectations and mindset of millennials compared to the past two generations. You can't blame someone for living or making decisions based on experiences they have had that are circumstantial. Experience and expectations change by generation and it's dependent on what is going on during that period.

Gen Y is another label for millennial.

In general towards this thread the website of the hosts of these workshops has listed that one is never too old. 

Haha even some boomers can benefit from this too.

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13 hours ago, KNash said:

You can't blame someone for living or making decisions based on experiences they have had that are circumstantial.

And yet, boomers attempt to blame everything on us, as though it's our fault that they destroyed the world and the economy as best as they possibly could, leaving us to pick up the pieces.

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On 3/9/2017 at 0:15 PM, Podo said:

And yet, boomers attempt to blame everything on us, as though it's our fault that they destroyed the world and the economy as best as they possibly could, leaving us to pick up the pieces.

Yet you blame the boomers.  

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1 hour ago, Ashotep said:

Yet you blame the boomers.  

Not JUST them. But the previous generations, yes. We weren't alive yet, who else would have done it? Time travellers?

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When I left home, right after high school to go off into the world and make my mark, I soon discovered that I lacked a lot of social and practical skills that others seemed to naturally have so I went through a very painful period of being forcefully and often brutally "trained" by compassionate or impatient others to acquire at least the basics.  My one year older brother was kind of in the same boat and some compassionate adults took him in and helped him acquire a few basic skills to "survive" in the world.  He did not so so well, got involved with hoodlums and eventually ended up in state prison for armed robbery!  I did fair but found myself seriously lacking any time I was out on my own and in some ways, I still am at a loss, now that my late wife is not here to tell me what to do or take care of me!!!  It's funny because, during the last few years of her life, I was a full time caregiver to her! 

To make my long story short, in therapy and self-help work, I came to see that my brother and I had been given very insufficient and inadequate parental training which left us ill-equipped to manage our own lives.  Now, all.you parents, please don't get upset!!  This is NOT about BLAMING anyone!  My memories and research into our family revealed that, although we were raised on farms and were given a lot of responsibilities and jobs to do, we still lacked a lot of common, everyday skills that most other kids our age had.  If I had to sum it all up - we were DEPRIVED of a normal, practical upbringing due to very deep flaws in our parents and it's all so obvious to me now.  We were somehow NOT socialized like our kid peers and it got both of us in trouble as kids and then later in life as adults.  I would not have guessed or known what was "missing" as a teen but I was vastly different than most other teens I knew but not stupid nor incompetent.  I could iron a shirt, make a meal, tune up my car, work like a lumber jack and had a lot of skills that many of my peers did not have BUT there were glaring gaps in us kid's basic socialization and now it's all so clear.  We were raised in what is known as a CULT family where we have very little contact with other, normal kids and adults so our only role models were our parents and a few in-laws.  Our parents social and intellectual LIMITS placed serious limits on us but we never saw that even if many others could see there was "something very wrong" in our family.   Our in-laws knew things were NOT right in our family but did not dare confront our parents about it.  We had a brief opportunity to learn some "normal" things when my brother and I went away to live with our uncle and his wife right after dad packed up and left us but by then it was too late and our "conditioning" was set in us,  so we did not do very well at our uncles home and left there as soon as we could.  Our uncle and his wife might have been the healthiest role models we ever had but just not strong enough to undo the bad role modeling we already got from our own parents.  It's all so clear now!

At about 16-17, my brother and I formed a little band and we found a "worldly" teenage guitar player, Mike,  who had been out on his own for a while so he took us under his wing and tried to "educate" us on the ways of the world.  He was not a drug user but smoked and had few beers when nobody was around.  He introduced us to girls (we didn't date!), showed us how to dress (we were GEEKS) and took us places where we embarrassed him with our childish, ignorant behaviors.  He did his best to fill in the blanks left by inadequate parenting and I will be forever grateful to Mike for at least trying to help us come up to speed and start acting like grown ups rather than ignorant animals.

Now that I am far enough away from my childhood and parents to see exactly what happened to my brother and I, it blows my mind that not our parents nor any of our successful relatives could see how socially crippled we were.  I am willing to write it off as some "genetic" flaws in us boys but it is so glaringly obvious to me now that most of what happened to us was the consequences of very inadequate parenting.  LOL, well, maybe our parents had genetic flaws which might explain how things were in our home and why we were so WEIRD and out of step with our peers.  My younger cousin, Gary, was years ahead of me in maturity!  He dressed sharp, had girlfriends, acted "cool" and was a totally NORMAL kid. 

Ok, all you offended and enraged parents - calm down now!  I will say that I now believe it was all meant to be for whatever "reason" life has to make some folks A-OK and others, NOT A-OK.  Our parents were probably survivors of bad parenting and just did the best they could with what was given to them and us kids are living with the same drama - surviving the best we can with what was given to us.  My siblings had kids, who seem to be OK but I have no kids so, perhaps a small portion of the cycle of generational dysfunction stopped here.  Over the years, I've had a lot to say about BAD parenting but maybe it's more about Universal Mysteries and Cosmic Jokes than either good or bad parenting.  Who knows?  All I know is how it was in my family and how my own parents were.   Each day, I get a new understanding of what went on in our family and with our parents.  I am beginning to accept the Cosmic explanation of parenting and family dynamics which casts my parents in a different, not better or worse, just different light than psychology alone can.  Perhaps all of us are some kind of Cosmic Joke that I still don't get!

OK, parents.......relax now........no one is BLAMING you!!!!!!

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4 hours ago, Ashotep said:

Yet you blame the boomers.  

I can support that just on General principles.

They sucked the world dry and left the bill for their own kids.

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On 3/8/2017 at 8:41 PM, KNash said:

Well said! I agree. At first, I read the initial post and thought it was insulting, however, I realized that I wished that I would have had classes like this in high school. I'm a "millennial" (1985). I put millennial it in quotes because I don't like the derogatory connotation attached it. There has been a lot of opposing views on the expectations and mindset of millennials compared to the past two generations. You can't blame someone for living or making decisions based on experiences they have had that are circumstantial. Experience and expectations change by generation and it's dependent on what is going on during that period.

Isn't it funny how EVERY tag for a generation has negative connotations? 

Ah, 1985, a great year to be me. I spent half that year wandering around the Orient, and the other half in California. Good times, and a much more free and happy time than most of what I have seen since.

Don't over-annalyse anything, least of all yourself. Your generation can do things just as great as any previous Generation, never doubt that. All you need is opportunity, and a positive mind-set. Everything else is just stuff you can pick up along the way. 

Best of luck to you!

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I do find it rather dismaying that normal, everyday skills have to be taught via a special seminar but I shouldn't be surprised either.

When I was in high school, for example, we had a class on "Home Economics" and it was a total joke! When the teacher spoke about expenses, she had us keep a log for nearly a month on how much money we personally spent; while it was mildly interesting to note that I and another student were the only ones that spent less than ten dollars while others spent up to eight dollars or more, nothing was taught about balancing checkbooks, keeping log of debits and credits or to keep a file for receipts when important purchases were made.

When it came to subjects like housing, we we not taught anything about home ownership such as how to shop for one, how to apply for a loan or even how to do simple repairs. Nothing. Zip. Zilch! and none of this had to do with supposed "safety" gobbelty-carp either. Kids are taught to be helpless and useless so they can't even change a light bulb without calling a service person.

HOWEVER.. I also came across some elderly people, mostly women, who were totally helpless to do anything because either their husbands did everything for them and/or when it came to financial matters, the wives were totally left out of the information loop.

On 2/24/2017 at 0:44 PM, Dark_Grey said:

This is what happens after several generations of peace and prosperity. We completely lost the plot

I fail to see the connection here. People from every era have been helpless and teach that, through example, to their kids.

There are also plenty of young people too who are very capable and can fend for themselves, life skills is not exclusively linked to wartime and chaos.

Regardless of the era, if you cannot think to pick up your laundry off the floor and put it in a laundry machine or use the vacuum cleaner then you have serious problems.

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On 2017-03-12 at 5:14 AM, Ryu said:

Regardless of the era, if you cannot think to pick up your laundry off the floor and put it in a laundry machine or use the vacuum cleaner then you have serious problems

:tu:

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I remember thinking, when I graduated high school way back in 1968, that it would have been nice if they'd taught us some things like taxes, balancing check book, etc. But you know, it wasn't that big a deal to learn. Some life lessons you just have to learn by living life. My 7 year old granddaughter learns everything she wants to know from youtube. I bet if you did a search "balancing a check book" - it'd be there. I think the best thing you can teach your kids is - how to learn.

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