Adulting 101: #Wisdom4Life by Josh Burnette and Pete Hardesty. Broadstreet Publishing Group, 2018. 192 pages.
Reading Level: Ages 16 and up
Recommended For: Ages 14 and up, especially recent high school graduates (and college!)
“Adulting” is the new word for those ordinary life skills my generation learned from our parents along the way (and countless generations before us). I assumed I would go to college and then live on my own, in my own apartment or house, go to my own job, pay my own expenses, drive my own car, and do other responsible adult things like carry insurance.
My parents were great at teaching my sister and me these sorts of skills. I remember getting my first non-babysitting job, a job I had to interview for (oh, the anxiety!). My dad helped me fill out my first W-2 at the kitchen table when I was still in high school. I remember conversations with my dad about “marketable skills” whenever I would discuss my English-major aspirations (and he would point out that an English major, by itself, didn’t always translate to “marketable skills” the way an English major with a teaching degree did).
As our world has gotten busier, these sorts of life skills and conversations have taken a back seat. No need to fear: Adulting 101 is here! Burdette and Hardesty have taken the material they use for counseling and mentoring countless young people in their various jobs at Chick-Fil-A and Young Life, distilled them down into pithy sections with unique hashtags, and created a valuable resource for anyone about to fledge the nest. Whether or not a high school student has learned this content from his or her parents, Adulting 101 is a handy resource with reminders of email etiquette, how to dress for success, budgeting tips, lessons on leadership, and even some relationship advice thrown in.
Is it a “Christian” book? The authors spend the final chapter discussing where they’ve gleaned their wisdom: straight from Scripture. They ask readers to think about their ultimate purpose in life and to consider Jesus. Those readers who’ve never considered the ultimate questions in life won’t be turned off by the preceding chapters, and they just might give the authors’ final questions some good thought!
The text is full of trendy hashtags and phrases, but the content is solid and readable. Even when hashtags are a thing of the past, the remaining content will still be relevant.
Cautions: none
Overall Rating: 4.5
- Worldview Rating: 5
- Artistic Rating: 4
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Betsy,
I THANK you for these words in your review of this book:
“Adulting” is the new word for those ordinary life skills my generation learned from our parents …As our world has gotten busier, these sorts of life skills and conversations have taken a back seat.” As a teacher of 8th graders, I found the title of this book encouraging and looked closer to its description. As a hard working teacher in a at-risk district, I found the descriptive words deeply disappointing and even offensive, as they come off as a criticism of teachers not getting “the job” done with these words:
“Basic life skills go mostly untaught in classrooms.” “Life skills” ARE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PARENTS!!!!!!!!! NOT the classroom. The classroom is for the ACADEMIC skills. Rapper and political activist Prince EA also knuckles down on teachers for not teaching life skills, bemoaning how they make students “follow directions,” and “read” from a text book. THESE ARE academic skills, with the necessary foundational skills like following directions, active listening, practicing what you are asked to do, etc., however, true LIFE SKILLS are the PARENTS’ responsibility. Ten years from now, everything not taught will be the teachers’ fault. I would encourage that redeemedreader AND the publishers rethink the power and error behind the tag line “Basic life skills go ,mostly untaught in classrooms,” and perhaps change it to “Basic life skills used to be taught at home, and since the classrooms are designed for academic skills, …” Sincerely, a VERY hard working English teacher. PS – in case you were not aware of it, a schools test scores rise and fall on only two teachers: math and English. No other subject area teachers are held accountable, nationwide. If the author truly believes that schools need to pick up the slack held by parents, perhaps he could suggest that the science teachers SPECIFICALLY teach the cooking and the safety common sense applications while the social studies, econ, and govt teachers teach the citizenship, and the math teachers teach the banking and finance aspect of living, rather than just saying “teachers.”
Great book! 14-16 years old is a good age to start reading. Too bad it hadn’t been released yet during my teenage years, but I gave a copy to my younger sister. There are also some good resources: http://mariposalibrary.org/teens.html Tests and templates that wouldn’t fit in the book format but are very useful to check out.
Thanks for the link, Ann!