Ten warning signs you’re an adult

My Mortgage Docs to be Reviewed by an Expert (Photo credit: Casey Serin)

We all know the standard metrics: graduate college, grad school, marry, have kids, acquire property and a vehicle.

I never had kids, so that typical dividing line into Maturity escaped me.

But for many of us, different moments mark a definite end to innocence.

Here are ten that resonate for me:

Taxes!

I grew up in a family of freelancers whose approach to paying income tax — which is never deducted at source, for those of you who’ve never done it — was, hmmm, variable. One day my Dad said, “I have two pieces of advice for you about taxes.”

“Running and hiding?”

Suffice to say I now have a very good accountant and genuflect to him deeply.

A mortgage

In New York, getting a mortgage is like some bizarro obstacle course littered with lawyers with out-stretched hands. Check, check, check, check!

Knowing — and caring about — your FICO score

For those of you outside the U.S., this is your credit score whose quality determines whether life is pleasant (low interest rates on mortgages, car loans, credit cards) or a hell of slammed doors refusing you access to any sort of credit. Surprisingly few consumers realize what sort of leverage you have with a good score — a lot!

Giving informed consent for my mother’s brain surgery

That was very weird, given how deeply private she always was. I looked, literally, into her head, staring at the four-inch tumor on X-ray that soon, successfully, came out.

Putting my mother into a nursing home

Pretty much the hell you’d expect: having to sell 95 percent of her things and make consequential decisions quickly. Being an only child makes it both easier and harder.

Getting a colonoscopy

For those of you under 50, something to look forward to! (And those putting it off out of fear, it’s no big deal. You have one wearying day beforehand to cleanse you colon, go to sleep during the procedure. Done.)

Knowing your neighbors

When you’re young, single and often behaving badly, you may not want to know your neighbors. Who was that guy/girl skulking out of your apartment? What were those weird noises at 3 a.m.? Once you’re a bit older, maybe traveling for work, maybe with a place you own and/or value more than a dive shared with six roomies, having kind and watchful neighbors is a wonderful thing.

Regular mammograms/Pap smears/prostate exams

I’m always a little stunned when I hear of someone, (who has health insurance, which in the U.S. means these are no-brainers), who skips these essential tests. No one wants to hear bad news. My mother has survived breast cancer, so mammo day is always a little shaky for me. But seriously? Just do it!

Joining a faith community

No disrespect to atheists and agnostics. But for many of us, finding a congenial place to nurture your spiritual growth is a major step. It’s easy to focus solely on family/work/friends/fun — until the shit hits the fan.

Making a will/living will/power of attorney/health care proxy

So cheery! But if you have been fortunate enough to have accumulated anything of value, it’s worth deciding who to leave it to. And facing any sort of major surgery — even childbirth, my mom-pals tell me — means facing the scariest of fears about mortality or severe injury.

How about you?

What milestones have marked your path to adulthood?

Doing Laundry, Changing Lightbulbs And Other Essential College Skills

Image via Wikipedia

Seriously?

Seriously?

There are kids going to college who have no idea how to —- change a lightbulb?

According to this recent piece in The New York Times, possibly not:

I will end with a bunch of random, yet helpful, tips garnered from a variety of sources. Make sure your son or daughter knows how to sew on a button or a repair a hem, change a light bulb (yes, honestly some have never done that at home), tie a tie, defrost a refrigerator (some dorm fridges aren’t self-defrosting) and judge how long different foods can stay in a refrigerator before going bad.

And here are a few more: How to tip properly, use a microwave safely, strip and make a bed, pack a suitcase and safeguard valuables.

Rant alert, dearest readers. I was out on my own, living in a minuscule studio apartment on a not-very-good street of downtown Toronto when I was 19, the fall semester of my sophomore year. Was I ready? Not really. But my family had sold the house and were headed off to live on a boat in Europe. Jump!

My rent was $165. I was on the ground floor (wrong!) facing an alley (wrong!) in a vaguely seedy/affordable neighborhood. I would not have qualified for student aid or loans and didn’t want dorm life after a childhood and adolescence spent at boarding school and summer camp sharing space with four to six strangers. I wanted privacy.

I still remember the price of a can of tuna then — 65 cents — as I ate a fair bit of it. I was not a very chic dresser as my budget was so tight; it took me months to save the $30 I then needed for tights, a leotard and slippers to take free ballet classes on campus. I bought and cooked my own food, did my own laundry, played “Hejira” on my stereo, entertained members of the opposite sex whenever I felt like it.

I lived there until June when, one terrifying night, a man leaned in my bathroom window and tried to pull me out of the bathtub. It’s true — you can be too scared to scream.

I moved into a sorority house the next week, safely on the top floor surrounded by other young women. That fall I moved into another tiny studio apartment, this one — like where I live now — overlooking nothing but trees, safely completely inaccessible in height and design on the sixth floor in a better area.

I learned a lot by living on my own so young: how to budget, how to deal with adults and professors and landlords without any help or intervention or advice from family; my parents were both very far away, both traveling and often unreachable. Whatever the problem, as an only child and already writing and selling photos to national publications to pay for school, it was mine  to solve.

My best advice to freshmen:

Learn how to get along with your professors. Don’t text them or expect hand-holding. They’re not Mummy. They are professionals paid to help you learn. Period.

Understand and respect the complex interplay between being drunk and stoned and the increased chances of a sexual encounter — or several — you did not anticipate, plan or want. Learn to say no, mean it and leave in sufficient sobriety you remain in control of your safety.

Practice using condoms. Use them.

Practice saying no. Mean it.

Enjoy the extraordinary array of facilities your campus offers you — socially, intellectually, physically. Even getting into a gym or pool as nice as yours right now will cost you a fortune post-grad.

Grades matter, but not as much as you think or fear (short of those applying to grad or professional programs.) That stellar GPA often means very little to most employers — who really crave ethical, hardworking and highly disciplined employees. Yes, a GPA is meant as proxy for all those qualities, but it doesn’t always work out that way. The “skills” you acquire by sitting in a college classroom and (only) striving for top grades may not translate tidily to a job in the real world.

You do not need to keep up with the materialistic cravings of your fellow students, whose parents may out-earn yours by many multiples. College is the first set of steps to adulthood, not four (or five or six) years of shrugged-off do-overs.

Work your ass off. Just do it. If you get into grad school, you’ll need to be in the habit. If you get a job, you’ll need it. If you have to work for yourself, self-discipline will prove far more valuable than your diploma.

A deadline  — i.e.  the paper is due Friday morning –  is not a suggestion. It is not negotiable. Not Friday afternoon six months from now.

Just because your BFFs are: bulimic or anorexic or tattooed or multiply pierced or high most of the time doesn’t meant this is a great trend to follow. College is a great place to locate and stiffen your spine.

Have fun! Get to know the sort of people you never even acknowledged in high school, The real world is going to put you face to face with all sorts of people from now on, so start discovering and enjoying them.

If someone comes on to you — whatever your sexuality or theirs — be flattered and polite, especially if sexual behavior is new to you, but go slowly. Sex is fun, but not worth getting an STD  or pregnant. Don’t confuse attention with affection.

Don’t focus all your energy on how much better everyone else is doing — socially, sexually, intellectually, athletically. If you’ve gotten into a good school, you’re now surrounded by some kick-ass talent. Watch it, learn from it, but don’t let it intimidate you.

Professors are not God. If you have a solidly researched and thoughtful opinion that differs from theirs, share it, politely. But your feelings are not facts. Learn the difference.

Take on leadership roles. You never know until you try if people will follow your lead. If they do, you know you’ve got the goods. They don’t teach that in the classroom, but the confidence it will give you will play out for years to come.

Here’s an interesting ongoing debate at the Times’ website on whether college is even worth it.

What’s your best advice to the class of 2015?

The Six Warning Signs Of Adulthood

Image by _rockinfree via Flickr

For some Americans still finishing up the last scraps of their Thanksgiving turkeys, hosting a meal for 8 or 10 or 16 or 20 is a feat worth celebrating in itself. Here’s a totally subjective list of activities or events I think mark the end of innocence:

1) Your first successful dinner party. I chose dinner, instead of lunch or a shower or a party with chips and dip, because, done well, it demands forethought, planning, shopping, inviting, re-minding the people you’ve invited, making sure they won’t die at the table of allergic reactions, choosing a menu that makes sense and, if you’re as insanely fussy as I (and my name has been used as a verb, meaning “to fuss”), choosing the dishes, flatware, linens, candles and flowers to make the table lovely. Nothing has to cost a lot, but it does require effort and grace and timing and coordination; sweating and shouting tend to run the effect. This is why the cook always needs a good stiff drink beside them in the kitchen. You’ve got the desire and skills to make a lot of people comfortable, welcome, happy and well-fed all at once.

2) Coping with injury. It might be a broken bone or recovering from ACL tears or rotator cuff surgery. Pain and months of rehab force you out of your private, swift-moving individual self into the wider world of the slower, those who wince when they reach for things, the land of imposed patience. It slows you down so much you start to notice much more. You also see who gives up a bus or subway seat or who kindly opens a door for you and those who let it slam in your face. It’s really hard for some of us to ask for help, to be visibly wounded, to accept generosity. It’s not a bad thing. People’s kindness can stun you.

3) Attending more than five funerals of people unrelated to you. It’s an arbitrary number, but it marks your soul to see someone you loved and respected lying in their coffin, and to watch a room fill, as I did at the service for New York Times photographer Dith Pran, with so many people they run out of chairs. People who met him once for an hour years ago and who drove four hours one way to be there to pay respects.  Another Times colleague, David Rosenbaum, who was murdered the day after he retired; people came from across the country to be there for his family, as they did for Pran. A neighbor’s husband, who died a brutal death from cancer. A neighbor’s wife, my age, dead of cancer. It’s anyone whose family you want to support. You know someday you, or your loved ones,will need it. It’s our job to be there for one another. It is often not much fun, but it’s essential.

4) Buying or re-financing your home. Unbelievable! We’re, thank heaven for our good fortune, almost through the tunnel of re-financing our apartment, a process that’s included almost a month, so far, of negotiating with and coordinating with eight busy, and some incommunicative and deeply confusing individuals. (Talk to the paralegals, not the lawyers!) I’ve been on the phone sometimes three times a day bird-dogging everyone and trying to keep straight who’s doing what and when. People charging you $$$$$$ for their time need a lot of managing to get to your timely goal.

5) Coping with a friend’s serious illness or that of their partner. Right now, a friend from church is battling cancer and a friend out West has a husband likely to die of it within a month. What can you possibly say? Or do? It’s terrifying. They’re terrified. Their partner or spouse might be angry and lashing out at them, which I’ve heard of many times and have seen in my own family. It is so tempting, and so many people give in, to just flee. To hide behind your own fears or inability to help. I call, send flowers and cards. It’s not much, I know. I’m not sure what else, from a distance, one can do. I helped one overwhelmed neighbor find a hospice for her husband. Cook a meal, babysit their kids, walk their dog. Do whatever you can. When it’s your time, you will need help as well.

6) Prolonged unemployment. Much has been written of late about how all the fresh new grads will be scarred by coming out of school into this recession. It will hurt their incomes and their ideals. It might.

It might also, as those of who who’ve now lived — and survived — through three recessions since 1988 know, toughen them up, albeit sooner than they’d planned or hoped. Yes, student debts are onerous and scary. Yes, it’s deeply frustrating to not do what you want and have worked and studied hard for. Join the line! Right now, millions of unemployed people who have done the same are also staring at the walls and wondering what, if anything, they are going to do to find paid work and put food on the table. Your dreams may change, even for a while.

I moved to New York just in time for the first recession in my industry. I knew no one, had no job, no alumni ties. I cold-called strangers for six months and finally, truly in the depths of despair by that point, found my first Manhattan publishing job from a newspaper ad. Those six months of incredible frustration forced me way beyond my comfort zone and challenged every comfy certainty I’d had about my skills and talents and experience. It was useful prep for the next two recesssions.  It sucks. It won’t kill you. You will, and will have to, find new reserves of strength, flexibility and ingenuity you had no idea you had. It will also remind you that a laissez-faire capitalist system is based on “shedding” labor whenever and wherever and as quickly as those million-dollar-earning CEOs think necessary. Don’t rely on their goodwill or loyalty, ever.

I know this list skips three standard measures, having kids — which some of us never do, getting married (which some people do four or six times) and facing the death of one’s parents. I am lucky enough still to have both of mine and dread those days.

What are your signs?