I HAD just turned 17 when I flew to New York to attend a summer programme at a university upstate. I was to travel alone to Ithaca where some relative’s ‘jaan ne walla’ would collect me from the airport and deposit me on campus the following day. However, when I landed in New York City, my onward flight was cancelled. It would take me 10 hours to reach Ithaca and for that period, no one in my family knew where I was.

The family meant to collect me in Ithaca did not realise their young child had unplugged their phone. It was a stressful time as I had to navigate a lot of challenges without an adult telling me what to do. Airline staff, cab drivers, random passengers were helpful but I had to make decisions, like buying another ticket to another airport and then making my way to LaGuardia airport, through a city which recorded some of the highest crimes that year. I led a sheltered life in sleepy Kuwait in 1988 and was completely out of my depth.

Once I checked myself into a small hotel and talked to my parents, I cried myself hoarse, so upset and frustrated by that experience, so afraid of missteps and the consequences of uninformed decisions. But it prepared me for the many frustrations and missteps I continue to experience. Life doesn’t come with a manual.

But, as it turns out, you can take Adulting 101 classes in North America to help you with what is being referred to as life skills. As the Economist wrote last month “too many adults are absolutely clueless”.

School doesn’t teach the most essential skills to navigate life.

Let me share responses to the two occasions when I’ve narrated my Ithaca story to my students. First, they were more anxious listening to my story than I was experiencing it in 1989. Response varied from ‘why didn’t you call the university and ask them to help’, to ‘why didn’t your parents go with you to the US?’, to ‘why did you choose to go to Ithaca?’ They are not clueless but I worry they have the potential to be.

I worry they are lacking in imagination, confidence and communication. This may seem ridiculous for a generation that is always on their phone but it is not communicating as you and I — boomers! Generation X-ers! — know it. We likely attended some form of home economics course before these classes were replaced by tech platforms that cannot teach you everything. Parents are not tech-savvy so kids do not value their experiences. Tech is seen as the fount of wisdom whereas AI desperately needs wisdom.

I have reflected on my own role in creating students who need constant instruction and attention. What did I do wrong for them to trust not-the-smartest celebrities and influencers?

I found some answers in Infantilised, How our Culture Killed Adulthood, by Keith Hayward who examines how, and why, Western culture became more childish. Did circumstances make us infantile or are we in these circumstances because we are infantile? It’s a fascinating read which explains how the idea of life stage has broken down, he says, resulting in “generational mulch”. It’s paradoxical in that children are treated like adults and adults have retreated to childhood.

He traces the creation of the teenager as a market force in the 1950s. This led to a cultural narcissism of the “Self” — aided by New Age therapies targeting the pursuit of a “fantasy true self” — which has resulted in societies progressively becoming self-obsessed but also immature. He says you can see this in mass media, entertainment, even signs asking people to remain hydrated in hot weather — as if we need that rem­inder. Adults use phrases like ‘my bad’ while ‘funemployment’ is how you refer to being unemployed. I now get why ‘Dear Muna’ has been replaced with ‘Hey Muna’ in professional correspondence. “By now it should be clear that infantilisation is a ubiquitous element of contemporary culture,” he writes.

And I suppose it’s why we will Google what to do in a fire.

While the news about these adulting classes in the US has a lot of right-wing commentators in a tizzy, bemoaning the breakdown of society, I think it’s a good thing. School doesn’t teach you the most essential skills to navigate life. Perhaps a class on how to fold a fitted sheet or do laundry sounds ridiculous, but teaching young people about how to handle peer pressure or budgeting isn’t a bad thing. I’m a dunce in financial matters and will sign up to learn at this age because I’m not done learning. Perhaps the name Adulting 101 is disrespectful even if its lessons are necessary. Whatever we call it, everyone can benefit from learning survival skills like managing emotions and not getting angry when you don’t get your way.

The writer is an instructor of journalism.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2025