How to Be a Grown Up: The 14 Essential Skills You Didn’t Know You Needed. I saw this in a bookstore recently and wondered if going-off-to-college teens actually read books like these or if they’re just bait for well-meaning adults. Recs welcome!
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Seems overly… large to me. I feel like it should be more of a quick guide than a tome.
IMO, “How to Do Life” - https://a.co/d/gmLzV2V - is the best one of these I’ve come across
Here is another good one specific to financial advice. I gave it to both of my kids in their early 20's.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143130528?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_8
Seek and ye shall find ... a Kottke.org post on this very topic! https://kottke.org/tag/The%20Index%20Card
My son has read and re-read many times Catherine Newman’s two life guidebooks, How to be a Person and What Can I Say?
I have never seen these before, but I am now going to recommend them to all my friends with middle-grade kiddos!
Do they make one for middle aged people pushing sixty who haven't figured it out yet?
Asking for me.
I got a couple books like this as high school graduation gifts. They were actually useful. Real life tips and etiquette that you may have not been formally told by parents or school. Suggestions that help you be a good new community member and neighbor and friend. I’ll never forget the advice to make small talk in grocery stores with everyone about everything: the oranges haven’t been good in a while, why is soda so expensive, wow Princess Di is headlining the tabloids again. I’ve gotten a lot of smiles out of that one.
Do you remember any of the names of those couple of books? Sounds like they had good advice.
@Bison Bison, thank you for recognizing the value of making connections with those we meet by chance! Every time I see one of those cynical, mean Progressive Insurance commercials about "turning into one's parents," I wonder if the people who make them understand the value of these chance connections to all of us.
If I ever ran for my local Board of Ed, I was make Personal Finance the foundation of my platform. Bring literal Home Economics back again!
I picked up Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 535 Easy(ish) Steps a while back and I haven't read it yet. It looked interesting, even though I'm older than the target audience.
I think you know this one—we read Ethan Hawke's Rules for a Knight as a family years ago, and though I need to reread it to be sure, I recall it being easy to read yet surprisingly ruminative and poignant.
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