Growing Pains: The Millennial's Guide To Adulting

Pop culture will have you believe your twenties are made for travelling the world, getting drunk on weeknights and dating the wrong guy(s). But play your cards well now, and your fully-fledged adult self will thank you, says Laura Collins.

- Sumalya Sarkar

I am one of the millions of millennials who live in a procrastinating culture, fuelled by Instagram filters, Buzz Feed listicles and TV on demand. I don’t feel like I need to rush into the grown-up realm of marriage, mortgages and babies because I have got years until I hit 30, and according to everyone, 30 is when you have to get serious.

At least that’s what I spent the first half of my twenties believing. Upon closer introspection, I have come to realise: “Holy shit, I’m 26 years old.” Suddenly, straddling the line between adolescence and adulthood has never felt more like a game of Survivor. In some ways, I feel relatively “adult”. I have a tax guy and a great credit rating. But in other ways, I’m completely useless—I moved out three-and-a-half years ago, but I’m still on the family Medicare card. Like many of my peers, I fall somewhere in between the two extremes: I’m an emerging adult.

The term “emerging adulthood” was coined in 2000 by US-based research professor Jeffrey Arnet in his paper