April 16, 2021

Fresh Take: Julie Lythcott-Haims on Becoming An Adult

Julie Lythcott-Haims’ latest book is Your Turn: How To Be An Adult. Many of us old enough to be “grown-ups” don't feel ready to be in charge of anything. But trying and failing doesn't mean we’re not adults; it’s at the core of what adulting means.

Julie Lythcott-Haims is the author of the parenting bestseller How to Raise an Adult, which opened the minds of loving but hovering parents everywhere. Her new book is Your Turn: How To Be An Adult, which Julie calls "a compassionate beckoning into the freedoms and responsibilities of adulthood."

Adulting is a mindset. That might explain why many of us whose drivers' licenses indicate grown-up status still don't feel ready to be in charge of anything– including the children with whom we have somehow been entrusted. But trying and failing doesn't mean you're not ready to be an adult. Failing and trying again, Lythcott-Haims argues, is what makes us adults in the first place.

This episode is full of advice on how to move the parent/child paradigm (gradually) from vertical to horizontal– and on why becoming an adult is actually a path to joy. As Julie explains in this episode:

"Whether we're 8 or we're 18, or 28 or 38 or 48, we are yearning to make our way down a path that is ours to lay. We want to be loved and cared about along the way, but we do not want someone else to lead our lives for us."

Find out more at julielythcotthaims.com, on social media @jlythcotthaims, and find YOUR TURN in our Bookshop store: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9781250137777.

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