Julie Lythcott-Haims

1 card

1. 01

   The last two years at home are not for pushing them to study but for handing over adult competences, one at a time, while there is still a safety net under them.

   How to Raise an Adult · 2015

   A task done badly by them is worth more than the same task done well by you.

   The handover list, one at a time, with you available but not at the wheel. One, money: their own account, a monthly budget out of which they pay something real — the phone contract, the commute — and the obligation to find out once what running out means. Two, health: they book the appointment, they go in to the doctor alone, they collect the prescription. Three, food: five dishes cooked unaided, plus one shopping list made by them for the whole household once a month. Four, paperwork: one document filed alone, one complaint written alone, one form filled in alone. Five, conflict: if they have a problem with a teacher or an employer, they write the message; you read it first if they want. Six, travel and orientation: one long journey planned by them end to end. Seven, the choice after secondary school, treated as their decision, with you as a source of information rather than a voter. The rule that holds it all together: once you have handed a competence over, you do not take it back when they do it badly. A task done badly by them is worth more than the same task done well by you.

   “If by eighteen they have never made an appointment, cooked a meal or resolved a conflict without you, you have not protected them — you have postponed their competence.”

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