Kids do what feels good. Adults devise a plan and stick to it.

For over decades now, there has been this word slowing emerging into a full-fledged member of some folks vocabulary, and that word is “adulting”. As quoted from Merriam-Webster, “to “adult” is to behave like an adult, specifically to do the things -often mundane- that an adult is expected to do. “ The first five months of 2016 saw a 6-fold increase in use over last year in the Lexis-Nexis database of publications, and Digiday reports that the Brandwatch has seen mention of “adulting” 642,000 times online in the last year, with usages peaking of more than 87,000 mentions.

50 years ago, kids were expected to be adults because given most all family economics, the need to produce for a family wasn’t an option, it was a necessity. As our society has evolved, wanting “better” for our children, and technology advanced, life has become easier in terms of the simple things of life such as putting food on the table and a roof over your loved one’s heads. But in turn, we have this consequence of many adults behaving like kids, and terms such as “adulting” become part of their vocabulary.

The key aspect we all must teach, preach, educate, instill in all children not just our own, is “kids do what feels good, and adults devise a plan and stick with it” as Dave Ramsey teaches. As adults, we have all acted like children by doing what feels good rather than challenging ourselves to do the hard thing and do what is right. We have chosen attend a social event rather than spend time with our child in a time of need. We have made an impulse purchase of some clothes or electronic that we have never worn or used, rather than stopping our impulse and waiting a full 24 hours. We have blurted out hateful words in a reaction rather than using our brains, waiting, and responding. We have slept in too late when we needed to get our tails out of bed early to be more productive for the day. Or better yet, we have stayed up too late watching some mindless, useless show on tv or online, that in turn greatly reduced our productivity the next day.

Regardless, whoever thought we would have a verb called “adulting”!? I promise all 4 of my deceased grandparents did not need this word because they chose to be an early positive, producing, influential member of society. They didn’t have impulses, they planned their impulses. In our world today, we have so many worrying about their own needs and not worrying about others, it’s a real problem in our society. We need more serving and strength, and less selfishness and fear. And we need parents convicted and determined to raise awesome adults, not awesome kids, making adulting the standard and norm, not an option.