San Mateo County Libraries welcomes Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of Your Turn: How to Be An Adult on Thursday, October 19 at 6:30 PM for an author talk and live audience Q&A over Zoom. Join us to hear Julie’s experience and guidance on how any adult—at any age—can learn to handle the trials of adulthood with purpose and confidence.
A Groundbreakingly Frank Guide to Being a Grown-Up
What does it really mean to be an adult in our changing world? In the twentieth century, psychologists came up with five markers of adulthood: finishing one's education, getting a job, leaving home, marrying, and having children. Since then, every generation has been held to those same markers. However, so much has changed about the world and living in it since that sequence was formulated. All of those markers are choices, and they are all valid, but any individual's choices along those lines do not make them more or less of an adult.
Julie Lythcott-Haims, a former Stanford dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising and the author of the perennial bestseller How to Raise an Adult has encountered hundreds of twentysomethings (and thirtysomethings, too),who, faced with these markers of adulthood, feel they are just playing the part of an "adult" while struggling with anxiety, stress, and general unease.
In Your Turn, Julie offers compassion, personal experience and practical strategies for living a more authentic adulthood, as well as inspiration through interviews with dozens of voices from the rich diversity of the human population who have successfully launched their adult lives.
Being an adult, it turns out, is not about any particular checklist; it is instead a process, one that can be improved over time by becoming more comfortable with uncertainty and gaining the know-how to keep going. Once you begin to practice it, being an adult becomes the most complicated yet also the most abundantly rewarding and natural thing. And Julie Lythcott-Haims is here to help readers take their turn.
Get to Know Julie Lythcott-Haims
In my experience, whether one does or doesn’t behave “grown” is a function of the circumstances within which one is raised and the experiences to which you’ve been exposed. —Julie Lythcott-Haims
Julie Lythcott-Haims is the New York Times bestselling author of How to Raise an Adult and Real American. She holds a BA from Stanford, a JD from Harvard Law School, and an MFA from California College of the Arts. She resides in the Bay Area with her partner, their two itinerant young adults and her mother.
Praise for Your Turn
“Refreshingly, Lythcott-Haims avoids talking down to readers and instead connects through vulnerability. . . . Those overwhelmed by the demands of adulthood would do well to check this out.” —Publishers Weekly, opens a new window
“They say there’s no manual for being a grown-up, but former Stanford dean Julie Lythcott-Haims has finally created one—and it’s a must-read. Your Turn is the compassionate, candid, comprehensive guide every young adult needs to navigate smoothly through the world, covering everything from jobs and finances to relationships and emotional health. Julie is part therapist, part tell-it-like-it-is wise older friend whose wisdom will benefit anyone who’s trying to figure out this thing we call life—which is to say, everyone.” —Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
“This is the one book you need to read if you’re ready to take up the challenge of becoming your true and vital adult self. It is filled with great stories of people just like you, told by a master storyteller. We need more adults in the world and it really is Your Turn.”
—Bill Burnett, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of Designing Your Life and Designing Your Work Life
Add a comment to: Meet Julie Lythcott-Haims, Author of Your Turn: How to Be an Adult