For this life lab, I took four adulting courses recommended by the Adulting School administration in Portland, Maine

They tell me I’m an adult, and that I’ve been an adult for many years. But I still feel like I’m a pretend Mommy (and I know you feel the same). I remember asking my parents-in-law years ago, “When did it sink in that this is life for real?”

“Maybe when the grandkids came,” my father-in-law ventured.

Now if that’s the response of my uber-responsible, mature, and wise father-in-law, there’s little hope for me, who writes a column so I can do fun stuff and get away with it because “I’m working on an article.”

Another word for my ostrich approach to reality, sanctified by my generation, is “adulting.” As an English teacher, I’m not getting into the validity of the word adulting; I’m just accepting it as a universally colloquial millennial expression.

I think I do a decent job adulting; I still have my job, and social services hasn’t taken my kids. Apparently, though, it’s a really hard thing to accomplish these days, with people proudly posting on their statuses how much they’ve adulted that day (seriously, you get credit for eating a vegetable), and waiting for the effusive responses of their peers on how awesome and big and adult-like they are and that they aspire to adult (new verb) as well as they do one day. There are even official “adulting courses,” offering classes to help you transition into real life — I can’t imagine how people have done it until now.

The Experiment

For this life lab, I took four adulting courses recommended by the Adulting School administration in Portland, Maine for people who can’t make it to their campus. The classes are taught on the Udemy learning platform. I took Sleeping Hacking: Masterclass (because it’s very adult-like behavior, apparently, to go to bed on time), How to Manage Difficult Conversations (this one might be useful — I’ve had difficult conversations, not sure I’ve managed them, just about survived them), Essential Cooking Skills (because there’s more to cooking than grilled cheese), and Investing in Stocks (because I want to sound smart).

So, will I be a better, high-functioning adult when I’m through? Maybe. Will I still snort at the adulting concept? Definitely.

How It Went Down

Let’s start with cooking. Like Jamie Geller, I was the Bride Who Knew Nothing. Correction, I didn’t want to know anything before I got married. The only cookbook I came into marriage with was the What’s Cooking little binder I received as a wedding gift, and whatever was inside, I cooked. I followed directions, and when I didn’t know what something meant, like “folding a batter,” I Googled, asked my mother, or skipped the recipe.

Ten-plus years and many cookbooks later, I’m the one my family calls when they have a cooking question. Either I know the answer or I ask the Family Table chat — they always have my back.

As I was about to begin this cooking basics course, I wondered if it would have helped me when I first got married or if it can help me today. In a nutshell: not much — unless I plan on subsisting on broth and poached eggs.

The class spent a lot of time showing the classic cuts like julienne and brunoise, and I kept thinking that anyone who voluntarily juliennes their produce has too much time on their hands. Julienne peeler, anyone? And honestly does any home cook on a schedule really care about pretty carrot sticks? At the home cook level, rarely is the cut there for more than aesthetic reasons.

And then there was this brilliant topic covered by the instructor (who had the oddest accent; a mix of French and Australian, though he looked Eastern European): “how to cut round vegetables square,” which would make for a great philosophical question, but all you have to do for square veggies is to cut away rounded edges to make square ones, and it wastes a lot.

I gave the course a one-star review. I’m considering filming my own Udemy course entitled “Cooking for Lovable Idiots.” I’d cover knives — this course just assumed you knew about the different knives and when to use them (cleavers look cool, but you’d best use it more for the things that goes “bump” in the night than on meat). I’d have modules entitled “Meet Your New BFFs: Salt and Pepper,” “Onions Make the World Go Round,” “The Tortoise and the Hare — Cooking Temperature Styles,” and “When Life Gives You Lemons — Cook!”

Contrary to what my adulting cooking course insists, I’ve never made the “mother sauce” Hollandaise, neither have I made a Béchamel sauce, and although I’m sure they’re deliciously divine, I don’t need to know how to make them in order to serve a wholesome dinner to my family. And considering the amount of fat in both those sauces, I may be better off staying clueless. If there’s a course section you’d like to guest teach, let me know. In the meantime, regarding cooking, I’m officially an adult.

Signing up for sleep hacking was an exercise in futility. My baby was days away from being born (hello, interrupted and sleepless nights), and it’s not like I was sleeping that well in the waning days of my pregnancy. Yes, I went to sleep on time — I’ve gotten to the age where I realize I need my sleep (gosh, I sound old). Going to sleep at one, two, three in the morning means dysfunction the next day, no matter how many coffees I drink. But was there anything more than, “Go to sleep on time”?

The instructor was a young dude who obscurely calls himself a “digital nomad” and speaks to the camera in pineapple and odysseys T-shirts. I don’t think he has a concept of normal people’s schedules, definitely not the working Jewish mom life.

First, he’s very big on the circadian rhythm, and I gotta tell you, so am I. I anxiously waited till my baby was six weeks old for his circadian rhythm to kick in and possibly give me break. Now he sleeps, is awake without crying, and cries, instead of sleeping and crying — a 50% improvement is nothing to blink at.

Basically, it all comes down to understanding your natural rhythm so you can get the most out of it. In a nutshell, your body cycles through body temperature ranges, affecting your fatigue. Your body temperature is the highest at 10 a.m. which makes you most alert. At around 3 p.m., your body temperature dips to the lowest, making you feel tired and sluggish and reaching for the caffeine. It then rises a bit more and then, at around nine, your body starts to produce melatonin, and then it’s beddy-boo time for you a little while later.

Once we’re aware of this pattern, we can utilize it to our benefit. My instructor suggested doing the most mentally tasking tasks in the late morning, between ten to twelve a.m., leaving things with increasingly lighter mental loads for later in the day. By the time night comes, you should just be chilling.

He suggested I get tons of light exposure at three critical points in the day because that signals to your body it’s day, and it produces more serotonin. After nine p.m., limit light exposure. He lights candles in his apartment; I don’t think I’m a fan of that particular fire hazard. He posits that if you get a lot of light during the day, you’ll have more energy, and limiting light at night will signal sleep faster.

I tried it, sort of. On Shabbos, my baby was cranky, I realized it was one o’clock, perfect time to get in lots of sun. It was glorious weather so I took him for a walk.We came home at two. Motzaei Shabbos, while listening to more sleep hacking lectures, I fell asleep at my computer, head bobbing and all. It was only 10:30, but I put myself to bed. Then again, perhaps it’s all causal — maybe the video was just that boring, or I’m that tired from the accumulated sleep deprivation of having a baby… who knows.

He also suggests that I nap — optimally for 25 minutes, at around three p.m. when my body temperature is supposedly the lowest; it would save me two hours of sleep at night. Yeah right, I can’t manage to “sleep when the baby sleeps.” You think I’m dropping everything and taking a nap? I wish!

As far as scheduling anything involving brainpower for the late morning, I happen to be teaching then, so I guess that works for my students, but leaves little brain power for me to prep or write (yes, I’m suggesting that writing these columns takes some neural input). I do suppose folding laundry and making lunches don’t take that much out of me and can be reserved for later in the day. Scratch that; making lunches is strenuous mental work, remembering who likes what and how and what I made the past few days and dare not repeat.

If there’s merit to anything he said, then there’s something mature about being active about your sleep health. As adults, whether by badge of honor or circumstance, we often burn the candle at both ends, and get into bidding wars with each other over who is more tired. Maybe we should all grow up and take a nap.

Next course was “How to Manage Difficult Conversations.” See, when we mature, we’re supposed to interact on a more advanced level. Supposed is the operative word here. I’m not sure if the skill of maneuvering hard conversations is intuitive or adaptive; it may be something that most people learn either through direct instruction or by trial and error (c’mon I know you all had some disastrous conversation that needed to happen, but ended up being worse than the topic under discussion and spiraled into an issue in and of itself).

The course on difficult conversations was no laughing matter. Of course I have comments on the instructor; he’s bald, has a weird accent, and speaks out of the side of his mouth. Yes, I’m judgy on first glance, but hey, I listened and learned from all the instructors in the end!

The content of the course was self-explanatory to me on a logical level — yelling at people is not conducive to a productive conversation — but to actually have his advice permeate on an emotional level is another thing (I’m not admitting to ever yelling at anyone, but I can imagine some people may have to stifle the urge at times.)

A lot of the discussion was about preparing for the difficult conversation by taking the emotion out of it so as not to get carried away, but later he talks about having empathy. So wipe away emotion to be a logical droid and then strategically “there, there” someone? Confusing, I know.

As a beginning exercise, he has you write down five hard to discuss topics, so you can visualize those conversations as the course progresses, and upon completion, think about how to approach them. And no, I won’t tell you my difficult conversations — some self-preservation I have. Okay fine, I’ll tell you one, probably because you have this one on your list as well — asking for a raise.

I relayed parts of this course to my husband, which I thought might be relevant to his office life (I know, I know, just keep my nose out of his business. It’s hard for me, I’m such an overeager sharer of things I learned. I think my most commonly uttered phrase is “I read/heard recently…”) My husband nodded and kept his comments to himself, smart man, averting us from having a “difficult conversation.”

This course, while not exactly the most captivating, was probably the most valuable, but don’t tell anyone I know I said that, or they’ll expect way too much of me next time we need to work things out.

The class on stocks was the only one I was truly interested in. Sleeping I can live without (they tell me I need it, but so far I’m still alive), I can bumble my way through conversations, some sort of food was gonna happen in my house even if I didn’t make it (tuna sandwiches, anyone?), but investing doesn’t happen unless you do it. And I haven’t. Because that scares me. I’m risk averse, and although I’ve read a lot about the stock market, I’ve never felt I know enough to actually do it. But really, does knowing how to invest qualify as adulting? It’s not necessary, it’s a perk — or maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel good since I did better in the other courses.

It was an 11-hour course. But I watched it on 1.25 or 1.5 speed (Everyone talks way too slow for my patience…hmmm maybe I should work on that as an “adult”) so that cut back some time, but it was a still a looooong course relative to the others. I did learn a lot though, so I can’t complain too much.

The first question he asks and answers felt like he looked into my anxious soul and told me to grow up. So what did he ask, you wonder: “What is the worst that can happen?” Now if someone asks me “the worst,” my first thought is death. (I always think I’m dying, and when I told this to my internist, he confirmed it, and said, “We’re all dying, just at different rates.” How’s that for comforting?)

But death wasn’t an option here, so we’re doing pretty well then. The worst in stocks is The Great Depression, the worst that can happen is Black Monday, which is pretty bad. Think breadlines, Hoovervilles, suicide (hmmm, maybe death is not off the table). And then the instructor went on to demonstrate through charts that if you’d lost everything in the Great Depression and still kept your leftover pennies in the stock market, you would've been in the black ten years later. No great return, but your losses would have been made up — inflation included.

So basically, it’s a long-term game, and you’re best off starting young (Ummm, I don’t know if I qualify as young anymore. Whoops.) because compounding interest is a beautiful thing — Albert Einstein called it brilliant, and he’s the E=mc² guy!

The instructor goes through all the terms, large, mid, small cap, BETA, PEG, PE, EPS and a million other initials, what to look at depending on what type of stock you’re looking to buy: Growth, Value, Dividend blah blah blah, don’t make me have to try to sound smart.

The takeaway I got was — unless you know what you’re doing and have time to do it, stick with an index fund. It outperforms actively managed funds 80% of the time. I’d actually known all about index funds because I’d heard a Freakonomics podcast on it a couple months ago, but I hadn’t totally trusted the info until I’d heard it here. Not that this guy is more trustworthy than Stephen Dubner, I just like hearing things twice from completely different sources before I believe it — mature of me, no?

So I’m ready to invest. I just need the money. Any sponsors? C’mon, it’ll make a great LifeLab — Esther invests your money! Still no takers… shucks.

So how’d I do, do I qualify as an adult? Can I do this adulting thing full-time? My mother FaceTimed me as I was about to write this conclusion. I tried to hang up on her, saying I had to finish this article, be responsible, and meet my deadline.

“Being an adult is doing it even if you don’t want to,” I said.

“You know what that means?” she asked, and I realized I’d stepped into it. “That I should call you anyway?” I said. She nodded and laughed.

Forget it, I’m not cut out for this adulting thing after all.

Is there something you’ve always been curious about but never had the guts to try? Esther just might do it!

Send your suggestions to Life Lab at familyfirst@mishpacha.com

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 665)