*By Kate Gill* Rather than flee to Neverland, Peter Pan might have enrolled in "adulting" school. And so too can stunted millennials ー daunted by bill-paying, cooking, cleaning, and the like ー if they take a class in adult skills at a new institution in Portland, Maine. As a concept, "adulting" classes may seem far-fetched, but according to the founder of the school, millennials are so distracted by debt, they're shirking their other responsibilities ー namely, growing up for real. "Millennials start out, on average, $10,000 in the hole right out of college," Rachel Flehinger told Cheddar Big News. "It's really hard when you're so broke and trying to make ends meet and save money," she added. But what, exactly, constitutes adulting? According to the Oxford English Dictionary ー which officially recognized the term around 2016 ー adulting is: "The practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks." Flehinger's definition is similar. "\[It means\] the tasks you have to do and complete to be a working part of society," she said. In her view, it's a generational issue that begins both in school and at home. "It used to be that they taught a lot of this in home \[economics\] , in shop; parents lived at home, they weren't divorced, they didn't both work. So now, the education just has to come from somewhere else," she said. It's also a matter of timing. "Millennials are doing things later in life ー they used to get married at 22, now they're getting married at 27 and 28. So things are becoming a bit delayed." [The Adulting School](https://adultingschool.com/) offers classes (both online and in-person) in finance, relationships, lifestyle, and work.
