A few nights ago, I got home from work and sat on my bed, scrolling through Twitter. I didn't get far in my timeline before I saw a tweet from a twentysomething who said she was "adulting" because she cooked herself dinner. Ugh.

Scroll through the #adulting hashtag on Twitter at any given moment, and you're likely to see Millennials sharing anecdotes like: "I grabbed drinks with friends but only talked about apartment leases #adulting," "I have clean laundry!!! #adulting," and, "I made dinner that wasn't hummus and baby carrots #adulting."

Urban Dictionary defines "adulting" as "to do grown up things and hold responsibilities such as a 9-5 job, a mortgage/rent, a car payment, or anything else that makes one think of grown ups." In the past year, the term "adulting" has increased in usage by 700 percent on Twitter. It's now so mainstream that brands like Reese's and Talenti are using it on social media to target to Millennial consumers. Recently when #adulting trended on Twitter, the Daily Mail delighted in deriding people who used it to brag about things like having ice cream with their granola because they had run out of milk.

Is the derision entirely unwarranted? Well, no, it's not. "Adulting" is a terrible fake word (that you will not find in the actual dictionary, for the record) that everyone should stop using. "Adulting" implies that being an adult is not a necessary part of growing up, but rather a life choice you're hesitant to fully buy into. It's a singularly Millennial — especially female, at that — immaturity that reduces being a grown-up to a hobby. If nothing else you do makes you seem like a stereotypical Millennial living in an entitled fantasy land where actually growing up is, like your hobbies, optional, saying "adulting" is sure to do just that.

Imagine your mother wearing this. Spreadshirt.com

It's not hard to understand why our generation has this attitude toward growing up. Many of us have been shielded from the full responsibilities of adulthood. Unlike our parents' generation, nearly a third of us are not forced to pay rent or provide for ourselves immediately after college: A May 2016 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 32.1 percent of adults aged 18 to 34 live at home. (In the 1960s, only 20 percent young adults lived with their parents.) Many of us don't need to worry about going to the grocery store alone because our parents' fridge is already stocked. We don't have to think about paying the cable bill because our parents have it covered. Growing up may feel optional because, for many of us, it is.

Though living at home has not stopped us from achieving things, hiding behind our extended adolescence only undermines our actual accomplishments. For instance, my 23-year-old friend Cara* landed her dream job in the entertainment industry right out of college. She is a star entry-level employee in her company. However, you never read about this in her social media posts. "I'm fully aware that being able to do my own laundry or cook myself a meal doesn't make me special," she said. "[But] it just feels good to be self-sufficient in small ways."

Cara is smart and has a great career, but when she talks about making dinner like it's her biggest accomplishment to date, she downplays all of her impressive achievements. The reality is that it's easier to share, "Ate something that wasn't Nutella for dinner tonight #adulting" on social media than it is to share, "I kicked ass at work this week and have some awesome things about to happen in my career #adulting."

Women are rightfully wary of this kind of self-promotion, which perhaps explains why they are seemingly more likely to use "adulting." (A scan of Twitter or Instagram suggests that women rely on "adulting" more than their male counterparts, though the social platforms do not track word usage by posters' genders.) A January 2014 study by Jessi L. Smith, a professor of psychology at Montana State University, found that our society disapproves of women who are seen as bragging about themselves, while American men who brag about their accomplishments are perceived as confident and capable. A different 2014 study conducted by Women of Influence Inc. and Thomson Reuters and Barbara Annis of the Gender Intelligence Group that examined how women executives view their careers found that women feel the need to downplay their accomplishments and have trouble drawing attention to their success.

Saying "adulting" doesn't only undermine our talents and make us sound entitled — it also affects our superiors' perception of us.

My boss is an older Millennial who gives me a lot of responsibility at work. She trusts me to manage our interns, make sure reports are sent out to higher-ups, and that her schedule is always up to date. I'm not going to look capable of any of those things if I act like going to the grocery store alone is "adulting," my biggest accomplishment yet. I want even more responsibility than I have now, and I'm not going to get there by acting like I need a pat on the back for brushing my teeth and showing up to work on time.

Instead of devaluing ourselves and our generation, we need to know what's worth celebrating and celebrate it. It's great that I didn't turn my white T-shirt pink when I did my own laundry, but that's not the greatest thing I've done or will ever do as an adult. So, let's retire #adulting, so we can actually start to act like adults.

*Name has been changed.

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