I’m not sure when we started adding an “ing” to the word “adult” — as in “adulting is hard” and “I’m not ready for adulting.” I cringe when I hear it, but if anyone has the chops to write about the challenges of “adulting” it’s Julie Lythcott-Haims.

A former dean of freshmen at Stanford, a Harvard trained lawyer, and the parent of two young adults, Lythcott-Haims wrote a big bestselling book called “How to Raise an Adult.” She collected research and interviews and common sense as she warned about why over-parenting can be so emotionally crippling for kids.

Now she’s back in “Your Turn: How to be an Adult” with that same blend of research, candid interviews and common sense for the young adults who are emerging either from those over-protected cocoons or from circumstances where they had to grow up fast and learn to fend for themselves.

But Lythcott-Haims concedes in this California Commonwealth Club interview that it took a lot of false starts to find her voice.

And that’s why I think her book rings with as much compassion and humility as it does straightforward advice.

Writing with specific guidance on how young adults can grow away from the certainty of a “checklisted childhood” she writes, “The way your life unfolds will be heavily influenced by chance, luck and other people’s decisions and choices.” In other words, it’s out of your hands in some important ways! And that’s rather freeing, isn’t it?

My Thread Must-Read is Julie Lythcott-Haims’ “Your Turn: How to be an Adult.” Listen for my interview with Lythcott-Haims on Friday.

And tune in on Memorial Day when I’ll launch the summer of 2021 with three thrillers you should not miss.