Elizabeth Day

I should say, I hated school as a concept.

The second secondary school I went to was actually a really good school.

And I met some lovely people and it was really good for me, but I just didn't like school.

But they had a course that was lessons called Life Skills.

Mm-hmm.

Now, the only thing I remember being taught in that lesson was how to put a condom on a piece of plastic.

I don't remember being taught about taxes.

It was such a shock to me when I was like, I have to pay taxes.

I'd love to have been taught key accountancy skills or the importance of collaboration or, dare I say it, the limits of fertility.

Whereas it felt like all of my education was about...

double maths and don't get pregnant as a teenage girl.

So much of it was that.

And obviously that's important, but I think that there needs to be a little more balance.

So I think that's why teenage-dom is quite tough.

And then you enter your twenties and you're out of school and either you're in the world of work or you're at university and that kind of forging and discovery of identity continues.

And then it's your first experience of adult life.

And adult life is bafflingly free of signposts and exams.

So there's no exam that you can take that will tell you that you're doing a good job at adulting.

So in your 20s, all you have to compare yourself to...

It's the example of your parents, if you're lucky enough to have parents, or it's cultural signals.