A lot of growing up is about practice, right? Or shouldn't it be? When I was a kid, parents weren't expected to take quite as minute an approach to supervising their children's lives as they seem to be expected today.

My siblings and I had lots of unstructured time to practice adulting. By that, I mean we had time to learn how to set our own priorities, organize our activities, and live our lives — working around a structure and required activities like everyone has in life.

Often today, I'll see family members herding their children around from structured activity to structured activity, and I'll wonder, when are those kids ever going to get the chance to practice it for themselves? Are they going to turn 18 and just magically know how to run their own lives? Probably not.