The New York Times Magazine recently ran an article saying people in their 20s are taking longer to grow up.
The article is very long, so read it if and when you have the time.
But based on what I posted, do any of you agree? I'm 28 and I would say its the economy's fault that I haven't done a lot of things that "make" an adult - such as getting married and having kids. But I know other 20-somethings who do have good jobs, yet still live at home, haven't had any serious relationships, etc. Is there something wrong with us?
I would say yes and no. No because my generation seems to believe that life should be fun and we can live until we're 90 or 100, so why rush to grow up? But I would say yes because some 20-somethings are dragging their asses around when it comes to being independent, and not because they are too busy having fun. They really do seem to be babied by their parents and still have adolescent minds.
Thoughts?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=generalIt’s happening all over, in all sorts of families, not just young people moving back home but also young people taking longer to reach adulthood overall. It’s a development that predates the current economic doldrums, and no one knows yet what the impact will be — on the prospects of the young men and women; on the parents on whom so many of them depend; on society, built on the expectation of an orderly progression in which kids finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and eventually retire to live on pensions supported by the next crop of kids who finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and on and on. The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain untethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life.
The 20s are a black box, and there is a lot of churning in there. One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married. And marriage occurs later than ever. The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation.
We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.
The article is very long, so read it if and when you have the time.
But based on what I posted, do any of you agree? I'm 28 and I would say its the economy's fault that I haven't done a lot of things that "make" an adult - such as getting married and having kids. But I know other 20-somethings who do have good jobs, yet still live at home, haven't had any serious relationships, etc. Is there something wrong with us?
I would say yes and no. No because my generation seems to believe that life should be fun and we can live until we're 90 or 100, so why rush to grow up? But I would say yes because some 20-somethings are dragging their asses around when it comes to being independent, and not because they are too busy having fun. They really do seem to be babied by their parents and still have adolescent minds.
Thoughts?