Are twenty-somethings expecting too much?
They’re in the throes of “emerging adulthood,” a term coined by Clark University psychology professor Jeffrey Arnett to describe a life stage that doesn’t quite have all the contours of traditional adulthood—marked by a marriage license, a mortgage, and a steady job. The concept of this new stage was explored last August in a New York Times Magazine article that asked: “Why are so many people in their twenties taking so long to grow up?”
But perhaps it’s not as much that twentysomethings are taking longer to grow up as it is that they’re defining adulthood in new ways, with different goals. Instead of a steady job, they want a meaningful one that serves a larger purpose or fulfills a personal passion. And instead of settling down with a spouse and mortgage, they want more years of freedom to chase career dreams and explore different paths before they have to make tradeoffs.
“Adulthood is a taller order these days,” Brent Donnellan, a professor at Michigan State University who studies the transition to adulthood, tells me. “When we look at surveys at what this generation values, they want a lot.”
Blowback
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Of course they are. Where did they get the idea that American leaders actually obeyed the constitution?
Skulls full of mush.
platypus on October 25, 2011 at 10:26 PM
It appears that no one knows how to just live.
obladioblada on October 25, 2011 at 10:26 PM
Yes, all twenty somethings expect too much. All thirty somethings believe that sex is the best aspect of life. All forty somethings become educated every single day that they are getting old.
carbon_footprint on October 25, 2011 at 10:26 PM
Emerging adulthood? In your twenties???
I hate everything.
Bee on October 25, 2011 at 10:27 PM
Democrats have for years been claiming that people up to age 25 are children.
Time to repeal the 26th Amendment?
malclave on October 25, 2011 at 10:28 PM
If they are expecting jobs, then yes.
BDavis on October 25, 2011 at 10:30 PM
And what about us sixty somethings? Shall we just call our death panel, or what?
platypus on October 25, 2011 at 10:30 PM
And if they still vote donkey, then they don’t deserve jobs.
platypus on October 25, 2011 at 10:31 PM
No, relax platypus, sixty somethings are the new fifty somethings.
carbon_footprint on October 25, 2011 at 10:32 PM
Yeah, they get to pursue elusive dreams of career fulfillment, then pay for fancy trophy test tube babies once their fertile years have passed.
But it’s okay. Said trophy children will have good nannies and all of their school break and summer camps and select sports teams will be well funded. The only thing the kids will lack is parenting.
obladioblada on October 25, 2011 at 10:32 PM
Tell that to my joints. They’ll laugh in your face.
platypus on October 25, 2011 at 10:34 PM
The picture at the link is perfectly descriptive of what today’s twentysomethings expect.
That’s what keeps me going. ;o)
kakypat on October 25, 2011 at 10:35 PM
You can call your death panel, but please don’t give them my number!
kakypat on October 25, 2011 at 10:36 PM
Yes, they learned it as teenagers. Having teenagers myself I now understand why some animals eat their young.
milwife88 on October 25, 2011 at 10:36 PM
Only if you’re a candy-assed, coddled punk who no one expects anything from. My kids know better than this, because I’ve made it a point to teach them that they are owed nothing that they haven’t done the heavy lifting to earn.
I’d weep for this generation if they weren’t so busy crying themselves.
CantCureStupid on October 25, 2011 at 10:37 PM
Well, we don’t parent our own children any more. We parent other people’s children.
It’s called progressive governing.
platypus on October 25, 2011 at 10:37 PM
LOL. You owe me a keyboard!
platypus on October 25, 2011 at 10:39 PM
carbon_footprint on October 25, 2011 at 10:40 PM
Meh, every generation says the same thing, they’ll grow up eventually.
Ars Moriendi on October 25, 2011 at 11:08 PM
Well some of us “expected” the previous generation or two to not brutally murder the U.S economy and maybe not sell us all to China; so yeah, I guess we were expecting too much.
Not saying twenty-somethings aren’t mostly a bunch of immature dimwits though. Just saying they learned from the best.
Grayson on October 25, 2011 at 11:16 PM
Hard to be an adult when your day consists of tweeting.
profitsbeard on October 25, 2011 at 11:38 PM
LOL! It would be pathetic if it weren’t comparatively early-onset adulthood, by the standards of Europe.
In a way, these kids have been ill-served by the infrastructure that reared them. Today’s infrastructure of regulation also sets them obstacles that earlier generations didn’t face. Regulation is what has made so many things — rent, transportation, health care, groceries — cost more now (in constant dollars) than they used to.
Thirty years ago, an employer wasn’t having to spend the 1981 equivalent of $6-8000 a year on a single employee’s health care premiums — and therefore, that employee saw comparatively more in his paycheck. Environmental and employment regulations had put upward pressure on consumer prices for about 5-6 years at that point, but today they’ve been doing so for more than 35 years, and the effects continue to grow. The reason real wages haven’t increased is that real wages are determined by purchasing power — and purchasing power has done no better than remain steady, except where it has actually declined since 1981. Incomes haven’t gone down: the cost of living has gone up, due to the burden of regulation.
People can’t afford to live as well now as they could 30 years ago on the same constant-dollar income. That affects young people at the lower end of the economic ladder the most. If we weren’t regulating ourselves into an economic coma, young people’s aspirations would be more attainable and less absurd. But we are.
J.E. Dyer on October 25, 2011 at 11:38 PM
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication
Swam song. Tonight’s theme was supposed or real tributes to Kurt Cobain.
carbon_footprint on October 25, 2011 at 11:38 PM
Swam or Swan. Whatever it takes.
carbon_footprint on October 25, 2011 at 11:39 PM