File this in the I-suspected-it-was-changing-but-couldn’t-put-a-finger-on-it category: Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up?
“It’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.”
Interesting read. I especially liked the bit where the Robin Marantz Henig calls out our confusion “in our scattershot approach to markers of adulthood”:
- can vote at 18
- don’t age out of foster care until 21
- can join the military at 18
- can’t drink until 21
- can drive at 16
- can’t rent a car until 25
- if students, the IRS considers them a dependent until 24
- Parents have no access to college records if the child is over 18
- health insurance under parents’ plans till 26 (or 30)
monthly email
RSS 2.0