Apparently I’m not an adult. Well, shit.
I am 23-years-old.
I have lived in ten, yeah ten, different dorms and apartments in the last five years. After graduating college in May 2009, I started working for a company I love, although I’m positive that it will not be my final employer. I crave opportunities to explore my passions, travel the world, and find new experiences. According to sociologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, I am smack dab in the middle of a newly discovered developmental stage: Emerging Adulthood.
Arnett, a psychology professor at Clark University and author of Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road From the Late Teens Through the Twenties, explains that this stage is characterized by identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between and “a sense of possibilities.” He believes that this stage, in combination with the current American economic and societal climate, is the reason we see so many young people delaying their entry into true adulthood.
I cannot deny that Arnett’s theory is true, at least in part. However, I have several major concerns about the theory itself and the conclusions that so-called “grown-ups” are starting to draw from it.
THE DEFINITION OF ADULTHOOD
First of all, I’m deeply insulted that I’m not considered a true adult.
Okay, so I’ve barely completed three of the five milestones that sociologists typically attribute to the transition to adulthood: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. What the heck does that even mean?
Does this really mean that I’m any less of an adult than my high school friends who skipped college in favor of marriage and babies? Does it mean that I’m any more of an adult than my 26-year-old friends in law school who have only managed to achieve one of these goals? Hell no! In fact, a college education is one of the main reasons women are delaying marriage and kids. We can find financial security ourselves, thank-you-very-much.
If we ignore that definition and instead focus on the psychological attributes associated with adulthood, it doesn’t make me feel any better. Young people are constantly accused of avoiding responsibility and commitment, of feeling overly optimistic and flighty. But is it really wrong for me to desire a backpacking trip through Europe, learning about world cultures and expanding my perspectives beyond the American ego? To test my love for someone, before I become yet another divorce statistic? To yearn for a job where I’m doing something I love every day - a job that adults always told me was within my reach?
It’s constantly implied that once I reach adulthood, the realism of the world will weigh down upon me – forcing me to settle down into a life of compromise. The triumph of logic over my petty, post-adolescent optimism. Well that sounds like a boatload of giggles, but no thank you. This Peter Pan would rather never grow up.
To me, adulthood should be defined as the ability to knowingly make decisions that will impact the rest of a person’s life, and to independently deal with the consequences of those decisions. Whether she chooses to take on a full-time job or to meander for a while with the generous help of Mom and Dad, an adult is able to see the positives and negatives of each choice. An adult can weigh the advantage of making the investment in advanced education, versus the disadvantage of putting parents into severe debt.
It may come off as irresponsible, but we often know what we’re doing – believe it or not. We just have different opportunities and choices than previous generations. We’d be idiots if we didn’t try to take advantage of the good ones while we can.
LEGISLATIVE RETRIBUTION
A most alarming notion, presented by The New York Times, is that the government needs to create new programs and legislation that take the naivety of under-developed 20-somethings into account. A scientist from the National Institute of Mental Health who conducted a study on the development of the young adult brain was even quoted as saying, “The only people who got this right were the car rental companies,” in reference to the fact that you must be over 25 to rent a car without surcharges.
Regardless of whether or not my brain is fully finished developing until age 25, it is terrifying that the government would even consider taking away some of my rights because of it. The discrepancies in the rights of young people are already troubling - we can go to war before we can drink, we can vote before we can rent a car… If these laws are brought into question with this new developmental stage in mind, how old will be have to be before we can do anything of consequence??
The NY Times concludes that article with the question, what do we do about these wayward grown children? Let them use and abuse society, or enforce some greater control over their choices? Should parents coddle their children, or is it better to force them out into the “real world,” whether or not they’re truly ready?
My answer to them would be: Stop worrying so much and let us be. Isn’t helicopter parenting often criticized as one of the main reasons we seem so incapable of being independent? Isn’t government legislation a bit like helicopter parenting times a billion? The fact that young people are campaigning for more freedom (gay rights, pot legalization, etc.) should be a pretty clear indicator that not only do we not want more restrictions, but we’d be willing to fight you for it. I’ll bust a cap.
The bottom line is: we’ll find our own way. That’s the whole point of young adulthood. Get over it.
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I appreciate your response to the NY Times article. I would add, with regards to legislative responses to Gen Yer’s “lack of structure” in their 20′s, that though there is the risk of further restrictive legislation (the discrepancy between being allowed to fight in a war but not legally consume alcohol is indeed ridiculous), there is also the potential for legislation which could counteract the challenges that Gen Yer’s face as they navigate “emerging adulthood.” For instance, health care is in reality out of reach for most 20-somethings, particularly those navigating hourly pay at a nonprofit and/or undertaking world travel on a shoe string budget. Depending on your politics, this particular issue may or may not have been addressed with this year’s health care bill, however I find the examples listed in the article (expanding Americorps and other service programs, creating a fund option for gap year travel) very compelling even if a bit overly-optimistic.
I agree with you. I think there are some ways that special programs could benefit my age group. Gap year programs are awesome, as long as hiring managers see them as valuable cultural experiences rather than a frivolous delay of adulthood. That’s my main beef with the whole Emerging Adulthood idea – I do think that we live life differently, but I don’t think we’re any less “adult” because of it.
Weeeelll, If you use those 5 milestones, I wasn’t an adult until the age of 39. Of course I’d set up and run research laboratories, and supported myself while living the life I wanted for decades before that–but I guess that doesn’t count…HAH,BS! I still try to be “overly optimistic,”
and sometimes it’s”responsible” to avoid “commitment” that you’re not ready for.
But I’d say, from what I know, if you Christine, are not an adult, you’re doing a good enough imitation to pass. And trust me, if there’s going to be a fight against laws to pamper, oh, sorry, restrict, the young ADULTS who can’t or won’t accept responsibility for themselves (and the parents who let them), you won’t be fighting alone.
hmmm. I would agree that this is all ridiculous. I feel what bothers me about it the most is that “adults” who are constantly writing articles about how gen y is completely unprepared for the world (and I’ve read a few in recent years) is that none of these “adults” seem to have any idea what 20-somethings in our generation are forced to deal with. as you addressed — anyone who didn’t go into work or have a family immediately after high school probably moved away somewhere and went to college. I, myself, have had over 30 roommates in the past 5 years (as you have had 10 apartments… I’ve probably had about 6 or 7)… I’ve relocated several times. I’ve had ridiculous job turnover (don’t even know how many but my W-2s and 1099s are a nightmare) and all the while I am supporting myself entirely. I can’t afford my student loans and they’ve been in forebearance forever. Why? Class of 2008 rolled out into the worst economy since the great depression and things are still pretty sticky… wages I’ve gotten have barely covered rent. Companies don’t want to hire newly graduated seniors for entry level positions, they want people who are over-qualified or an intern who they don’t have to pay. this makes it difficult to impossible for grads to get established. most people i know in creative fields that are working are either lucky or freelancing. Blaming our “unstructured” 20s on us is absurd. LOL. if I had it my way 3 years ago, I would have been in some mega structured full-time career lifestyle right now but I’m not. I am okay with this — happy, even… but what I’m realizing is that most of what our generation is contending with right now is a MAJOR paradigm shift.
People who came of age in the latter half of the prior century (1950-90s) had a totally different world before them. I have encountered again and again from adults — even ones who are dealing with economic issues — a complete inability to understand what it is really like to be a 20something right now. A lot of people still believe that kids are just not “trying hard enough” or that this generation is lazy. Hello! When you were 20 you didn’t have to pay $100,000+ in student loans. You likely had a job and one that paid well when you got out of college because that diploma meant something back then. The whole creative/corporate world wasn’t in a state of confusion and flux and near collapse on account of the internet rendering so many prior money makers and job creators totally obsolete. Print, publishing, music, marketing, news … these are all industries that have been turned completely upside down in the past decade… and not the only ones. Nobody in our colleges knew what to tell us to do about it. And beyond that… this country is only now barely scrambling its way out of a long, hard, shitty recession.
If anything, I feel that Gen Yers are forced to be more resilient, more creative, more independent, and will likely be the generation that leads the world into tremendous change. We have a lot more responsibility on our shoulders in this way… and honestly, on the mundane level, the amount of crap I’ve dealt with in the past 2-3 years… Dude, I KNOW that my 30-something friends did not have to go through 90% of this nonsense. THEY were the generation that had the money to eat drugs and throw outrageous parties all of the time for a decade before they calmed down. What I would give to live in a world where all anyone worries about is making their money and fucking their girlfriend. Extended childhood, my ass. As far as I’m concerned, reality set and and set in hard. Let us make the decision whether or not this toxic, corrupt, totally retarded system is what we want or not. We’re the ones that have to live with a century of everyone else’s greed.