Okay, I am now officially sick of this kind of story.
I'm 45, and if this trend of increasingly defining older and older people more and more infantile continues, I could end up a baby again before I retire.
Seriously though, I don't see the newness here. My father told me that his grandfather told him that you don't truly become and adult until around age 35 or so. That bit of family wisdom dates back to early the last century. A hundred years ago.
If we're into social commentary, I'd point out that as we become more and more pampered, we become more and more infantile. I expect to push the button on the iPhone and have the pizza show up 15 minutes later. I expect to be in contact with all of my friends instantly via text message. I expect to have college paid for and a warm house with the folks if things don't work out.
These are probably great things to expect, but when you're not making work-or-starve decisions every day, you can easily start expecting a helluva lot of stuff that just realistically isn't going to happen. We call people who have unrealistic views about their status in the world, an inability to make decisions, and the need to be taken care of, well, chidlike. I love optimism, but that's not what I see from this article. This is different than optimism. Optimism says we'll make the most of it and things will be fine. This is I-want-to-be-a-rock-star. I have everything else I want. I want this too. It's all luck, anyway. Show me the button I push for the limo.
Put another way, these super-cool new things need to be compared to something. If you compare them to nothing, you know what you have and what you don't have. If you have no frame of reference, it's all just "normal". That lack of context makes a difference in being able to do stuff.
I don't mean that as commentary on "those dang kids". I think every generation has an awesome potential, mainly because of all these cool new things. I see no reason why we need a new developmental stage. 20-somethings can fly nuclear bombers, I think they'll do alright with career choices. If we let them. Pointing out they are mentally impaired is no more useful than pointing out the average 85-year-old is mentally impaired. Yet many of them drive, work, and do just fine in the world.
What I think is missing at this age, frankly, is some sense of comparison. You need to know you are unique and special, just like everybody else. I think some form of mandatory national service could help.
Either that or I need to start looking for rattles that I find appealing.
"20-somethings can fly nuclear bombers, I think they'll do alright with career choices. If we let them."
I also found it interesting that the author examines the question of extending adolescence throughout a person's 20s, but never questions whether everything about our current concept of adolescence is a good idea. pg did a good job of skewering our current educational environment for teenagers and its psychological downsides.
Maybe we should be discussing rolling back some of the things introduced to support our current concept of adolescence, instead of extending it even further.
"20-somethings can fly nuclear bombers, I think they'll do alright with career choices. If we let them."
I tend to agree with the general sentiment, but I think this analogy is very misleading. For one, bomber pilots are a very selective group that have been screened. Nobody screens you for life in adulthood. So, most 20 somethings probably don't have the chops to fly nuclear bombers in combat situations. Also, the set of skills needed to perform the function of piloting bombers (where one is also given extensive training in those skills) is not necessarily the same set of skills needed for making career choices and navigating through life where the acquisition of those skills is a lot less clear. So yes, while some 20 somethings can fly nuclear bombers that doesn't tell us anything useful about how well 20 somethings in general are able to make career choices.
I think advocating mandatory national service is fundamentally wrong. You advancing the idea that the theft of a portion of someones life reasonable and good, in short you are advocating short-term slavery.
What does a person get out of national service? I think it'd be better instead to make high schools more difficult and let people start working and having a meaningful impact on the world earlier rather than later.
Other than that I agree with your post in general, I think the lack of a frame of reference/goal posts really sets people back. If everyone assumes that you wait till your 25 to start a business then they may wait till then; if they knew in the past that there were generals as young as 12 years old then twelve year olds may realize they can impact the world in a real way even at their young age.
I will not downvote you but I have a problem with the attitude that (seems to) stand behind this phrase. Remember the context. If you are an American, you grew up in one of the richest countries in the world, you probably had chances for education, access to technology, functioning roads and other public utilities, etc. etc. Of course, your life is your life but it's not like everything society might ask of you is "theft".
> "What does a person get out of national service?"
It's not everything about you, and perhaps you should ask yourself where would you be without the context of the rich country you grew up in (yes, I'm just guessing here, correct me if I'm wrong)? Is every tax "evil" too? Nobody likes paying taxes, me neither, but there is a difference between discussing where the balance of give and take is and just interpreting everything always in terms of "it's all mine". If you had to assign percentages of your success (if any), starting from zero, how much would you assign to your environment, your parents, your effort, your luck?
This isn't about society asking about anything. First off, it's not asking if it's compulsory - it's forced. Second, it's not society it's a few people who are in control -- people who the majority of society things are doing a poor job, as evidenced by congress's approval numbers. These programs are always aimed at the young who have no political voice -- we don't hear about programs to force the elderly or those entering their forties to put their lives on hold so that can give back to society for a year or two -- there'd be outrage, yet when someone is young most don't think at all about the rights of those they are "asking to volunteer."
What does national service to for the nation? It robs people of productive time that could be spent pursuing an education or career. Things that improve the world around them.
Furthermore you second thought is fundamentally flawed, you do not lay a claim on anyone by merely being nice to them. How would you like it if I swept you sidewalk, raked your leaves, etc because I enjoyed the way it made the neighborhood looked and then came to you 10 years later and demanded payment for all the help I gave to you. Your parents, your environment, etc are all the responsibility of individuals carrying out their own will - they do it because it's what they want to do; they may not enjoy it, but they still want it done.
No one owes anyone anything when they did not enter into a formal agreement, the likes of which cannot be entered into by a child. This does not mean that you shouldn't help your neighbor, volunteer your time, donate money, etc - because you want to. But to lay claim, to demand that someone pay debts they did not incur on the threat of violence is a dangerous and unjust claim.
PS if any of this sounds inflammatory, please disregard -- all is intended as a polite philosophical discussion.
You hit the nail on the head, but I'll add a few thoughts of my own.
I'm 22 years old, I graduated with an engineering degree this may and started working 5 weeks ago at a full-time job. The job required me to move out on my own. My girlfriend (of 5 years) and I decided to do it together so she moved as well and she's looking for a job. We pay all of our own bills.
I have an older brother (26) who also has a technical degree and is full time employed, but both he and his girlfriend still live at home and are "planning" on moving out soon.
Financially they are in a much better position. They make roughly comparable salaries as we do, but their expenses are basically only for health care, their cars, their cell phones, and any discretionary spending. The parents pay for a roof, food, utilities etc. They can save up their cash and are trying to move directly from living at home to buying their own place so they skip the renting waste of money (please don't get into that firestorm here, I've heard all the arguments, suffice to say they're saving money by not renting right now).
In contrast, I'm paying absolutely everything. We have roughly $1800 a month in rent and bills that they don't have. It sure isn't as expensive as living in NYC but thats 22 grand a year that we're not putting in the bank that we would have if we could have found a job near home and lived with our parents.
So financially, moving home after college makes a lot of sense. Especially if you have loans. If I were living at home I'd be putting that 22 grand a year into starting my own company instead of paying a landlord and some utility companies.
On the other hand, we're getting an experience they're not. I go home and my brother is considering buying some fancy ass car, meanwhile my girlfriend and I are juggling bills and debt to make ends meet (that first month when you have to pay all your bills but haven't actually gotten a full months of pay SUCKS). It is nerve racking and I feel like we're "maturing" because of it.
In the end will it pay off for us? I doubt it will financially but it might in other ways. But if you look at our friends, maybe 5 or 6 out of 20 that just graduated moved out and the rest went home. It is by far the norm to move home after college now.
(Also your quote about the 20 year olds driving nuclear bombers struck me. I showed up for work (engineer at a military contracter) and suddenly I'm surrounded by a bunch of teenagers in uniform running all of the multi-million dollar weapon systems we make and I got a "they're just kids!" emotion that makes me feel really damn old. )
>They can save up their cash and are trying to move directly from living at home to buying their own place so they skip the renting waste of money (please don't get into that firestorm here, I've heard all the arguments, suffice to say they're saving money by not renting right now).
It's interesting that you feel the need to defend this, whereas in places outside the mainstream US culture, like Hawaii, it's the norm. Children are more likely to live at home through and after college until they've saved enough for a down payment on a home or apartment, and then move out.
Financially it's smart, it keeps families together longer, parents get to bond with their children as young adults, share life lessons the kids may not have appreciated at an earlier age, and other good things. But for some reason it's all taboo in mainstream American culture.
Where I live, I probably wouldn't buy. The town is dependent on exactly three businesses for jobs. There are 30,000 jobs from those 3 businesses, but that is it. One company moving out (already threatened this year) or one canceled government contract (already threatened this year) and boom the housuing market is dead. I wouldn't tie myself in a house here for any reason, so I get there are reasons why renting is preferable.
But renting also feels like such an incredible waste of money.
Unfortunately, a lot of people who are anti-buying jump all over threads that even mention the conventional wisdom that buying is preferable to renting. Like everything in the real world, the answer is always "it depends".
That said, I feel like there is a negative stigma attached to living at home after college for everyone except those in the 22-27 crowd. I know when I was 17 I thought, I wouldn't be caught dead living at home after college. Now that I'm staring the bills down, I totally get it. I'm sure a lot of older adults are saying "how can these kids still live at home, they're 24!", but the economics of it make a lot of sense, and if your parents aren't a hassle why not?
> But renting also feels like such an incredible waste of money.
Just be honest with your accounting, when you buy a house. Apart from doing small repairs and all the paperwork yourself, there shouldn't be much of a difference between living in your own house vs renting and using the capital that would be tied down in a house to buy some shares or bonds instead.
Self-sufficiency is good for the soul. I would suspect that whether he admits it or not, your brother feels some guilt to atill be mooching off the folks at age 26. This is not good psychologically.
Parents don't have to push the kids out of the house they day after high-school graduation, like a fledgling from the nest, but fully covering rent, food, utilities (did they also pay for his degree?) is in the long run not doing your brother any favors -- it is just delaying the lessons he'll have to learn the hard way later about personal finances, choices, and responsibility.
I felt bad living with my in-laws. I moved to Canada from the UK to live with my wife, had to wait for the government to let me work legally (took way too long and went through way too much BS that the government gives a free pass to like the Tamil's who just landed who have been given immigration lawyers at the governments expense, but I was expected to have to pay hundreds of dollars for any chance to get a lawyer and had to do all the paperwork myself) for a job I already had lined up.
We recently moved out and I feel so much better. There was so much pressure that wasn't even being processed by my consciousness. I didn't make phone calls because I didn't want to be tying up the phone line (my in-laws also have a lot of far-flung relatives that stay in frequent contact) for an hour or more talking to my parents. We didn't want to have friends over too often because it wasn't our house.
Me and my wife are covering food/rent/utils/services by ourselves, putting a decent amount into savings and have the freedom to do what we want. We're 22/21 and we're responsibly using credit cards, financing and still saving money; yet my brother who easily earns twice as much as me and is older still manages to go overdrawn because he was never motivated to move out.
A very good comment, thank you for adding your experience.
Financially moving home makes a lot of sense, if the parents are willing to shoulder the financial burden. Those parents are paying for the food and electricity the children are using. They are paying an opportunity cost on that room the children are using (they could have used it for their own purposes or even rented it out).
Granted, there is a certain economy of scale in living together, but you can get a similar effect by taking in roommates (I did that for part of college). If the parents were to insist on the children paying close to fair market value for that food, electricity, and rent then the kids would get some benefit, but it would be nowhere close the huge difference you are talking about.
I think both sides need to be taken into account for full maturity.
Sounds like your brother is taking the easy route but planning for the future. Sounds like you are taking the hard route and learning a heck of a lot more.
Your brother will learn what you are now when he finally gets on his own (albeit up to 6-7 years in his own time after you did), and later you'll be more mature to plan better.
It doesn't need to be either-or. I juggled bills on my own without help from mommy and daddy and within 2 years me and my fiance have bought our own place. All while paying for rent, utilities, food, gas, student loans, car payments, back surgeries, multiple moves, etc.
It all comes down to focus, discipline, drive, and a large dose of humility along the way. Something not many 20-somethings admittedly display consistently.
I've had both experiences. I worked full time from my sophomore year until now. I graduated last august and moved back to Canada with my wife. We can't afford anything right now so my dad was nice enough to let us live whit him. Before graduation I was able to pay everything plus the apartment with student loans and my job. Now that the loans need to be payed and my wife can't work for immigration reason language reason she is still in school.
I don't feel bad about it, it's just the only solution at the moment. Loans are getting paid and our car will be paid soon so it's only a matter of time before were on our own again.
I can respect both ways - I left home at 16, but I once got to know an Australian guy who was still living at home when he got a job in finance, lived on a ramen-and-no-fun budget even while making $60k per year, and invested it all into real estate and became quite wealthy.
I used to think people who don't move out are lame or scared, but then I came to Asia. It's normal here - you don't move out until you get married, but you save the money for a house, kids, whatever. Someone who lives at home and then blows their cash on junk is in the worst of both worlds.
The US long ago abandoned conscription for an all volunteer army and is never going back, and should never go back. Leverage technology for preventing conflict and aggression. The only thing you need a bunch of warm bodies for is unpopular occupation, something it should have gotten out of after the soviet union collapsed. Instead the US is deciding to make the same mistakes as the soviet union (investing heavily in military and occupying Afghanistan).
The issue of failed to launch kids at home is simply a rational utilization of economics during a recession on their part. Nearly 30% of young 20 aomethinga are Underemployed, discouraging the investment in housing or leasing in one location they might move d
From in search of better work for an entire year.
Unless something has drastically changed in the last few years, flight training generally lasts for 2-3 years. 1 year of 'undergraduate' flight training, plus more specialized training on specific aircraft.
I have no idea what your friend is doing that will take a decade(?!) to complete.
source: Air Force brat, father was a flight surgeon.
20-year olds flew the bombers that won World War II, at the very least.
I'm skeptical that bomber pilot training really takes 10 years--that seems a tremendous waste in the military. 10 years is half of your active duty career if you stay in the military until retirement.
Well, the other half of WWII ;) Naturally you'd pick a very experienced pilot to drop The Atomic Fucking Bomb, but the average age of bomber pilots over Europe was famously in the early 20's.
His comment meant that 20-somethings shouldn't be disallowed from flying nuclear bombers due to age alone. In other words, if your friend somehow finished training in 5 years but wasn't allowed due to being less than 30 years of age.
Indeed so many are arguing that it really does take longer to grow up in modern societies, but it makes me wonder. If the society move up de-facto age of adolescence, should the de-jure part follow? Maybe increase the age of majority to 24 or so.. voting age, age of consent as well?
That would be likely to exacerbate the problem, further marginalizing young adults from their community. Also, the thought of raising the age of consent in this society progressing towards sexual and moral liberalization is laughable. As for voting rights, young adults have shown themselves to be a significant political force in recent elections in the US, guaranteeing the issue wouldn't be touched with a 10-foot pole.
It's funny, because I'm 46 and I've spent most of my adulthood wondering when I'm going to 'feel like an adult'. At some point it just happened, but to be honest, I'm not entirely happy about it. As George Bernard Shaw said, "Youth is wasted on the young."
"If we're into social commentary, I'd point out that as we become more and more pampered, we become more and more infantile. I expect to push the button on the iPhone and have the pizza show up 15 minutes later. I expect to be in contact with all of my friends instantly via text message. I expect to have college paid for and a warm house with the folks if things don't work out."
I'm 45, and if this trend of increasingly defining older and older people more and more infantile continues, I could end up a baby again before I retire.
Seriously though, I don't see the newness here. My father told me that his grandfather told him that you don't truly become and adult until around age 35 or so. That bit of family wisdom dates back to early the last century. A hundred years ago.
If we're into social commentary, I'd point out that as we become more and more pampered, we become more and more infantile. I expect to push the button on the iPhone and have the pizza show up 15 minutes later. I expect to be in contact with all of my friends instantly via text message. I expect to have college paid for and a warm house with the folks if things don't work out.
These are probably great things to expect, but when you're not making work-or-starve decisions every day, you can easily start expecting a helluva lot of stuff that just realistically isn't going to happen. We call people who have unrealistic views about their status in the world, an inability to make decisions, and the need to be taken care of, well, chidlike. I love optimism, but that's not what I see from this article. This is different than optimism. Optimism says we'll make the most of it and things will be fine. This is I-want-to-be-a-rock-star. I have everything else I want. I want this too. It's all luck, anyway. Show me the button I push for the limo.
Put another way, these super-cool new things need to be compared to something. If you compare them to nothing, you know what you have and what you don't have. If you have no frame of reference, it's all just "normal". That lack of context makes a difference in being able to do stuff.
I don't mean that as commentary on "those dang kids". I think every generation has an awesome potential, mainly because of all these cool new things. I see no reason why we need a new developmental stage. 20-somethings can fly nuclear bombers, I think they'll do alright with career choices. If we let them. Pointing out they are mentally impaired is no more useful than pointing out the average 85-year-old is mentally impaired. Yet many of them drive, work, and do just fine in the world.
What I think is missing at this age, frankly, is some sense of comparison. You need to know you are unique and special, just like everybody else. I think some form of mandatory national service could help.
Either that or I need to start looking for rattles that I find appealing.