
Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up? - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
======
rphlx
Perhaps if the baby boomers didn't rig the financial system in their favor,
inflate housing prices, crash the dollar, grant themselves unfunded medicare
and social security benefits for their vastly extended lifespan, increase
college and healthcare costs 20-40%/yr, start two hugely expensive and mostly
pointless wars, burn half the world's oil, scalp the science/tech sectors that
their parents built for WWII and the space race, replacing them with
finance/real estate ponzi schemes to extend an empty consumer lifestyle, and
then outsource virtually everything except for senior executive and imigrant
service jobs, their kids could start their own lives?

Just sayin.

~~~
brc
Those are the cards you have been dealt. Now you can either complain about it
or you can take action and get yourself ahead. That's part of being an adult.
Part of being an adolescent is pointless raging against the machine.

Yes the unfunded social security and medicare is a disaster, but it's not
going away, so all people in their 20's now will have to start working out
ways around this particular problem.

~~~
ajscherer
That is a false choice. You can complain while at the same time taking action.

~~~
brc
Correctly pointed out. I should further this and say 'you can either invest
your energy in complaining or invest it in getting ahead'.

My take on it is that spending time on negative emotions like this gives
yourself an excuse to fail.

------
yummyfajitas
Near as I can tell, the real question is "why has marriage/childbearing been
delayed?" The answer is the sexual revolution and women's empowerment. Except
during the 50's and 60's, I don't think it was ever that common to pick one
job and stick with it until retirement on a defined-benefit pension. The 50's
and 60's were exceptional.

I think the real issue here is that the baby boomers and later generations
enjoy infantilizing their children. First they needed to protect their 10 year
olds from nonexistent child predators, wifi and inorganic food. Then they
needed to protect their 16 year olds from depraved newfangled sex ("rainbow
parties", etc), completely unlike the sex they had during the 60's/70's. Now
that their kids are grown up, they need a new reason to remain involved and
treat them as infants.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Paragraph one is worth an upvote, but I don't think you need go so far as the
pop psych of paragraph two. Paragraph one -- indeed, sentence one, which
points out that marriage and childbearing are delayed in modern technological
societies -- explains most everything else.

Especially when combined with the key fact that in the USA all incomes except
those of the rich have been declining in real terms for over a generation. And
independence costs money. Kids stay involved with their parents longer because
the marginal cost of the fourth bedroom in a four-bedroom house is a lot
smaller than the cost of a one-bedroom apartment.

The other thing I'd point out is that the "traditional American way" to run a
nuclear family -- the one where kids hit age 18 and then move out on their
own, sometimes to other states -- is (was?) actually a very specific pattern
of life from a very specific time in a very specific culture. In many
cultures, historically and around the world, households traditionally
contained grandparents, parents, and children all living together. It would be
considered alien for a child to desert the home of their parents unless they
were explicitly married out to another family, in which case the child would
be expected to live in the home of the _spouse's_ parents. To strike out on
your own would be crazy! What would your family say?

(And one wonders if the nomads of the Tibetan plateau are sitting around
reading Tibetan op-eds bemoaning the decline of the traditional Tibetan
family: Some women are taking only one husband! What are his brothers supposed
to do for a wife? [1])

Traditions can be pretty ephemeral. One of my favorite things to do is to find
"ancient traditions" whose inventors are still living.

\---

[1] Note: I took Anthropology 101 from a world expert on polyandry -- one of
the world's most unusual family patterns -- but I should note that I made up
this particular example. I actually have no idea to what extent polyandry is
in decline, or whether a family of Tibetan nomadic brothers and their wife are
likely to read op-eds.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Especially when combined with the key fact that all incomes except those of
the top quintile have been declining in real terms for over a generation._

Although I hear this claim made often, I believe it to be untrue. People at
all income quintiles have more and better stuff now than people at the same
quintile at all periods in the past [1]. That would be impossible if real
incomes really went down.

[1] I'm assuming comparisons over at least 10 years, to avoid "during
recession" vs "peak of bubble" comparisons.

~~~
joeyo

      > People at all income quintiles have more and better stuff
      > now than people at the same quintile at all periods in the
      > past 
    

An alternative hypothesis could be that a lot of the putatively better stuff
that people have are produced significantly more cheaply today than in the
past. Clothing and furniture, for example. The savings on these items would
allow people to have other things (e.g. personal electronics) in quantities
that didn't exist a generation ago.

~~~
yummyfajitas
When someone claims wages haven't gone up _in real terms_ , they are referring
to inflation adjusted wages. So if costs went down 10%, but wages went down
20%, then real wages decreased 10% because people can purchase 10% less stuff
than before.

So the claim that "real wages have gone down" contradicts your description.
What you describe is an increase in real wages.

This presents a paradox - people often claim that real wages have remained
flat/gone down. And yet, people have more stuff now than ever before, which
should be impossible if real wages went down.

~~~
nostrademons
I think what you're seeing is that there is no "real economy" - there are lots
of microeconomies, in each good or service you can buy. Over the last 20
years, we've seen _massive_ deflation in the markets for consumer goods. My
first computer, not quite twenty years ago, cost $2500 and was a desktop with
a 20 MHz processor and 2 MB of RAM. I now have a phone worth roughly $400 with
a 1 GHz processor and 4 GB SD card.

Meanwhile, there's been massive _inflation_ in services, particularly health
care and education. When my mom went to college, a $3000 National Merit
Scholarship basically covered a whole year's tuition. When I went to college,
tuition + room & board was roughly $40K/year, and is higher now.

People are responding to those price incentives, which is why you see people
at the poverty level with blu-ray DVD players, iPhones, and netbooks, but with
no health insurance or college education. Prices for consumer electronics have
come down so much that it's worth more to them to spend half a month's salary
on a phone that they'll keep for a couple years rather than try to get health
insurance that they can't afford anyway.

Whether this is a good thing depends on whether you consider phones,
computers, and entertainment to be more important than health care and
education.

~~~
yummyfajitas
If your mom went to college in 1970, GDP per capita was only $5000. So one
year of college cost 60% of GDP per capita, now it costs about 80%. That's an
increase, but not a ridiculously large one.

[http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=ny_gdp_pc...](http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=usa+gdp+per+capita)

In any case, I don't much care about education by itself, since most people
value education only insofar as it allows them to get wealth. If people have
more wealth, why would I worry about their education? (That's not to say that
education is becoming more scarce - far from it. We are more education today
than ever before.)

The same applies to health insurance - I don't care about the cost of health
insurance, I care about health. By most measures that I'm aware of, health is
increasing. For example, life expectancy went up 8 years since 1970 and infant
mortality went down more than 50%:

[http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=sp_dyn_le...](http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy+usa+graph)

[http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=sp_dyn_im...](http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=sp_dyn_imrt_in&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=infant+mortality+usa)

~~~
btilly
What you say is true, but over the same period the distribution of wealth
within the USA has shifted dramatically. Therefore the median family income
has not kept up with per capita GDP.

The figures I have from <http://www.davemanuel.com/median-household-
income.php> go from 1975 to the present. $3000 in 1975 was 25.4% of a year's
income for the median family. $4000 in 2009 was 82.5% of a year's income for
the median family. My understanding is that tax rates on the median family
have increased, making that picture even worse.

Therefore education is much less affordable than it used to be for the median
family.

~~~
yummyfajitas
You are correct to use median income, which was about $6500 in 1970, making
$3000 = 46% of median income in that year [1]. You are also correct to say
that taxes went up, by about 140% (according to Elizabeth Warren's data [3]).

In any case, this only makes the paradox I highlighted more puzzling. College
is more expensive, and yet college attendance per capita is up 40% over 1970
[2]. If real income is flat, then people must be giving up other goods and
services to attend college. And yet, people seem to be consuming more goods
and services of all sorts in addition to college.

This doesn't make sense. I suspect that real income is being incorrectly
calculated.

[1] See the table here, and do an inflaction calculations backwards to see
that the average income was $6500 in 1970.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Household_income_over_time)

[2] Combine data from here <http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98>
with the fact that the population went up about 50% between 1970 and today.

[3] I'm citing Warren's data and ignoring her opinions. Some people seem to
get confused when I do this, so I'll be really explicit about it.

~~~
btilly
I know multiple trends that address your paradox, and I do not know the
relative importance of them.

The first is that the savings rate has dropped significantly. People who do
not save can purchase more goods with the same income. (At least in the short
term.)

The second is that due to widening income disparities, the ratio in earnings
between the median family and the top fifth has increased. Therefore college
has not become as proportionately hard to afford for the top fifth as it has
for the median.

The third is that the increasing income disparity has come with widespread
recognition that a college education is a good way to improve your odds of
being in the top fifth rather than the bottom half. This makes education
proportionately more valuable. People are willing to spend more on things they
value more.

Fourth, the structure of financial aid has changed. It is less often true that
students pay the full sticker price for college today than historically. And
the poorer you are, the more likely you are to get a break. (Harvard's policy
being an extreme example.)

And last but not least, in a very different tangent, income disparity leads to
an increased fraction of consumption being accounted for by a small fraction
of the population. So changes in total consumption do not necessarily indicate
changes in consumption for the median.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The particular paradox I'm describing is not limited to college - it applies
to virtually all goods and services. So any college-specific explanation is
incomplete.

It's also not limited to any strata of income - the poor today have more goods
and services available than the middle class of 1970. This casts doubt on
explanations based on inequality.

Decreased savings might explain things, though I think in the long term it
would cause inflation. Would need to think about it.

------
DanielBMarkham
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.

~~~
krschultz
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. )

~~~
SkyMarshal
> _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.

~~~
crystalis
He's not defending saving money by living in an owned house, he's deflecting
discussions on buying instead of "throwing away" rent money.

~~~
krschultz
You're both right.

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?

~~~
eru
> 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.

------
aceofspades19
It seems to me that its largely due to the fact that our society doesn't let
you do anything until you are 18, sometimes 19. For example, when my parents
were teenagers, you could get your full drivers license at 16, now in British
Columbia, you get your learners license at 16, your 'N' at 17 and you don't
get your full drivers license until you are 19.

Also in British Columbia, you can't rent an apartment without someone signing
for it until you are 19. So its hard for someone to grow up until they are in
their late 20s because they are used to society protecting them until such a
late age and then when it is time for them to move out etc. they don't know
what to do with themselves because they haven't been able to learn what to do
when they are on their own.

So if our society wasn't so over-protective, people would be growing up
faster, but instead we are treating them like children until they are almost
20.

~~~
elai
I wouldn't say protective vs more holding you back. People don't want to sign
contracts with minors because minors do not have to hold their side of the
contract and it's been like that legally for a long time.

~~~
aceofspades19
So thats why you make legal age something sane so people who are currently
"minors" but are actually 18(or whatever age is best) can move out and grow
up. I mean really, people in British Columbia, who are 18, can be charged as
an adult and can enter the military but they can't get a credit card? I don't
know what the situation is like in other areas, but in BC, at least, its
insane!

------
quanticle
One thing that I noticed in the article is that several of the sociological
milestones cited are all distinct to American culture. For example, the
"leaving home" milestone doesn't exist in a lot of cultures. Kids live in the
same house as their parents and grandparents - forming extended families. The
concept of a "nuclear" family consisting only of parents and children is a
distinctly American one, and even then it only became the norm at the
beginning of the twentieth century.

As far as marriage goes, I think the advance in marriage age is a good thing.
I mean, do you really _want_ children getting married and having children at
an age when they're too young to handle the responsibilities? Its not that the
kids are changing, but rather that society has enough resources to better
accommodate the needs of its youth. I don't think that's something to be
afraid of.

And where children are concerned, I fail to see why that's a milestone at all.
By that standard, Bristol Palin is more of an "adult" than most responsible
and hard-working twenty-somethings.

~~~
CWuestefeld
I object to the "moving back home" and "leaving home" terminology. Even at
40-something years old, I still hear people say they're spending their
vacation "going back home".

What is it about the place your parents live that makes it "home"? (Especially
when that place isn't even the house you grew up in!)

As I see it, "home" is wherever _I_ live. So "moving back home" is a
tautology, and "leaving home" on a permanent basis is an oxymoron.

~~~
username3
1st base, 2nd base, and 3rd base should be called home base when a runner is
on it.

------
marcusbooster
Why are so many people in their 60's not retired?

Why are so many people in their 70's not dead?

~~~
chc
I would love to see the Times do a piece on "Why won't septuagenarians just
die already?" But since older folks are the Times' main audience, it's more
profitable to look at those damned lazy kids these days and pretend that
societal changes are totally localized to their generation.

~~~
cturner
Could be some fun for a blog or the hacker monthly magazine.

Regular feature: things you won't read in other papers.

------
gte910h
It's pretty obvious why: the jobs situation sucks (they don't pay well or are
non-existent), college/other debt is higher, more education than ever is
needed to get the few jobs there are.

If the jobs were there that were there in the 90's or 80's, which required
less investment, had more reasonable starting salaries compared to
housing/medical/car costs, many people being drifters and living with mom and
dad wouldn't.

I do think the tech industry is still doing better than most though, and
requires relatively smaller amounts of training, so I'm not sure HNers
empathize with what it's like for non-tech people.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I'm not sure that housing/medical/car are more expensive. I don't know about
comparing 2010 to 1990, but I do know that if you compare roughly 2000 to
1970, all of those expenses went down.

See Elizabeth Warren's book "The Two Income Trap", which shows that basically
everything besides taxes and expectations went down in cost (you need to read
carefully, she plays down the tax numbers by presenting them in a confusing
manner).

[edit: to clarify, housing/medical/car are more expensive. But incomes went up
as well. As a _percentage of income_ , those expenses went down.]

~~~
illumin8
I saw her speech. It's great by the way, but you're wrong about healthcare.
Healthcare is more expensive in every way than it was in the 70s.

She shows how everything in our society is less expensive now, except the
places where we are spending all our money: Housing, Healthcare, and
Education. And how ridiculous it is for families to have 2 incomes just to
afford a house in a neighborhood that has "good schools". This is the 2 income
trap. 2 income families are twice as likely to suffer the loss of one of those
incomes, and if their mortgage requires 2 incomes to pay, there goes their
house.

For some reason the US has fully bought this ridiculous obsession with
housing. A $3,000 or $4,000 a month mortgage that takes 50-75% of their
monthly income is considered "normal" somehow, and keeping up with the
neighbors in conspicuous consumption is considered normal as well. No wonder
it is unsustainable and our economy is suffering.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The house is 60% bigger [1], and according to Warren's data, costs 70% more.
Most likely, it also includes more amenities such as washer/dryer (which were
uncommon in 1970). We spend more, but also get more.

See my other post which gives numbers on healthcare. I agree that college
costs are out of control.

People choose to take on a riskier financial profile in order to consume more.
That doesn't mean things are more expensive.

[1] [http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/us-home-
size.html#axzz0wycZ...](http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/us-home-
size.html#axzz0wycZzk3U)

~~~
watmough
You're picking [1] to the exclusion of Warren's own numbers. Per Warren's
numbers, the increase in house size was essentially restricted to one
additional room. Certainly not the 60% increase in size you posit.

The cost increase in housing was non-uniform, and the largest increases in
cost were driven by houses in good school districts and we're talking tens of
thousands of dollars across school catchment areas in the same metro.

Thus the increases in house prices were disproportionately leveled on families
with school-age children.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Square footage could increase if the rooms got larger and there are more of
them.

------
yardie
Thanks, but I'll keep the state decided minimum of what an adult (18) is
rather than some have some professor define what my goals should be. Since the
adult "adults" are useless with any helpful advice. This is the vibe I get
from the adult adults (US-specific):

* A house and senate that behave like toddlers (complete with screaming matches, name calling, and taking their ball home)

* An aging population more concerned with their pensions than the debt they are assigning to their children.

* Complete and utter disregard for the environmental devastation they are leaving behind.

I've learned more from the previous previous generation than I ever did from
this last one (this doesn't include mom, my mom is the best). Mottos like, "Do
your job, do it well, get a better one". Look out for your parents (ie. don't
stick them in a home and wait for them to die).

~~~
scotty79
> A house and senate that behave like toddlers (complete with screaming
> matches, name calling, and taking their ball home)

This is not US specific. When I was in high-school I dismissed politics as
politicians behaved like little children from my point of view. In some
countries there are even childish physical fights between politicians in house
(probably not senate).

~~~
yardie
It wasn't always like this. The previous generation of senators had some old
ideas but they were courteous and civil to one another. The current electives
are basically firebrand, chickenhawks.

------
edj
"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."

They've cherry-picked the trough of median age at first marriage in the modern
era. Looking back a little farther shows that for men first marriage only
dipped into the early 20s during a few decades in the middle of the 20th
century. For women first marriage has been steadily rising, however.

    
    
           M       F

1890 26.1 22.0 1970 23.2 20.8 2007 27.7 26.0

Source: <http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005061.html#axzz0wz2a14ih> shows
1890s to 2000s by decade, ultimately citing U.S. Census data.

------
mcantor
I feel like a lot of people are responding to this article as if the title is
meant to be incendiary; the way a jilted friend spits "Grow up!" at the object
of their indignation. I don't think that was the intention, though. I wonder,
in fact, how many of these commenters thoroughly read the article, because--as
a guy/boy/man/child of 25--I found it to be a fascinating exploration of why
the trappings of my life, and my peers' lives, differ so much from that of our
parents at this age. I don't see it as an attempt at bastardizing our ability
to take responsibility for ourselves.

~~~
jimbokun
What I find grating is the NY Times invocation of the Royal We:

"If society decides to protect these young people or treat them differently
from fully grown adults, how can we do this without becoming all the things
that grown children resist — controlling, moralizing, paternalistic?"

I don't see how "we", as society, need to do anything. If a parent wants to
allow a child to live with them until he's 30, if people want to get married
or have kids later, or if a parent wants to kick their kid out of the nest at
18 or two 19 year olds want to marry while still undergrads, I don't see how
"we" as the broader society need to do anything. Leave it to the individual.

I find the idea that society is obligated to change to accommodate the
indefinite extension of adolescence to be controlling, moralizing, and
paternalistic.

(And this is coming from someone who got married at 29, just under the 30
deadline. I just don't see the need to reinforce the decision I personally
made as a social norm.)

------
msluyter
Somewhat tangential, but related: does anyone else question age
stratification, generally? In the days of the single room school, older kids
would mix with and tutor the younger ones. Or perhaps, a teenager would
apprentice in a trade with older adults. Households would span generations.

Now, we're segregated by age classification. You grow up only amongst kids
your age. Adults work only with adults, and the grandparents are away in a
home. Events where generations or age groups mix seem rare. I'm not enough of
a sociologist to know whether there's anything inherently wrong with this, but
it gives me pause.

~~~
sn
Adults in the work force range from late teens/early twenties to mid/late
sixties. A lot of times I go to lunch with people from work and they are
talking about things from their high school years that occurred before I was
born. So I think there's a decent mix there.

------
Estragon
I'm 38, and feel like I'm only just turning the corner on adulthood. My career
has been grad school followed by a string of postdocs: relatively sheltered
from the consequences of failure. I haven't married or had kids, and I don't
have a mortgage. (I do have substantial savings.)

In a bad mood, I think I'm retarded. In a good mood, I think it's neoteny.
Certainly I'm better off than my parents, who unconsciously followed societal
expectations, had kids in their early twenties and in so doing doomed
themselves to decades of misery because they're profoundly incompatible. It's
not clear to me that I've lost anything of value by the path that I've taken.

------
ww520
It takes a long time to truly grow up. Here's Confucius' journey:

    
    
       At 15 I set my heart on learning; 
       at 30 I firmly took my stand; 
       at 40 I had no delusions; 
       at 50 I knew the Mandate of Heaven; 
       at 60 my ear was attuned; 
       at 70 I followed my heart's desire without overstepping the boundaries of right.

------
T_S_
Easy. Because their parents don't suck to hang around with.

In contrast, the "greatest generation" hit _their_ kids, hated their hair and
music, and didn't know how to party. They were easier to love from a distance.
The current crop of parents were also plagued with prosperity and overbought
housing, thanks to our distorted tax system. Therefore they have cheap space
available.

------
balding_n_tired
If you think you dislike it now, wait till you're in your 50s and reading a
version for the fourth time. It does not improve on acquaintance.

------
j053003
There was a time in U.S. history when it wasn't uncommon for _several_
generations to be living together under the same roof. All of this "oh, he's
twenty-three, why's he still living with his parents?" non-sense would sound
very, very strange to someone from yesteryear.

------
psadauskas
The way I look at it, I'm an adult now (29), so I get to decide what "being an
adult" means.

~~~
sp332
Sorry, but obligatory <http://xkcd.com/150/>

Edit: and the follow-up on the artist's blog, er, "blag":
<http://blog.xkcd.com/2007/11/19/growing-up/> and
<http://blog.xkcd.com/2008/02/27/ballpit-phase-ii/>

~~~
eliben
Nice, right on spot.

------
waterside81
This _seems_ to be a largely western hemisphere phenomena. My girlfriend is
South African and moved to Canada once we got serious and was amazed at how
many of my friends lived at home with their folks even though they have full
time jobs (most are teachers and unlike in the US, being a teacher in Ontario
is a pretty sweet job). In South Africa, once you're 18 you're out the door
and you learn to deal with it. The thought of being in your mid-20's and at
home with your parents is tantamount to being water boarded for a South
African.

But one of the commenters here hit the nail on the head: real wages are going
down, cost of living going up, plus throw in a little stigma about "renting
being for poor people" and you'll find young adults waiting to save up to buy
a house and as a result getting out on their own later.

~~~
heresy
Another observation for your sample (also South African).

Left home at 17, crashed at a mates place until I could find a job, any job.
Most everyone in my circle of friends left home by 19 or 20.

I think there is a fair bit of pressure to be "independent" and "stand on your
own feet", at least in the culture I grew up in; especially if you're male.
You're expected to have "guts", and not going out and making it on your own,
is seen as not having any.

Because of that obstinance, only in the past 3 or 4 years has rent been a low
enough percentage of my income that I could start seriously saving (though I
didn't, until a year ago), since I felt compelled to live up to the lifestyle
people thought I had (the classic trap of coming from a "poor" family).

If I could do it over, I'd have probably stayed with my parents for a couple
of years and built up a cushion.

But then, would I be the person I am today, or would I have been as
adventurous?

I don't feel grown up though, despite being 30.

Maybe just more aware, and somewhat more responsible. And acknowledging of the
fact that a large part of my ability to be "independent" is that I was quite
lucky to enter the workforce in 1998 as things were starting to boom.

------
fredsmith219
Society has been going to hell in a handbasket because the younger generation
is (lazy, stupid, disrespectful, ignorant, wanton, lustful, unmotivated,
etc...) since Plato's time. I think it's B.S. The people in the 20'S are the
ones that we've asked to fight two expensive, difficult ground wars for us in
a decade, and they've stepped up. I trust that generation (I'm a mid-40's Xer)
more than I trust the Boomers or my own, as we're the ones that have racked up
a 13 Trillion dollar debt. We're now leaving it to the twentysomethings to pay
off. Dear Twenty-somethings: On behalf of my "older and wiser" generation, I
apologize. Sorry we wrecked the economy and spent so much of our nation's
wealth on crap that we can't even afford to hire teachers any more.

~~~
philwelch
_The people in the 20'S are the ones that we've asked to fight two expensive,
difficult ground wars for us in a decade, and they've stepped up._

Oh, _please_. Proportionally, that's nowhere near the number of young people
sent to Vietnam, much less WWII. The expense of those wars is again, nowhere
near the expense of Vietnam, much less WWII. The casualty rates are at least
an order of magnitude lower than Vietnam, which themselves were lower than
WWII.

------
steveklabnik
The rise of helicopter parenting. I'm 24, and my mom was roughly half a
helicopter, and it was unbearable. I can only imagine how bad it could have
been...

~~~
antidaily
You were raised by Transformers? AWESOME.

~~~
philwelch
"Helicopter parent" is a slang term for a parent who always hovers over their
children to "help out" and potentially make their lives easier:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent>

------
EvanK
Because they can. We live longer now than we ever have...We don't _have_ to be
married and having kids by the time we're twenty, before the plague or
dysentery gets us. A female friend of mine just turned 30 and she's just
getting into an actual career (and she's perfectly fine with taking her time).

~~~
ergo98
"We don't have to be married and having kids by the time we're twenty, before
the plague or dysentery gets us."

There are many choices for life, and choosing never to get married and never
to have kids is exactly the right choice for many people. People don't need to
build an army of labor to tend the farm or whatever anymore.

Having said that, the human body is geared to having children young. A lot of
women are putting off having children and then finding it either impossible,
or learning that the risks of an endless array of defects goes up quite
dramatically.

~~~
EvanK
Even then, we still have options that people haven't always had, like adoption
or surrogacy.

~~~
DougWebb
I think orphans have existed about as long as children have, and adoption has
always been there too.

Surrogacy in the sense of "my sperm and your eggs in her body" is new, but men
having multiple wives with the younger ones for child bearing is not. So I'd
say the concept is old, and only the technology is new.

------
charlesju
I'm pretty sure most 20 somethings reading this forum are doing big things
with their lives.

~~~
dieterrams
Like reading this forum....

~~~
kenver
That was a low blow, I'm off to do something useful now...

~~~
eliben
Sorry to break it to you, but reading Reddit isn't more useful

~~~
sprout
Please.

I'm off to play Dwarf Fortress.

------
mumrah
The New Yorker cover mentioned in TFA:
[http://content.archives.newyorker.com/djvu/Conde%20Nast/New%...](http://content.archives.newyorker.com/djvu/Conde%20Nast/New%20Yorker/2010_05_24/webimages/page0000001_6.jpg)

------
geebee
This article makes a lot of the "brain development" of people in their 20s.
But that can't have changed too much over one or two generations, so I
wouldn't look to it to try to explain why people in their 20s are taking
_longer_ to "grow up" than they did 50 years ago...

I think so much of this is just economic. My brother lived with a room mate
until he was 34. He was an assistant professor at SF State, and his roomate
was a high school teacher.

I know two men in their sixties (they are parents of my friends) who raised
their children in San Francisco. They were... drumroll... a professor at SF
state and a high school teacher. They both purchased houses in their late
20s/early 30s and got on with it.

Maybe the professions I've chosen are unrepresentative samples, maybe the city
I live in is unusual for a high cost of housing... but in the early 70s,
professors at state and school teachers could buy houses in SF. Now, they can
afford to rent a 2br house with a roomate.

There's yer trouble.

------
zeteo
Flash news: post-Baby Boomer generations fail to follow social expectations
(early marriage, early job, lifelong career) set by pre-Baby Boomer
generations. Social scientists hard at work describing the problem and
wondering how to fix it.

------
RK
The main thing I got from this article is that (according to the pictorial)
there is an unending supply of hipsters in New York.

------
Tycho
These articles never seem to mention the word 'laziness.' I mean shouldn't
they at least consider that children of recent times have so many leisure
pursuits growing up, so many easy way outs, that they get lazy and dependent?

------
mattwdelong
As a 23 year old who has worked almost every day of my life AND held a job
since I was 13, this is bullshit. There is work if you want it, nothing is
beneath you. Don't settle, but always be working towards something more. The
key is always be working.

Seriously though, what is this article going on about? People complain, I
know. Shit sucks. But get over it, and get to work. There is always work to be
done, money to be made, goals to be reached and people to marry. It`s not so
bad.

------
jcromartie
Perhaps part of it is because they are told that the "real world" is deferred
until they are out of college. Now that they're done with college, they are at
the same point in life as the average (young) teenager a few generations ago.
The invention of the modern consumer society called "childhood" is being
extended further and further, and until someone does something about it, we'll
see more of this.

------
illumin8
Welcome to the coming lost decade of the US. We are repeating the cycle of
Japan. Growing unemployment. Aging baby boomer population. Recent college
graduates can't get jobs, so they live with their parents.

We are coming very close to recreating the Japanese culture, with all of their
societal problems (40 year old unemployed men living with their parents and
reading manga porn all day instead of working).

~~~
watmough
If you don't look at the UK, we are becoming more like Europe.

Some links: <http://www.transad.pop.upenn.edu/resources/growup.html>

Quote:"In Italy, more than half of all young men live with their parents until
age 30. Katherine Newman and Sofya Aptekar, in their chapter in The Price of
Independence, trace the transition to adulthood in Europe, finding that youth
there are responding to _high housing costs, less stable jobs, and higher
unemployment_ by living at home longer."

High housing costs. Less stable jobs. Higher unemployment.

Bam! How do you become an independent adult and start a family against that
backdrop?

------
thisorthat
I am 23 years old and still in school. I do not remember what the stats are
but I do remember a lot of students graduate in 5 years are more.

When you spend the majority of your life in school the last thing you want to
do is settle down right away. I am sure that people who did not go the college
route are a lot more settled then I am because they had plenty of time to do
what they want.

------
Helianthus16
Speaking as a 23-year-old who graduated a year ago...

-Because we came out into a terrible economy our professional lives are naturally chaotic.

-Because we have little regard for the 'status quo,' the 'way things are done.' We've been told all our lives that nothing is 'normal'--we grew up thinking that attitude was normal to the extent of never questioning it. See: <http://xkcd.com/150/>

-Disregard similarly for vaguely Western assumptions. From the article: "Sociologists traditionally define the transition to adulthood as marked by five milestones." As someone else noted, leaving home isn't a global thing.

To put a bit of Angry Young Man spin on it, why should we be concerned with
"growing up?" Why should we follow your (this is directed more at the NYT than
at anyone here) roadmap? It's not like you did such a great job as far as we
can see. (And I know that sentence has been said in some form throughout all
of history.)

~~~
chc
Since the article includes people throughout their 20s, such as 28-year-olds
who "came out into" the boom economy of the mid-2000s, the first reason
doesn't really ring true to me.

------
kmfrk
This article is stupid and surly.

I have a feeling the hardship of the economic recession(s) will make a lot of
people grow up at an earlier age than their parents.

This is a time of humility following a time of arrogance and complacency. A
lot of good will come from all the bad that past generations have handed down
to their children and grandchildren.

------
GoldenStake
Looks like I fit the definition of an emerging adult like a glove. Still in
college, so I live on my parents dime.

Haven't done anything on my way to adulthood.

Undecided about my future, and career choice.

And, guess what, I just turned 20 last week.

Since, emerging adulthood doesn't happen to everybody, perhaps it is the
default "life stage" when we have no monetary requirements, and no
expectations (which would really only happen in our situation, other than,
perhaps, after retirement, but I have no experience with that one).

I'm not sure what will happen when I finish school, and I prefer not to think
about the details of its existence (time after school). But I am considering
career paths (ones that vary greatly) which is the main point of the "life
stage". (If you have a path decided; you do it, sometimes. If you don't have
one decided, but you need income; you do a convenient path. But if you don't
have one decided, and don't need one, you linger on it untill the prior is
true).

Now, as I said before, I'm undecided, and what is really scary is knowing that
we basically jump into a job, with little to no real world experience (not
theoretical or technical knowledge, we get that through school) about the
career. Internships, would be the closest to what I'm thinking about looking
for, but we have to compete for the one's that we want, our dream jobs may not
even be looking for interns, and we're basically restricted to one per summer.

Perhaps what would help is a program, that allows for an array of different
jobs, that you jump from each month. Assuming if your interested in the
career, you would have some technical knowledge about it, and that there are
enough companies signed with the program to allow the plethora of jobs.

Okay I'm probably talking out of my a- ...bum, because it'll have the same
problems, and I'm sure there are those out there to tell me it won't work.

But I am here, decisions pending.

~~~
sn
You might try going to professional societies or related meetups and asking
questions.

------
motters
I think there are a couple of factors at work here. The first and most obvious
is that young adults are more often engaged in higher education, which
effectively delays the point at which they enter the "real world". The second
is that it's harder your young adults to earn a wage which can support a
family. In my parents and grandparents generation it was possible to leave
school aged 15 or 16 and after a few years of apprenticeship be earning a full
wage sufficient to start a family without a massive amount of financial
struggle. The post WW2 baby boomer generation seem to have had things
especially easy in this regard. I think it's only when people begin taking on
significant responsibilities - like having children - that they really mature.

~~~
neutronicus
Hint: It still is.

Plumbers and electricians do fine. People are just too reluctant to eschew
college.

~~~
motters
Perhaps that's true, and that it's people's perception of what it takes to
begin adult life which has changed. Probably there is greater marketing of
higher education than ever before.

~~~
abalashov
I think that's very true.

Many college-age people I know these days are aware that college is just a
marketing ploy for most people, but nobody is going to individually risk
calling its bluff.

------
substack
Isn't it common in countries outside of the US for the younger generation to
stay in the same home as the older generation? Perhaps this 20-something
phenomenon is just a sign that Americans are becoming more established in
their communities and closer to the world norm.

~~~
scotty79
In countries outside of the US there is also trend of children leaving the
nest later that before. This is especially notable in Italy and Japan for what
I know.

Personally I correlate this mostly with pricing of housing that is essential
and limited resource. Housing is hoarded by capital owners in purpose to lend
it to people who have not amassed enough capital (yet).

Because of that price of housing raises uncontrollably to the point where
almost no young people can afford not only buying a house but even renting
one. In Japan when you start renting a flat you are obliged to give owner
customary 'gift' that is worth two years of rent.

Because keeping house empty is small cost for owner it's better to keep it
empty than sell it at lower price. This prevents prices from dropping even
when there's no demand at high price. Prices of rent follow prices of houses.

Of course all of that is just my uneducated guess.

------
pvg
I couldn't quite figure out the source of the more eyepoking stats. "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."

------
jameskilton
I couldn't read the entire article, all I could think of was some old codger
yelling "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

Seriously, times change, people change, things change. Society didn't collapse
before and it's not going to now.

~~~
anamax
> I couldn't read the entire article, all I could think of was some old codger
> yelling "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

Are you suggesting that you're entitled to be on his lawn or complaining about
the way he is asking you to leave?

~~~
chc
I think he's suggesting that social norms generally permit neighbors access to
each other's lawns, and that violating these norms is associated with cranky
old men.

~~~
anamax
> I think he's suggesting that social norms generally permit neighbors access
> to each other's lawns, and that violating these norms is associated with
> cranky old men.

Actually, they don't. The social norms allow access when you're interacting
with the relevant residents.

It's like toys - you get to play with Pat's toys while playing with Pat.
Otherwise you ask, and even that can be creepy.

------
scornforsega
Financial stability is harder and harder to come by. No 20-something wants to
move back home, but often, there isn't much of a choice. Between inflation
knocking the hell out of the dollar and putting a strain on social security
and that fact keeping older people in the workplace for longer, nevermind the
withering away of the American manufacturing, opportunities for stable, decent
paying jobs that might actually cover your student loan payments are few and
far between.

------
zoomzoom
People have always been "nest huggers" - look at traditional societies like
those in India. Adult children live with their parents and it is nothing new.
It is new to the baby boomers in America, who grew up independent in the war
and moved out to suburbia to fuel a population explosion. But not new in a
biological sense. It seems that infantilization is actually a defining trait
in the developed primates like humans.

------
eliben
Sounds like analyzing why so many people these days take 10 types of
medications daily just to survive. Oh, wait, they're 70 year old... ah, OK.

A hundred or so years ago the life expectancy in the west was 40 or something.
These days we watch our 80 year-old grandparents work part-time, drive, go on
vacation 3 times a year and generally have a good time. Is it really strange
then that the urge to "hit the milestones" has lessened.

------
OasisP
This article makes a lot of broad statements without citing statistics.

We 20-somethings ARE growing up, the process just looks different due to a
combination of technology and a slow economy. I bet that as we grow older, we
will adopt many of the practices that people older than us (the type of people
who write articles like this) _should_ have been practicing; i.e. fiscal
responsibility.

20-somethings experienced 9/11 during our teens, a time when most people feel
invulnerable. At the same time, we've seen the transformative power of
technology. I'm old enough to remember booting up DOS from a c-prompt, but
young enough to see a world of limitless opportunities. Cautious, but
optimistic.

In other aspects of life, we will be measured and thoughtful about our
choices. Rushing into commitments simply because we've reached a certain age
isn't smart. What isn't mature about taking time to understand why you want to
get married, have kids, or commit to a career path?

There will always be people who can't handle pressure or who are just lazy.

------
jsz0
If it takes longer to achieve security and stability in your life everything
else has to wait.

------
mitjak
It's in threads like this that I really miss being able to collapse an entire
comment thread.

------
jleyank
Why? Because they can...

The trick is avoiding a Lord of the Flies culture due to extended
(pre-)adolescence.

------
gills
Maybe because their parents' generation sold all the blue-collar jobs down the
river to China, and there's nothing to do but raise your beak to momma
government and hope for some worms?

------
sliverstorm
More and more people graduate school later and later.

Is that really not enough reason in and of itself? Very few people in school
are really adults, unless they have returned from the work force.

------
kevruger
blame facebook

------
narrator
I am really curious to see what happens in 10 years when the baby boomers
start to die. The younger gen Y has been so throughly infantilized by their
parents that we're going to be this "Home Alone" nation without any adult
supervision. Gen X will have to step up to a very unfamiliar leadership
position.

