
Growing-ups - timw6n
http://aeon.co/magazine/living-together/emerging-adults-need-time-to-grow-up/
======
ekpyrotic
It wouldn't be too hard to argue that the Baby Boomers are strange. Not Gen X,
Y and Z.

Until the 1950s, young people in the west were expected to live with their
parents until they married and settled down. Just crack open a Victorian
novel. (A few HNers have noted that this is true in India, China and Japan;
but it was also true in the west.)

This changed all at one and all of a sudden under the Baby Boomers. Young
people left home earlier, travelled the world, experimented with drugs. Let's
forget that the Baby Boomers were responsible for psychedelia, the protest
movement and flower power.

Here's what I'm saying: The Baby Boomers were a blip, premeditated by the
astronomical rise of the USA in the global economy. Money and jobs were
everywhere all of a sudden, endowing people (and especially young people) with
the new freedom to experiment. Something that is not true now: We're facing
increased global competition from the East and the west's manufacturing base
has been hollowed out.

In terms of global and Western culture they were a non-stereotypical blip, the
result of very particular and unusual economic and social conditions, a few
flicks of the second hand on the our cultural watch.

So, are the Baby Boomers justified in criticising this generation for
returning to former cultural values and habits?

Personally, I don't think so. It's hard not to feel it smacks of myopia, of
judging others through the wrong side of the binoculars.

~~~
jamesbritt
_This changed all at one and all of a sudden under the Baby Boomers. Young
people left home earlier, travelled the world, experimented with drugs. Let 's
forget that the Baby Boomers were responsible for psychedelia, the protest
movement and flower power._

I'm puzzled how people can make generalizations about a group people born over
a range of 18 years. While the notion of "generation <foo>" is dubious in
itself, claiming that someone born in 1946 has a whole lot in common with
someone born in 1964 seems especially silly.

What I've found is most people, when talking about "boomers", really mean the
subset of those who might have plausibly attended the first Woodstock
festival.

------
rayiner
I don't know if this is a "new" stage of life or rather a return to an earlier
way of life. The whole phenomenon of kids leaving the house at 18, moving
across the country, and not coming home again is fairly recent and fairly
unique to the Western world.

My wife and I are "grown ups" in the sense that we both are done with grad
school, have professional jobs, and have a kid. Yet, my mom lives with us
during the week and we spend nearly every weekend at my parents' house in D.C.
Not because they need our support, but because we need theirs'. This is a
living situation that wouldn't be unfamiliar to my grandparents back in
Bangladesh, where the expectation, back then, was that a young couple would
move back into the husband's parents' home after marriage. It's novel relative
to what I encountered growing up (in the U.S.), but it's not "new."

Various studies have shown that Millenials are closer to their parents than
any generation in recent memory. They are not only likely to live with them
after graduating college, but turn to them regularly for career advice, take
them on job interviews for support. It's the opposite of the rebellious streak
that characterized the baby boomers.

~~~
aaronem
That makes sense; to oversimplify somewhat, the boomers tended to be really
crap as parents, resulting in a generation (my generation, more or less) who
are absolutely adamant that they won't inflict the same on their own kids.
This seems to have resulted in a close and strongly nurturing, if at times
somewhat smothering, parenting style, which in turn gave rise to the
millennials, who seem by and large to have much stronger family ties than
their parents' generation does.

(By the way, I'm a member of the "moved across the country at 18 and never
looked back" cohort, and I've occasionally had reason to wish I weren't; by
placing myself far beyond any distance at which I could reasonably hope to
receive the support of my family, I set myself up to blow a scholarship and
drop out of school half a semester in. I've managed to make my way in the
world reasonably well despite that, and have no real reason to be dissatisfied
with my lot, but it certainly gives useful perspective on some of my fellows'
declamations of narcissism and selfishness on the part of the generation
following ours -- if I'd had some of that "narcissism" and "selfishness" when
I was young, I'd have a doctorate now.)

~~~
seanccox
That's an interesting observation. I had thought it was really more the result
of the prevailing economic conditions, rather than the result of a strong,
nurturing relationship. These are hypotheses that I would really like to see
tested, that way I know whether to blame parents for causing economic crisis,
or for babying their children (j/k).

~~~
maxerickson
It's interesting to look at the one time events that have happened in the last
few (or several) generations. The destruction of farming/agriculture as the
primary source of employment and the post war boom would be two big ones.

I think the change in agriculture is interesting here because the decision
making process for the child of a (relatively poor) farmer wouldn't have been
very involved, they would be quite likely to do what they knew. There would
also probably be quite some pressure on them to get to it.

The post war boom is interesting because there were substantial opportunities
for every single 18 year old that went looking for them. That's probably still
reasonably true today, but the opportunities are at least riskier (in a life
trajectory sense) than getting a good paying job at a mill or factory.

~~~
randomdata
Great point about agriculture. Fortunately, telecommuting enabled me to stay
on the farm, which couldn't support me by itself. Had I been born a decade
earlier, moving away to a populous area would have been an almost certainty.
If you have to move away from your family, the risk is already high, so what's
a little more? Now, the vast majority of the population already live in urban
areas, so we are back to not having to move very far from your family.

~~~
maxerickson
I didn't say much about it, but part of what I was thinking about is that
someone who has had the experience of picking from many choices is probably
going to give better advice to a child doing the same thing than someone who
had one path that was quite clear.

(Which isn't contrary to anything you said, it's just another factor)

------
bicx
This is interesting to me because my brother and I (both in our later
twenties), ended up taking two different paths. I knew what I wanted to do
since high school (software engineering), unwaveringly pursued my 4-year
degree with solid scholarships, got a good job the day after I graduated, and
bought a house at 25 with a decent down-payment.

My brother, on the other hand, did not have that kind of luck. He tinkered
around in college, then joined the Navy. After a couple years, he was
discharged early (but honorably) due to panic attacks while attempting one of
their most difficult programs. Now he's back at my parents' house as he
pursues his degree in environmental science (the closest thing he could think
of that matched his interests) at a community college. My family noticed he
seemed a bit depressed as his 25th birthday approached last month. Turns out
he was pretty upset that at 25, he hadn't gotten anywhere in life.

I feel sorry for him because he's compared to me. I am not a better person. I
just have a more studious, middle-of-the-road demeanor, and I know what I want
to pursue. There was no moment where I was like, "Man, I need to settle down
and pick a career." It just happened, and I was blessed enough to have had a
straight path to the "American dream."

My brother isn't in that stage of emerging adulthood by choice. He wants to be
viewed as a respectable adult. It's just that he was not gifted with well-
defined, lucrative goals, and he doesn't want to do something he hates simply
for a good paycheck. I wouldn't have either. It just worked out better for me,
and now I look like I have my shit together.

~~~
sbilstein
I feel the same way. My success as a programmer is some combination of luck
and hard work, but it'd be unfair to judge others based on the kind of luck
I've had. I was lucky to have been exposed to computing at an early age,
stumble upon source code for qbasic games, like programming, major in it, and
happen to have my graduation date align with a huge period of growth in our
industry.

Good luck magnifies the effect of hard work, bad luck can make it appear non-
existent.

~~~
bosie
Success as a programmer meaning what exactly? Salary or knowledge?

If its the former, i reckon ""with a huge period of growth in our industry"
has a lot more to do with it than anything else you did. If you studied
ancient greek instead, all the hard work in the world wouldn't have helped
you.

~~~
sbilstein
Yep, I agree completely. That's what I meant by "Good luck magnifies the
effect of hard work, bad luck can make it appear non-existent."

------
noelwelsh
Only had time to skim the article, but the section on work caught my eye. Like
a lot of people I was fairly dissatisfied with my early career, but, luckily,
as a programmer my job had some future prospects worth obtaining. I now really
like what I do, and I've learned a bit about the nature of work. A few things
come to mind:

0\. The more competent you are at something, the more interesting it becomes.
Expecting your first job to be interesting is setting yourself up for
disappointment.

1\. Autonomy, at least for me, is really important.

2\. Nobody hires someone else to do the most interesting work available.

3\. The best jobs aren't advertised. Visibility, or self-promotion, is
important to some degree.

The awesome thing about computing is the capital costs are so low you can
short circuit a lot of the career progression. You'll probably still make a
mess of your first N years, which is why venture capital was invented ;-)

~~~
samatman
Perhaps I was fortunate in my career choices, but #2 is not my experience.
Plenty of people are hiring for problems they don't fully understand and can't
solve, or they wouldn't be hiring. Often enough, those are the interesting
problems.

------
johnrob
Much of the author's analysis is lacking economic perspective. In particular,
I'd argue that a large contributor to 20 somethings with 'dead end' jobs is
the obvious lack of 'real' jobs. Additionally, giving everyone a college
degree is not going to magically place everyone on career paths - it will
probably just debunk the assumed correlation between college degrees and
careers by sinking all of the "x percent of college grads" stats.

------
pistle
You now what this article needs? More cowbell! I mean graphs!

This is a social phenomenon being critiqued using self-reported social scoring
without tying it back to either theoretical or applied economic models.

If large swaths are asked fairly banal "Will you get what you want out of
life?" questions with waaaaaay more rigorous subjective and practical analysis
a bigger picture can't be assessed.

Elders "ridiculing," which is really a cynical take on what people older than
adult children are doing, are expressing some insight into the pitfalls of
delayed productive income acquisition. This article also flies in the face of
trends that HN loves.

We've seen articles questioning and advocating against ageism, as if this was
somehow unique to HN-fields of interest. Whether it is pop music, high art,
math, or technology (or many other fields), the people who "make a difference"
and live those envious lives of freedom to walk the path to becoming all-stars
in their field and/or lives... those are young people.

Sure, some fields require great levels of extended experience or knowledge
only acquirable through time, but the people getting everything out of life
most frequently start early with a passionate drive for exactly what they will
become.

The ascendant efforts of the young from about 18-30 is vital, innovative, and
disruptive. I dislike the "disrupt everything!" mantra that leads the naive
into the ditch. Fail fast can easily lead to lost opportunities to establish
strong financial and technical (or creative) foundations that enable the later
bloomers their time in the sun.

It's tough at the top and there are only so many who can get there now or
ever. For the rest, it's best to be able to get productive to start saving
early to establish a life where you can get ENOUGH out of life to not hit some
anxious or depressive state later when you see doors closing to attaining
EVERYTHING.

It's efficient to be able to minimize suffering as you go versus rolling the
dice that you will suddenly find a calling later.

Feast upon life to learn everything you can. Deconstruct suffering and you'll
find ways big and small to constantly create a life that you wouldn't trade
for some amorphous "everything." The destination (goals) is usually only a
milestone in the journey you are already engaged in. "If you don't stop to
look around once in a while, you might miss it."

~~~
rayiner
> The ascendant efforts of the young from about 18-30 is vital, innovative,
> and disruptive.

It's important, but if you look out your window, the world that exists out
there was designed and built mostly by people over 30. There are some geniuses
that were most prolific in their 20's (Einstein's miracle year was at 26), but
most people who are awarded the nobel prize do their most important work from
30-50
([http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111107/full/news.2011.632.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111107/full/news.2011.632.html)).
Picasso started developing cubism around the age of 30, Braque at about the
same time.

The young have particular relevance in the area of entertainment (pop music,
Facebook), largely because so much entertainment is targeted at the young.
They also have particular importance in the area of mathematics. But the kind
of day-to-day innovation that makes the world go around is a process of
stepping on the shoulders of those who came before. And it's experienced
people who understand what came before who do that most efficiently.

~~~
pistle
Those people doing that at 30+ are the ones who are knee deep in culling lots
of important industry, business, etc. experience. Delaying targeted launch is
riskier. Paying your dues is a safe pattern. You don't suddenly become
relevant in your 30's per the Nobel. You don't win $500M contracts before you
win $10M. There are very few overnight sensations starting into their field in
30+.

~~~
FD3SA
Sometimes. Other times[1], you've been so successful that you lose touch with
reality and think you're invincible.

The truth is, the laws of physics don't care about your age. You can make a
product people want at any point in time. 99% of it is plumbing. That 1%
brilliant insight is often just common sense applied to an intersection of two
disparate domains. The majority of successful web companies have made this
apparent. All they did was use the web as a platform to simplify some
previously web-disconnected task.

As humans, we love the Heroic Myth above all else. That some are chosen by God
to rule over us with their talents.

The reality is, if you learn to work within what the laws of physics allow,
anything is possible. Just go out there and do it, and don't give up. Physics
doesn't care how many times you try, or how long it takes. As long as you
don't kill yourself in the process, you can always keep improving.

Don't get caught up in the hype. The tortoise wins the race 99% of the time.

1\. [http://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-
pla...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place/)

------
MattyRad
When I was a child, I asked my dad if his work was fun. He said, "If it was
fun, they wouldn't pay you." I remember that from time to time, because it's
true. Something that is fun (relative though "fun" is) doesn't warrant
payment.

When my mom asks about my current job, I sometimes repeat that phrase, and she
gets all huffy and annoyed that I don't view my current job as enjoyable.
Sure, my job is satisfying in small ways, but ultimately I'd rather be doing
something else.

I just mention it because my mom and dad show two sides of the generation
mentality discussed in the article: the "buckle down and get a job" type, and
the "you should do what you love" type.

~~~
r00fus
Interesting how your parents have such archetypal responses. I kind of feel
that it's "they're both right" but to go meta here, it's really a question of
"what would motivate me to be a productive employee?". For some, it's respect
in the terms of compensation. For others the reward _needs_ to be from within
(in addition to external compensation).

From a management point of view, this is instructive - each employee is
different and have different (vector of) motivations.

------
mml
Many "emerging adults", in my limited experience, eventually transition into
the "desperately poor" category when they run out of other peoples' money. I'm
going to go shake my cane and yell at clouds now.

~~~
chanced
Yelling at clouds is the best, especially if you have a cane handy.

------
diegomcfly
If you are an "emerging adult" at age 30, then there is a problem. Further,
the author of this article claiming that these so called "emerging adults" are
not lazy or self-entitled is ridiculous. It is clearly a case of "first world
problems". The mere fact that these "emerging adults" have the luxury of
living "on the dole" (whether parental or governmental) while they "figure out
what they want to do with their lives" into their late 20s and early 30s is a
clear case of self-entitlement.

If you don't have a place to live, food to eat, and shelter ... you "emerge"
as an adult pretty quickly and figure out what you "want to do with your life"
by DOING WORK you don't want to do to get said food, and shelter (i.e., to
survive).

What is the saying? An absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.

~~~
UK-AL
Most survival work like that doesn't pay that well, so you would not be able
to get shelter, food etc anyway.

A large majority of professional jobs in business, programming, accountancy,
consultancy are filled with people who want to be there.

I am in a professional job, and I doubt I could afford a decent place to live
without parental help other than a crappy flat in a dodgy area.

How people afford to live by themselves, on non-professional jobs I don't
know.

~~~
diegomcfly
>I am in a professional job, and I doubt I could afford a decent place to live
without parental help other than a crappy flat in a dodgy area.

Then live in a the "crappy flat in a dodgy area".

>How people afford to live by themselves, on non-professional jobs I don't
know.

Then don't live by yourself. I had 2 and 3 roommates over various times as a
young person getting started. We split the rent in crappy small apartments.

------
jimbokun
"Adulthood is full of onerous responsibilities, as all of us who have been
there for a while know well: going to work every day, making the meals,
keeping the household reasonably clean and orderly, paying the bills."

That's the bar for onerous, now? And this is an attitude we, as parents and as
society, are obligated to encourage, support, and indulge?

~~~
bluemnmtattoo
But if there's no point to all of it, then there's no point

That's not attitude that's science

Space exploration is the point

------
johnnyg
"I made enough to live on, but only because I had moved back home with my
parents and didn’t have to pay for rent or groceries."

No, no you didn't.

~~~
bradleysmith
had the same thought at this line. The use of 'to live on' while not paying
rent or groceries is very strange. These are the EXACT two bills I think of
when I think of the base costs 'to live'.

------
trustfundbaby
I think that economic variables also play an very strong role in what we're
seeing with delayed adulthood in millenials.

Credit is much harder to come by, jobs are more difficult to get without a
college education (addressed in the article), and there are also changing
attitudes to sex and relationships that are becoming more pronounced with
millenials (specifically casual sex/relationships) that make it easier for men
(probably women as well) to put off marriage and having children.

WRT to credit, when I got out of college back in 2003, I got a credit card
with a $5000 limit in my mailbox which I started using immediately, I was
talking to my brother who graduated last year and he says that those credit
card offers are few and far between now, and that even when you get your hands
on one, the credit limit is about $1000 ..... this blew me away. I couldn't
have started my business without that $5000 credit card and much of what I
have now revolves around the skills/experience I gained from my initial self-
employment 10 years ago.

The economic realities have such profound implications that its giving rise to
the "sharing economy"
[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/the-
chea...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/the-cheapest-
generation/309060/) and changing the way corporations are marketing some of
their products to this demographic
[http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021715711_d...](http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021715711_drivingamericaxml.html#)!

Lots more going on there than meets the eye IMO.

------
pnathan
> They expect work to be fun, and if it’s not fun, they refuse to do it.

That is a big difference and a good way to sum it up.

Unfortunately, lots of jobs are both needed and full of drudgery.

~~~
dropit_sphere
>Unfortunately, lots of jobs are both needed and full of drudgery.

I get the feeling millennials are calling that bluff: "If it's so needed, why
won't they hire me for it/why doesn't it pay more?'

~~~
pnathan
* why won't they hire me for it

Because "you" got a humanities degree and "it" is a tradesperson job which
does not "make the world better". "You" chose to pursue "fun and interesting",
and didn't run the numbers on "ROI", which only geeks, low-class people, and
in-it-for-the-money people did.

* why doesn't it pay more?

Because experience counts a tremendous amount, far more than willingness to
show up.

/me shrug

A lot of tradespeople jobs are done by immigrants willing to work many hours
with low pay where natives are out looking for "rewarding" and "fulfilling"
work. The Great Hand of Bettering Yourself By Hard Work will sort it out, more
or less, more or less unevenly, in the end.

~~~
dropit_sphere
Fine---but if the jobs are being done, why all the whining about "kids these
days?"

~~~
mason240
Because "kids these days" are refusing to do them, yet demanding they have
better lifestyle then the people who are doing them.

------
ashleyjohn
Interesting topic. It seems that every generation has something to criticize
about the next. I'm sure that the Greatest Generation who witnessed both World
War I, World War II and the Great Depression had a few words (critiques) about
the Baby Boomers...just as the Baby Boomers have a few words about Generation
Z (the Internet Generation)...

------
pawn
I wonder how much variation there is between different cultures. I don't have
a lot of context to go off of myself, but speaking to some of my Indian
friends, it seems more prevalent in their culture to stay with your parents
until you're married rather than running off while you're still single.

~~~
srs0001
Although this is genuinely a positive article about young people, I feel that
pulling conclusions about all 18 to 29-year-olds is painting with a broad
stroke.

------
morgante
I really hate this term "emerging adults." Suddenly we're not full adults
anymore, just because many people of my generation have failed to live up to
the standard of adulthood? I really hope this isn't a trend/term which catches
on and justifies continued ageism or the denial of rights.

In general, I've always hated these "generational" descriptions. They're
guaranteed to be woefully inaccurate for many people in the generation, yet
provide ammunition for ageists to discriminate against young people.

For my part, I haven't lived at home since I was 17 and, at 21, have a very
"serious" job (which definitely pays the bills). I'm certainly not an outlier
in this regard. The people who fail to do this are simply that: failures.
(Though that failure isn't necessarily their fault.) Where does this fit in
his theory of extended adolescence and infantilization?

~~~
sho_hn
> The people who fail to do this are simply that: failures.

Yup, sounds 21 to me. Quick to anger and lash out, quick to judge, moral
certitude, and lack of empathy.

For one, there's significant variance to how family units function across the
human population. In many parts of the world, living together for far longer
than 17 is the norm, and the model of how one generation financially supports
the next, or families co-manage/pool their finances, works very differently.
Often systems emerge that entrench this (e.g. the massive up-front down
payments on rental apartments in the South Korean retail markets, which kids
simply cannot afford because there's no _time_ to make that kind of money).

So blanket statements like this reek of cultural superiority and lack of
education, frankly. I get that you're pissed because you don't feel you're
getting the respect you deserve for your accomplishments (or at least that's
what I seemed to read there), but starting with some humility and respect for
_others_ might change how people respond to you.

(And yeah, I was financially self-sufficient at 21, too. Big deal. It's
possible because I happened to enjoy doing work in an area and market that
allowed for it. Many things worth pursueing, and of great contribution to
society, don't make you money at 21.)

~~~
omni
> The people who fail to do this are simply that: failures. (Though that
> failure isn't necessarily their fault.)

Did you just omit the second sentence so you could go on a little rant? Or did
morgante edit his post?

~~~
sho_hn
It was there originally. I didn't feel that the second sentence did much to
affect the overall thrust of the post ("not necessarily" isn't exactly very
generous), and even if it did, it's still quite possible to disagree with the
notion that having moved out and achieved financial independence by 21 is a
requirement for "not a failure" status.

I feel it's exemplary of an arrogance and myopia many of us programmers are
possessed with. Our profession is undoubtedly high-impact, but it doesn't
actually require all that much knowledge to be useful at it, nor is it that
difficult or time-intensive to learn. It's relatively easy to be successful at
it and make money even at a young age. Many other paths are much more
difficult, take a lot longer, and are no less worthy. Ones that require much
more knowledge, or experience and personal growth, for example.

If you try really hard you can chose to read that parenthesis as a passionate
plea for society to recognize this and support them better, I suppose, but I'm
not that optimistic.

------
Beasting247
This article takes way too long to get to the point. Can I get the Cliff-
Notes?

~~~
diegomcfly
Yes .. here you go: The article is about the self-entitled generation of
"emerging adults" (apparently who range from 18 to 40) of which the author was
a part of, but now spends his time writing long-winded articles rationalizing
how they (he) are not lazy and self-entitled.

------
taybin
Let me know when they have a spouse, child, and mortgage. That's the dividing
line, as far as I can tell.

~~~
nileshtrivedi
What precisely is it about having a child and having a mortgage that qualifies
someone as "grown-up"?

(I'm speaking as someone who has a wife, a kid and a house bought outright).

~~~
declan
>What precisely is it about having a child and having a mortgage that
qualifies someone as "grown-up"?

It's shorthand for assuming adult responsibilities. It's difficult to survive
on your emotionally fulfilling but minimum wage job if you have a brood in
diapers at home. Obviously you still have responsibilities, probably including
property taxes, insurance, and utilities, if you own your house outright as
opposed to having a mortgage.

BTW, it's a bit tricky to buy your home outright if you live, in, say Palo
Alto, where I recall a bunch of YC-funded startups are based:

[http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2013/12/24/real-estate-
ma...](http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2013/12/24/real-estate-matters) "In
Palo Alto the median sales price for a home was $2.2 million..."

~~~
nileshtrivedi
I understand that IF you have a spouse or kids, it's your responsibility to
take care of them and provide the best possible environment for them to
flourish.

But it does not follow that it's one's responsibility to marry and have kids.
There have been plenty of people who contributed a lot to society without ever
marrying or raising kids.

You're right that managing a family is shorthand for being responsible. My
point is: why use a shorthand when you can simply ask "So what are you doing
with all the extra time you get because of not having a family?".

Ask, don't presume.

(I am not even getting into the whole philosophical debate of whether "work ==
virtue". The subtext in comments like the above is: "Oh, you're living a
comfortable life with no responsibilities? You should work hard and suffer
like the rest of us!" )

~~~
wtbob
> But it does not follow that it's one's responsibility to marry and have
> kids. There have been plenty of people who contributed a lot to society
> without ever marrying or raising kids.

One's responsibility is to do the right thing, to do one's duty. For some
folks, that duty has not been to form a family, but for the vast majority of
folks their duty has been to do exactly that: to repay their ancestors'
millions of years of evolutionary investment by investing in their
descendants.

There are some folks who have repaid that rather massive debt in other ways,
but they are few and far between; far more these days simply renege on it.

------
tommo123
Surely that should be 'growings-up'? Motion to burn at the stake the
author/poster until we reach a conclusion

~~~
x3c
It's based on grown-ups. So I think, it's correct.

