From time to time we’ll each tackle a topic that has dominated the news (or heck, that we just find interesting). We may agree, we may not. We make no promises of catfights, but if one does occur, we’ll take pictures.
The Emergence of the 20-Something
By Emma
We’ve based this blog on the idea of being a 20 something, or growing out of that same state. We’re certainly not the first people to come up with this idea, but the whole idea here is that we have no desire to be the first at anything – we’re searching for us, and if us ends up being something that was done before then so be it.
The New York Times published an article this last weekend called, with great originality, What Is It About 20-Somethings? The premise is this: one psychologist – Jeffrey Jensen Arnett - is proposing that this time, our 20s (or very early 30s, where Miss Laura is), is actually a stage of development that we’ve previously been unaware of. He refers to us as ‘emerging adults’. It’s not that ridiculous, really - adolescence wasn’t recognized until 100 years ago. In the 1800s, 14 year olds were considered adults. That sounds straight up motherfucking insane to me. Have you met a fourteen year old lately? Those kids are not grown up by any measurement except possibly the desire to have sex, which in and of itself is not an acceptable milestone. My dogs also want to have sex, and they have missing uteruses (uteri?) and don’t even really know what sex is – they just know they like to hump. Like, perhaps, 14 year olds.
If Mr. Arnett is correct, someone in a few generations will feel similarly about me.
Here’s the thing.
Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child.
If those are the milestones, then I’m not technically an adult. Sure, I completed school, but I’m restarting it in two short days. I left home, but I did move back for a few months before I bought my current townhouse. Financially independent? Do we mean from my parents, or from banks and credit card companies? If it’s the latter, can I get a resounding ‘ha’? Let’s not even address the last two. I’m in a committed adult relationship, sure, but even if it progresses in a traditional manner I won’t be married until I’m in my early thirties.
So. I’m torn. On one hand, I’m pissed off that this dude is telling me that my accomplishments aren’t enough to qualify me for adult status. On the other hand?
DURING THE PERIOD he calls emerging adulthood, Arnett says that young men and women are more self-focused than at any other time of life, less certain about the future and yet also more optimistic, no matter what their economic background. This is where the “sense of possibilities” comes in, he says; they have not yet tempered their idealistic visions of what awaits. “The dreary, dead-end jobs, the bitter divorces, the disappointing and disrespectful children . . . none of them imagine that this is what the future holds for them,” he wrote.
Um. Yes. A thousand times yes.
He suggests many possibilities. Maybe we provide more services like the Peace Corps and Teach America, in order to give our emerging adults time to grow into adulthood while contributing to society. Maybe places like Yellowbrick*, a residential psychiatric treatment facility just for emerging adults, will become more popular. I recovered from an eating disorder, and I can tell you that trying to find a therapist that specialized in my disorder without primarily being dedicated to 16 year olds was brutal.
Maybe we just acknowledge, as a society, that we don’t have this shit all figured out.
My take is this: yes. We, the 20-somethings of America, are unique. Whether we’re unique compared to people of the same age in previous generations or just to people in their teens and thirties, I can’t say for sure. What I do know is that we are figuring this shit out. Sure, it’s taking us longer than it used to take people, but who is to say that’s a bad thing? Our life expectancy is now in the 90s – there is certainly no hurry. Laura Ingalls Wilder started teaching at 15 and got married at 17. Would she have made the same decision if she’d known she had 75 more years to live?
P.S. How great is Yellowbrick as a name for a psychiatric facility? I would go there just for that. Of course, I’ve always suffered from Dorothy fantasies. Hell, maybe they could help with that.
P. P. S. One of my favorite linguistic/feminist factoids is that a group of aboriginals have foregone gender as a dividing line. Instead of saying ‘books are female, cars are male’, (I’m pointing at you, romance languages), they created four categories of nouns. One of those categories is ‘women, fire, and dangerous things’.
Arnett … describes himself as a late bloomer, a onetime emerging adult before anyone had given it a name. After graduating from Michigan State University in 1980, he spent two years playing guitar in bars and restaurants and experimented with girlfriends, drugs and general recklessness before going for his doctorate in developmental psychology at the University of Virginia.
Again? Ha.
Emerging Adulthood
By Laura
“Emerging Adulthood” is the name some psychologists give to the period of our twenties where we really don’t know what the hell is going on. Is this a real stage of development or just another way young Trustifarians milk Mom and Dad so they can continue binge drinking and self-actualizing away the day?
I vote: real stage. I’ve been a grown-up since I was twelve. I’m sure my parents would disagree to some extent, but in many ways this isn’t far from the truth. I’ve always been responsible (the white sheep in a flock of black, maybe), and I’ve met many of the “milestones of adulthood” earlier than many of my peers. I was married at 24 and had two children by 29. We’ve owned a house since we were married as well as cars, and had completely paid for our respective educations by the time we graduated college.
In trying to become a grown up my biggest problem was career. Many twenty-somethings may struggle with the whole gamut (relationships, responsibility, travel, drugs), but for me it was only vocation. It took until I recently turned 30 to realize just how much I struggled in my twenties. In the few months since my birthday I have definitely turned a corner. The burden of having so many choices, and worse, of making sure I pick the right one has lifted. I have not invested the last seven years of my life in starting a career as my husband has. I am beginning the long journey of becoming a writer well past a reasonable entry point. Still, it doesn’t bother me the way it would have six months ago. I’m not counting down to the next decade, hoping I have myself figured out by some arbitrary endpoint. I have the rest of my life to start this new thing, and maybe this time it will take.
Part of the problem of being in your twenties is a combination of the expectations thrust upon us as children, and the luxury of near limitlessness in our options. Like most little girls I was told that I could “be anything I wanted.” Girls, though, have the added pressure of feminism working against them. Sure we can be whatever we want, be it rocket scientist or CEO, just don’t choose homemaker or mother. Those aren’t the things they meant. It’s like we owe it to all the women who didn’t have our freedoms to choose extravagantly. God help you if you can’t decide what to do for a living and find yourself at home with a kid and pregnant before you’re 30. That looks really bad, in terms of everyone’s expectations for you. Add to this a stellar college GPA and an “Outstanding Graduate” award and you’ve dug yourself a ditch you may never emerge from.
As long as you’re in your twenties you still have time to fix things. The deal isn’t sealed until you hit 30. By then you’re supposed to be old enough to know better than to switch jobs, leave your fiancé, uproot your life for the Peace Corps. For me it’s been established that I’m never going to be America’s youngest Nobel Prize winner. The lack of choices is so refreshing, as is the lack of pressure. For once I feel like I have the freedom to really try things without everyone looking over my shoulder with high hopes and expectations. I can mess up, since I’ll be the only one paying attention. And maybe that alone will be enough this time.
