The New York Times has always struggled with youth culture, stumbling upon trends full half-decades after they emerge and then over-analyzing them to the point of unintentional self-parody. But lately, they’ve really topped themselves, in pieces like this recent blog post informing us that the word “hipster” is inextricably linked to the word “Brooklyn” and vowing to find fresh, new alternatives. (We can’t wait to see what they come up with…)
Today, they dropped a major bomb, publishing their Sunday magazine article — that is actually titled “What Is It About 20-Somethings”! — online a full four days ahead of its street date, in an obvious attempt to give ample time for the story to cause a bloggy furor. And you know what? It worked. As 20-somethings who pay our own bills, this lengthy exploration of “emerging adulthood” and whether many of us are too undercooked to survive in the adult world, really did piss us off, largely because we found its portrait of post-college types lazing around their parents’ houses, willfully eschewing responsibilities both unfamiliar and offensive. It is, in fact, about as insightful as you might expect an article pegged to the $#*! My Dad Says TV show to be. Since your friends will probably be discussing it for days and we don’t think you’ll learn much from reading the entire thing, we’ve excerpted the article’s 10 most infuriating quotes.
Not getting married and having babies? Sorry, you’re not an adult:
We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.
“Emerging adulthood” — like junior high for 20-somethings!
An understanding of the developmental profile of adolescence led, for instance, to the creation of junior high schools in the early 1900s, separating seventh and eighth graders from the younger children in what used to be called primary school. And it led to the recognition that teenagers between 14 and 18, even though they were legally minors, were mature enough to make their own choice of legal guardian in the event of their parents’ deaths. If emerging adulthood is an analogous stage, analogous changes are in the wings.
Or, you know, is it just the limbo you’re stuck in because your parents’ generation fucked up the economy and you can’t get a job?
Is emerging adulthood a rich and varied period for self-discovery, as Arnett says it is? Or is it just another term for self-indulgence?
Hey, 20-somethings! This is the guy who thinks you’re immature:
Arnett and I were discussing the evolution of his thinking over lunch at BABA Sushi, a quiet restaurant near his office where he goes so often he knows the sushi chefs by name. He is 53, very tall and wiry, with clipped steel-gray hair and ice-blue eyes, an intense, serious man. He 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. By 1986 he had his first academic job at Oglethorpe University, a small college in Atlanta. There he met his wife, Lene Jensen, the school’s smartest psych major, who stunned Arnett when she came to his office one day in 1989, shortly after she graduated, and asked him out on a date.
Right, because there aren’t any 20-somethings dealing with the reality of “dreary, dead-end jobs”:
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.
Making unemployment sound like a welcome reprieve:
When people are forced to adopt adult responsibilities early, maybe they just do what they have to do, whether or not their brains are ready. Maybe it’s only now, when young people are allowed to forestall adult obligations without fear of public censure, that the rate of societal maturation can finally fall into better sync with the maturation of the brain.
Here’s another Baby Boomer who thinks Baby Boomers were exceptional:
Arnett readily acknowledges his debt to Keniston; he mentions him in almost everything he has written about emerging adulthood. But he considers the ’60s a unique moment, when young people were rebellious and alienated in a way they’ve never been before or since. And Keniston’s views never quite took off, Arnett says, because “youth” wasn’t a very good name for it. He has called the label “ambiguous and confusing,” not nearly as catchy as his own “emerging adulthood.”
It takes seven pages to get to the part where Henig acknowledges she’s basically talking about rich people:
While the complaints of these young people are heartfelt, they are also the complaints of the privileged. Julie, a 23-year-old New Yorker and contributor to “20 Something Manifesto,” is apparently aware of this. She was coddled her whole life, treated to French horn lessons and summer camp, told she could do anything. “It is a double-edged sword,” she writes, “because on the one hand I am so blessed with my experiences and endless options, but on the other hand, I still feel like a child. I feel like my job isn’t real because I am not where my parents were at my age. Walking home, in the shoes my father bought me, I still feel I have yet to grow up.”
Huh. Maybe that generation shouldn’t have sat idly by while their own greed destroyed the economy their children would inherit?
But the expectation that young men and women won’t quite be able to make ends meet on their own, and that parents should be the ones to help bridge the gap, places a terrible burden on parents who might be worrying about their own job security, trying to care for their aging parents or grieving as their retirement plans become more and more of a pipe dream.
Call us crazy, but probably 20-somethings whose parents can afford to send them to fancy, $21k-a-month halfway houses to adulthood are so wealthy as to have nothing to do with the experiences of the vast majority of young people:
The Yellowbrick philosophy is that young people must meet these challenges without coddling or rescue. Up to 16 patients at a time are housed in the Yellowbrick residence, a four-story apartment building Viner owns. They live in the apartments — which are large, sunny and lavishly furnished — in groups of three or four, with staff members always on hand to teach the basics of shopping, cooking, cleaning, scheduling, making commitments and showing up.
Comments (21)
Hi, Gen Xer here, I totally hear your pain. I’m exhausted by all of the baby boomer relevancy issues. They are the ones that named my generation the “Slacker” generation. We’ve reshaped the world just as much as they did and the twentysomethings will reshape the world just as much as we did. I don’t know why there needs to be this freakin’ rift between generations (of course, I’m just on the cusp of Gen X and Gen Y, so maybe I’m biased and you are all just a bunch of snot nosed little punks).
For me, it all boils down to the quote above:
“It takes seven pages to get to the part where Henig acknowledges she’s basically talking about rich people”
As a 28-year-old, I know plenty of 20-somethings who are motivated, employed, passionate and independent of their parents. They will shape this generation – and have started to do so already the arts, music, science, social policy, multiple arenas. I also know many of my age group who exist on the largesse of their parents way into adulthood. They’re generally the kids who are unable to pin down exactly what it is they want to do and exist in dreary jobs (if they have one) because they can’t pull their finger out their ass, identify what they might be passionate about, and go for it. Usually, if you don’t have someone paying your rent through college and beyond, someone to send your electricity and gas bills to (an acquaintance of mine used to just send them home), or someone to buy you clothes when the weather starts to get colder/warmer, you’re able to make that identification a little quicker, or become more determined to do so because the “dreary job” is probably one you’ve been used to having from teenagehood because, unlike those with parents who are happy to pay rent for their kid in their late 20s, no one paid you an allowance just for existing.
Parents who can’t afford to financially support their kids past 18, or past college graduation, don’t really have this problem. Perhaps it’s the 60-somethings rather than the 20-somethings who have something to learn here. Mom, Dad: Just Say No.
Check out “Forever Young” here: http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2009/07/17
It describes really well the baby boomer generation.
Pretty much to the point
And thanks for good read, I agree with most things. :)
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thanks for posting this! i nearly lost my shit over it:
http://birdswithteeth.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/why-we-dont-want-to-grow-up/
Ahh, one of my fellow 20-somethings gets it right in this blog — Nobody understands us and many of our problems stem from the the baby boomers messing up the economy. We 20-somethings DO know better than everyone!
Sarcasm aside, the NYT article was fairly balanced and acknowledged many of the problems you poke fun at in your blog. Just because you don’t fit the bill of the “emerging adult” doesn’t mean there isn’t a large group of people that do. There are a lot of 20-somethings out there, and the article’s author even acknowledges that it’s difficult to define the group because 20-somethings are at different points in their lives.
So calm down. There’s no need to run to our room, slam the door, and lament how the New York Times totally doesn’t get us!
@20-something I think the issue is less with the application of the term. To many people the attempt of, yes, privileged and culturally isolated accounts made by the intelligentsia to define an entire generation are problematic.
Then, think about the readership. What is a large demographic who has access to blogs and an interest in political events probably dating from college? Entry-level, white-collar workers. Of course, this article is going to piss them off; that’s also a large portion of NY Time’s audience.
It’s becoming more apparent that the creation of culture/ development of ideology for this age group is not inclusive.
It might be a question of definition, but in my book Mr. Arnett, at 53 years of age, isn’t a baby boomer; and I wonder how he can make claims like that about the sixties when he was till pretty wet behind the ears at that time to say the least?
Are we done with this yet? The “Generation Gap” has always existed, and always will. To the Old people set in their ways, the young are annoying and entitled, frivolously not getting married and cranking out kids or making any of the same choices that their parents did.
To the young, the Old are walking around with blinders on, unable to adapt to the changing environment. And after 16-23 years of being in school, kind of expected to land a job that would pay enough to afford the pile of student loans they’ve racked up on top of rent and food.
Everyone’s pissed. The economy sucks, and those younger than 30 are one of the most studied generations the planet has ever seen. We grew up online and under a microscope, and now we’re overeducated and underemployed. We are fighting over unpaid internships in the hopes that we will be able to land an entry level job that we’re overqualified for and being told that we’re too entitled.
To Quote Goodfellas, “Fuck you Pay Me.”
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@TT –
a 53 year old most definitely is a babyboomer. The babyboom generation stretches from 1946 to 1964.
Um, news flash–the NYT ALWAYS posts their weekend content on the site early, so despite the fact that you think the world revolves around you and this early posting is yet another example of how unique and targeted you are, think again. Jeez, self-involved much?
Having posted my snarky comment in response to the incorrect information in this post, I will say that I do agree with some of the substance of what you’ve written, and the NYT article is ridiculous. It’s just another example of the paper’s tendency to run crappy, inaccurate “trend” non-trend pieces…
Perhaps you have to be 20-something to be infuriated… I find the original article rather amusing.
Yes, we, the Boomers, messed up the economy. We made ourselves be born in great numbers, knowing that our numbers would give us greater force in society. Our parents are not to blame for having so many of us. They are The Greatest Generation. No, it is our fault that there are so many of us and that our parents raised us as they did. Just as it is the Millennials’ and Gen Y’s fault that they are the way they are.
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Can’t wait for that new band Sonic Emerging Adult!
i find it amusing that 20 somethings blame the baby boomers for anything..truly the obama generation..blaming other constantly ,not taking the blame for anything.hey 20 somethings..get a life/
NYT: “All the news and white privilege that’s fit to print”. It’s like their New York includes the Upper East Side, Long Island (Hamptons) and Brooklyn and that’s it. The rest of us are just exceptions. So I’m happily exempted from the profile of 20-somethings of the article. Still, I found this article interesting in light of the fact that I’m practically the only one of my friends who isn’t living like they just got out of college (perpetually broke, living in basements, working at Applebee’s). I have one friend from college who, like me, qualifies as an adult according to NYT. Neither of us grew up in the US, though are both American. Coincidence?
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