Are people today taking longer to grow up? Why?

Great Debates
21

I gave my nine year old $20 for making straight As on her last report card. I found out she spent half on a birthday present for her mother and the other half on a birthday present for her little brother. She did this entirely without prompting, and since I tend to be home late most days she had to “trick” her mom into taking her to the store. I’ll let you know in 16 years how she does on the second part of the test.

BTW, her little brother got $10 for all As and one B and he still has his. His essay for MLK Day (his class had to write “I have a dream…” and then whatever their dream was) was that he wanted to be a billionaire tycoon. He gets this from playing Monopoly and Life.

22

Then your doing your job right. Where were you when I was trying to impart financial prudence on my offspring? Instead, they end up making all the same mistakes I had made (that my parents had warned me about).

When I was 35, I lived, and continue to live, with my in-laws. Does that count? (Technically, they live with us, but why quibble with semantics)

23

lee: Young women have been working away from their girlhood home for decades before the 1950s. IIRC textile mills in the Northeast United States in the 19th century employed single women away from their home.

Good point. (Although many female industrial workers were required to live in “women’s hostels” or “dormitories” run by the factory, so they weren’t exactly independent singles. Similarly, many young unmarried women worked away from home as domestic servants, but then they lived in their employer’s family.)

24

lee: Young brides are a tradition in pioneer and more agrarian societies. How old does a pioneer wife need to be? […] My great-grandmother, in this tradition, was married at 15

Still, note that the median age at first marriage in pre-20th-century America, according to that statistics I quoted, was nonetheless much higher than that. There may indeed have been a good many teenage pioneer brides out there, but evidently the average American bride at first marriage was significantly older.

25

But the elimination of child brides as the norm for large groups in the US does go a long way to explaining the change from 1890 women’s first marriage at 22 to the current average of 25 or 26.

26

That Psychology Today article seems a bit light on psychology. It is well known that parental behavior does not affect the future personality, or even, to a large extent, behavior. There have been many twin and sibling studies that confirm this.

27

First off, I agree that economic factors play a large role. It is more difficult for young people in large cities to achieve economic independence.

However, I had a couple of major bones to pick with the article, which I admit I only skimmed while standing at a newstand. Key indicators of maturity are purportedly marriage and home ownership. Does not being married automatically mean the person is immature? What if you live in an area of the country where homeownership is not an option, unless you are willing to endure grinding commutes to distant suburbs? Maybe the article simply has a strong middle-American slant. I imagine the obstacles to obtaining a title deed are far less daunting in a medium or small sized Midwestern city than, say, in NY or LA.

28

I’m surprised that no has mentioned a book written in the 80’s that covers similar ground as the Times/Psychology Today article:

The Postponed Generation: Why America’s Grown-Up Kids Are Growing Up Later by Susan Littwin (1987).

Now, Littwin is a journalist, and her book is written from a journalistic perspective almost 20 years ago. But given the Times/Psychology article, it appears that much of what she wrote about has been empirically validated to some extent.

Bottom line - the phenomenon has been going on for quite some time.

29

I believe that people today are taking longer to grow up. I think in particular, with regard to Depression Era children and the pre-WWII generation, children were closer to the “useful tools until they become old enough to support themselves” that they are in many other parts of the world, rather than the cherished little angels that they are today.

I am not trying to say this as negative judgment on one system or the other. It’s simply something I have observed in conversations with my father and others his age, and from reading histories of the era. My father grew up on a farm with 5 brothers and sisters. When he turned 14, he was basically told that it was time to hit the road and strike out on his own (he went and worked on and eventually basically ran a nearby farm). His other brothers have similar stories. I believe that 50+ years ago, it would have been viewed as preposterous for any working class kid who could support himself and earn money to still be living off of one’s parents or fooling around with “childish things.”

I also believe that the constant movement away from an agricultural society has contributed to the retardation of “growing up” for kids.

30

lee: But the elimination of child brides as the norm for large groups in the US does go a long way to explaining the change from 1890 women’s first marriage at 22 to the current average of 25 or 26.

No, I don’t think it does, because the median bridal age (as you can see from the table I originally linked to) actually began to drop between 1890 and 1920, from 22 to a little over 21. Then it began to rise again, until the post-WWII cultural changes pushed it down to its historic low point of 20 in the mid-1950’s.

So I really don’t think that the “elimination of child brides as the norm for large groups in the US” actually had much of an effect on the significant increases in median marriage age. The transition from the historic low of 20 in the mid-1950’s, to the historic high right now of 25+, has occurred only in the past 50 years. By the time of the historic minimum in the mid-1950’s, pioneer teenage brides were already a demographic rarity, to say the least.

31

For anyone interested in playing with the statistics there’s this link to family and living arrangements from the census. Seems to me the statistics can be read a number of ways on a lot of issues. Maybe someone can make sense of the Young adults living at home table . Only goes back to 1960 but I’m not sure what the table represents.

I’m of the persuasion that umarried adult children living at home is a) not particularly new and b) not particularly bad. Actually good. Basically what **Kimstu ** said. I’m very suspicious of the overwhelming societal pressure for unmarried adults to live alone. As anyone who lives in Metropolitan Boston has to be.

Just think about these statistics: What exactly is the impact on average cost of living from the shrinkage in household size? See this table. And if we’re criticizing Americans for not being independent enough think about this - there are LOT more people living on their own (10% of the population if I calculated right) compared to 1940 (4%). That’s a 250% increase. Think of what it costs to run a household as a single person. Who’s really benefitting? Landlords. Empty-nesters certainly aren’t financially. They’d be better off having their child live at home and pay them rent instead of hitting them up for cash when they max out their credit cards. Don’t get me started on what this does to the consumer debt problem.

Ok, so maybe it doesn’t make economic sense for unmarried adults to live alone, but why are they unmarried? Well statistically again I’m unconvinced there is a huge increase in that delay except among women. And that’s because women didn’t used to go to school and start careers. Now women’s marriage age is approaching men’s and you get a huge bump in the median age.

Also, to repeat the most important point - the economic barrier to having a family and buying a home was MUCH lower way back when.

32

I’m 19, have conciderable savings, work part time and go to school. I have scholarships for school and will graduate in May with a BS. I’m going to grad school, where I’ll work as a TA and live in an apartment. Before my 20th birthday, I will be absolutely self supporting. I don’t think I took too long to grow up. Oh, and there are booklets on pention plans on my desk, awaiting my attention. I know I’m not normal, but hey, it’s my two cents.

33

There are so many trends in play here that it’s hard to tell how much of an effect they all have.

Twenty five years ago I was at the age where I was starting to contemplate moving out on my own. I had a decent enough home life, but back then it was almost expected. The norm was that a kid could live at home while going to college, but if he went to work after high school he should consider moving out soon. I worked for three years after high school to save for college, and I moved out and lived on my own for the last six months before leaving for college because I just couldn’t take the thought of living at home at that age. Of all my friends from back then, all were living on their own within a few years after high school.

But think about the conditions we lived in. We didn’t have the kind of mobility that young adults have now. Our family’s houses were generally much smaller, so we were in each other’s space all the time. We didn’t have an internet to maintain a social life away from our parents.

But my daughter is 7 now, and I’m thinking that it’ll be fine if she lives at home until she’s 30. We have more disposable income than our parent’s generation had. We have bigger houses. Multiple cars. Several TV’s and computers. We’re rich in personal resources. And on the flip side, young people living at home tend to have their own vehicles, cell phones, internet connections in their rooms, and a social culture that tolerates a lot more freedom for young adults.

So maybe it’s not that young people today are poorer, but that their families are wealthier, so the economic and social pressure to fly the nest is not nearly as strong as it was a generation ago.

This is a great thread, btw. There have been lots of great messages on all sides of this debate.

34

I think there are two main factors: debt and the job market.

When, say, my mother was a child, you couldn’t just up and get credit out of the blue. Lenders were much more conservative than they are today and didn’t just throw money at people. A woman couldn’t get a credit card without her father or her husband to help her get one (which sucked, of course).

Today 18 year olds are bombarded with credit card offers, and they never let up. I’m 27, wrecked my credit when I was 19 and I still get 2-3 credit card offers in the mail PER WEEK. Our society encourages debt. We want it NOW, the old fashioned idea of saving for it 'til you can pay cash just won’t do.

And then there’s the job market. What job market? Yeah, exactly. My grandparents worked for Union Carbide. Coupled with my grandfather’s income that he earned from moonlighting as an electrician, they did well. Not rich, but they were able to buy a house and raise 2 kids. Granny did work full time for years, but when my mom was a teen she quit working. Sometimes they were a dual income family, sometimes not. They could DO that. They had that option.

Granddaddy had a 6th grade education (he was a genius, though). He had no trouble finding a job. There were factories to work at, businesses were booming and it was basically a damn good time to be settling down.

Today? Not many factories, and the ones that do exist may provide good jobs, but the competition is so fierce. Unless you have some unusual talent that can provide you a living OR you are fortunate enough to inherit wealth or a family business, your ass had better get to college.

So we’ve got a situation in which college is pretty much your only bet for even a crummy desk job, and kids are coming out of school saddled not only with massive credit card debt but also owing Uncle Sam 20k or so.

My generation has fewer siblings to compete with for resources. Many of us are only children, and our parents planned it that way. Mom and Dad have room at their house. Jobs are scarce, so why try to pay rent, utilities, student loans AND credit card bills when you can just move back in and live with the 'rents for free?

35

I don’t think marriage should be considered a benchmark of adulthood. However, the ability to be self sufficent and able to work out one’s expenses on their own should. In my early 20’s I was still at home, while I worked and went to University.

I was not an adult, my living expenses were basically paid for by my parents, and I had enough disposable income after school expenses to buy all the crap I wanted. Only once I was on my own having to deal with the mundane problems such as bills rent and making sure I had enough money to feed myself and keep gas in the tank was I finally on the road to what I would consider adulthood.

When you depend on your parents to cover those expenses such as food, shelter, and in some cases transportation, you are not an adult plain and simple.
If you have willingly given up your responsibilities to your parents you can not claim to be an adult.

An adult is one who attempts to support themselves and take on all the responsibilities that entails. If you have someone doing the work for you, you are no adult. IMOHO

36

Are the tens of millions of stay at home parents who rely on their spouse for support not adults then? What about the tens of millions of people who are not the primary wage earners (ie the husband makes $25/hr while the wife makes $6/hr and couldn’t support herself on that)?

This criteria of being self supporting cuts about 70% of people out of the ‘adult’ category. It not only disincludes all the people who get help from their parents (30-40%) but it cuts out all the stay at home parents and people who are secondary wage earners. Many people are only supporting themselves due to a spouses help.

37

If you’re working, paying rent to your parents, and covering all your other bills while saving or paying down debt, how is that not self-supporting? Covering 1/2 of one of my parents’ mortgage payments is by far the cheapest rent in my home city - close to a 50% discount. In addition, they’re better off - their mortgage gets paid off faster with an additional contribution.

38

It’s hard to overemphasis how bleak the economic prospects for young high school and college graduates is these days. My mother’s house in a run-down Sacramento suburb rose from 80k in 1999 to 250k today. Even renting a room in a shared household is beyond many young people, much less a mortgage. I’d imagine I’d have to move out of state to own a home. College tuition rose 6% last year. UC Berkeley’s tuition rose 1,060% since 1974. Nobody can work their way through a four year college any more- what a joke. The average student loan debt is now $17,000. More people are going to college, but there are less decently-paid jobs even for graduates. Most of my college graduate friends are making less than ten dollars an hour with no prospects of advancment- less than even the living wage for a single person here. I only know one person that recieves any kinds of benefits (health insurance, 401k, etc.) A lot of these people arn’t living it up with their low-responsiblity lifestyle, they are barely hanging on.

And what parent is going to watch their child- especially if it is their only child- live in poverty when they have a big house and lots of money floating around that they don’t know what to do with? Most of my friends’ parents are begging them to move back, because their houses feel empty without their kids- perhaps this also relates there being more single parents, who feel a bigger blow when their kids leave.

There are some social factors as well.

People are getting married later. Part of this is because it makes economic sense to move in with someone earlier in a relationship than marriage would be a possibility- and if you are already living with someone, why bother? Most people my age that have a serious relationship live with their SO, but havn’t moved towards marriage. Part of it is because women don’t feel compelled to have kids early in life- and more people are realizing they don’t want kids at all. Part of it is that it is economically unfeasable to have kids, so why get marrried? Part of it is that we are all afraid of repeating the same mistakes our parents made in their failed marriages and are kind of suspect of the whole institution anyway. Part of it is that most people realize they are probably not going to have one partner for their eighty years of life, so why pretend?

39

I was thinking the same thing. Most people do not live alone because it’s a very costly way to live. In one way or another most people are somehow combining incomes and resources to get by. It’s better for everybody. I don’t see why an unmarried young person should be embarrassed about doing that by living at home - assuming he’s contributing to the household, which most probably are.

40

I think urban living can have an immaturing affect in many ways:
-Most often you don’t own your appartment. Other than keeping it clean, there’s not much there you are responsible for caring for.
-It’s easy to get caught up in the urban culture of excessive drinking and partying and this lifestyle is acceptible well into your thirties.
-“Family” structures tend to consist of small networked living groups of peers that tend to reinforce each others behavior.

It’s not the same. If you miss a few payments, most likely your parents won’t boot you out. Psychologicallym you are still living in their house instead of establishing your own home (rental or owned). You aren’t a child, but you aren’t quite an adult yet.

Think of it this way, if your parents and their money disappeared off the face of the Earth tomorrow, how would you fare financially?