not having a DL is not necessarily odd, depending on where you live. Having a car can be more of a pain than it’s worth in some urban environments.
Not having any ID at all is goofier and hard to understand past the teenage years. Not having a job is is almost indefensible as an adult unless that person is taking the role of a stay at home mom or dad.
Not having sex - I’d say it starts to become weird once a person is past mid 20’s, especially for males, but that’s not necessarily voluntary.
Not having your own place - I’d say you have until you’re 30 to figure that out (and Ibthink that;s generous) unless you are taking care of a parent or or other loved one who needs you there, and even then you better have a job.
Overall, I think people should be self-sufficient and laid by the time they’re in their mid 20’s. Past 30 it really gets odd. Past 40 and they are definite misfits.
For a very brief period of my life, I was into roleplay. I have to say most people have those short of hobbies tend to a bit not with it. They also tend to be overweight and ugly. I seriously got hit on larpers all the time. I’m not some raving beauty. I’m just the average beauty.
I’m 28 and I largely agree with the premise that many in our generation are refusing to grow up. There’s a lot of self-evident emotional immaturity. (Self-evident to me, anyway.) I see it most clearly in basic things like rudeness, disrespect, non-stop profanity, and playing computer games all day. Obviously not everyone in our age group does those things, but far too many do.
On the particular issues you mentioned in the OP, I wouldn’t nail down a particular age for all of them. Not having a car may be a self-sacrificing choice for people who don’t want to contribute to global warming or feed money to Arab dictators. Not having sex can be a good personal decision. A job, on the other hand, ought to be viewed as necessary as soon as someone is out of school, whenever that happens to be. Crashing with your parents isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s easy to get caught in a cycle once you start doing that.
In our parents’ time, I think the expectation for college grads was this. When you either went to grad school or got your first job, you were probably going to live in a dilapidated, roach-infested apartment with six other people. That would suck, so you’d work hard, save up some money, and move to a better situation as soon as you could. Then you’d gradually move upward, step by step, until you could afford to buy your own home. That’s how my parents did it, and that’s how most folks I know from their generation did it. The impression I get is that 20-somethings today don’t want to do that. They’re unwilling to take the intermediate steps between ‘out of college’ and home ownership.
Is this only about Americans again, or are you interested in other answers, too? Because here (in Germany), not getting a car is more responsible for the enviroment and financially sensible than getting one, unless the exceptions apply*
Not having a drivers license: if I know I won’t need it the next few years, then why would I want to spend 3 000 Euros for basically nothing?
No ID: this doesn’t apply because having an ID is required by law and quite necessary.
Not having a job: you do know we are in recession now? You have heard that even getting a job at McDonalds means a factor of 10 to 1 applicants to openings? Not trying to get a job, yes that I can understand. But not having one?
Not having sex? Are you serious? If you’d said “Not being in a committed, long-term relationship, and not trying to find one”, I’d agree, but sex? Do you know that not everybody finds people to sleep with? I think that one-night stands are signs of immaturity, and adults have real relationships, which means sex comes later, not first.
Or do you mean people should pay a prostitute to get sex vs. masturbation?
Not having your own place: again, do you know how expensive rents in some places are? Coupled with “problems to find a job because of recession” that in itself is not a sign of immaturity. Somebody who isn’t willing and trying to move out from their parents, and who mooches instead of paying their share, yes. But not living on your own because of financial problems.
I’m really surprised at what you consider adult, and what not.
One of my topmost considerations would be
Willingness to take over responsibility and act maturly. Granted that is difficult to measure vs. “having a car”, but that is the important yardstick to me. Stop complaining about how bad your childhood was, stop expecting to be served things on a silver platter, and take responsibility for your actions. And start thinking ahead instead of acting on a whim.
Living in the countryside away from public transport, being disabled, regularly transporting big stuff.
Honestly, my interactions with our generation have been the complete. When I help a 20something at the library reference desk, they’re polite, appreciative and they understand that if their question is too vague it’s not my fault for being unable to find the answer. Elderly folks are much the same way.
The rude customers I have to deal with are almost exclusively boomers. They’re pushy, they expect to give me the vaguest outline of what they want and expect me to find exactly what they need and, often, they’re just plain mean.
And what’s wrong with playing video games all day? Do you think your average older person’s sedentary habit of watching TV all day is any better?
I’ll take a dozen of masturbation, please. Oh, wait, maybe a few more. Fast learner, and all that.
Agree, Justin – boomers tend to be old and oblivious and entrenched in their patterns of behavior IME (the ones who have survived). kids in their twenties can be very polite (IME, again, pretty clueless – compared with my peer group of gen xers, who are so damned hip to everything), but they seem so young, and unconcerned with any vicissitude. They seem like little kids to me, and I’m only 35 – some of these “kids” are friends of mine, but it doesn’t change the facts. Indeed, people a generation older than boomers do tend to have more developed social skills, and, if I dare say it, less sense of entitlement than the late-middle-age boomer crowd, just getting over their teething pains and still mad about what happened to David Crosby’s “talent” and wanting to smoke weed one more time at Jim Morrison’s grave. That was OTT, but I’ll let it stand.
There are two nineteen year olds in my household who are both suffering from immaturity (and depression). Interesting to know that it’s happening to so many others!
The girl is in college, making good grades. I gave her a car, but had to force her to learn to drive and get her license. She also doesn’t have a job, or really any desire to come out of her room. She’s a good kid, but plainly willing to stagnate at this point forever.
The boy still hasn’t gotten his high school diploma. He had a lot of money at one point, which he blew through with nothing much to show for it. He now has a part-time job, but he has to be woken up for it every day, and he has to be driven to it because he lost his license and car insurance through lots of speeding tickets and accidents and forgetting to show up for court.
We keep track of how much money the kids owe us (more as a motivational tool than any real idea of ever getting the money back) and both of them are into us for thousands.
Here in suburbia, I’d be skeptical of someone over 20 without a license and probably a car. Your mileage may vary (ha!) in the city.
Stuff like job/moving out is obviously economy dependent but I’d wonder about anyone in his early 20’s who wasn’t at least looking to move out when able. I remember being that age and making a pact with a friend that, come hell or high water, we’d have our own places by age 25. This was post-college, mind you – I think I would have made it earlier if I had lived at home from 18-23.
Not having a driver’s licence or owning a car isn’t necessarily not being grown up, unless that person makes a habit of sponging rides off other people. If you can make your way around under your own steam, fair enough.
I do think adolescence goes on for way longer than it used to.
It’s funny. A number of things have been listed here as being “grownup”:
-Living on your own and paying your own rent
-Having a full time job (or at least be looking for one if you are currently unemployed)
-Owning a car (unless you live in a place like Manhattan where having a car full time is unnecessary )
-Having a driver’s license / passport or other valid form of ID
-Not being a virgin
-Banging a prostitute if the mood strikes you
-Drinking beer
-Having mature sexual relationships
-Not playing videogames all day long
-Not watching TV all day
-Completing your education
And for each of these things, you have a bunch of people chiming in with their “Whah! It’s hard to blah blah blah when you blah blah!” complaints and excusses like a bunch of whiny little babies!
Of course some of these things are hard. That’s why they call it “growing up”.
Outside of the sex question, all of the OP’s items deal with self sufficiency. You can’t be self sufficient without being in charge of your own transportation, in most areas of the US that means owning a car and having a drivers license. You can’t be self sufficient without having a job, and your own place to live. Having your own place doesn’t mean living alone, but simply being an equal partner in the living arrangement, rather than living with your parents.
When you’re in your 20’s, you need to be making your own life, not just taking up space in someone else’s.
I think it completely depends on the person and their situation. We have a friend who is a VP for a company that does cool things with computers and even though he is my age (29) he earns about 2.5 times what I earn in a year. He has a car and saves every spare dime he has towards buying a house in the future. We have no problems with his living at home with his parents because he is obviously very adult. We encourage him to get out and live on his own because the longer he stays at home with his mom doing his cooking and laundry the harder it is going to be to adjust to doing it himself, but overall he is one of the more adult people we know.
We have another friend who just can’t seem to get it together. She has been unemployed for a year now and when she does work she takes very low paying jobs because she refuses to look outside of her current industry which generally doesn’t pay very well. This wouldn’t be so bad but she also refuses to have a roommate or reduce her standard of living in any way so she is constantly broke and her rent is always at least 2 weeks late. She gets very upset because all of her friends are getting married and having children and they don’t want to stay out at the bar until 3 in the morning any longer. (She complains to me about this all the time even though I got married last year and I’m currently pregnant.) This weekend we threw a party for my husband’s 30th birthday so she got to come and eat dinner for free and we had an hour and a half of karaoke at the party, then afterwards his sister took us all out for dessert and picked up the tab, so she essentially got an entire evening of free food and entertainment and she still bitched that at 11 pm after we all started getting on trains and in cabs to go home that no one wanted to go out with her to a bar to continue hanging out. At 33 she is still not an adult and is furious that none of her friends want to try and live in Neverland with her.
I’ve been thinking about this a bit, and I guess I would expect and adult to be able to be self-sufficient, even if circumstances lead to choices that seem the opposite.
For example, living at home because you have to, being unable to live on your own, it not adult. But if someone who is able to live on their own chooses to live with his/her parents that actually might be more adult than rushing out to get his/her “own place” to prove adulthood.
So… living with parents to save money, or to take care of a disabled family member, or to reduce costs while going to college, and so forth is actually a logical decision and NOT a sign of immaturity. Choosing NOT to have a car when you live in a city with good public transportation and high expenses for owning a car is pretty smart. It’s not like you can’t get a driver’s license later in life, I’ve known a number of people who started driving in their 30’s, 40’s, or 50’s (who all lived in cities where driving wasn’t a necessity). Likewise, people who are stay-at-home parents may not have a job with a paycheck, but they are employed (24/7, really) and that’s as valid a choice as college and/or employment in many circumstances. (Note: I’m not talking about 14 year olds becoming parents, I’m assuming over 18, preferably married).
So, while certain things are emblematic of adulthood - driving (in some places), your own place, etc. - if someone is NOT doing those things I don’t automatically assume “immature” until I know more.
I don’t get it – if so many places in the US are unlivable without driving, why would someone who doesn’t want to waste a bunch of cash and probably mutilate themselves and others (and create significant noise pollution) choose to live in such a place?
Tangent, and OT, I know, but I’m really curious. I always thought people who chose to live in the sticks did so because they liked it, and weren’t just trying to slide one in on the sneak. What’s their angle? Are they just chickenshit to move someplace more suitable to their preference? Or just plain freeloading assholes? What’s their story?
I don’t think that some of those things are very hard or require excuses. Drinking beer? Banging a prostitute? People need excuses not to do those things?
Anyways, some people may have excuses, other people have reasons. Their reasons may not seem valid to you, but that’s neither here nor there. The idea of ‘settling down’ and living in a bungalo in the suburbs with my 2.5 kids and a minivan and a office job sounds so incredibly dull to me, it makes me sad. But I accept that it’s what some people want with their lives. I’d rather pay a little more, live in the city, and save that money (and the environment) by not driving everywhere. I’d rather be back in school and live on that tight budget than stick with a boring job just because. I’d rather (at the moment) be single and therefore free to travel and relocate to wherever I want to go. What’s wrong with that? As long as I’m paying my own bills (that is the one thing I do agree with), who cares?
As pbbth said, I think the only way to decide that someone is ‘not an adult’ is to know them well. I know that’s not as fun as making an arbitrary list of items for them to accomplish by a set time, but there you go.
Come on, man, if you cannot get in your car, drive to town, pick up a whore, bring her back to your place (where you live alone), and then bang her and pay her with your hard-earned money, how can you even claim to be an adult? (And let’s take a page from msmith and add “opening a cold beer and drink it in bed after she’s left”.)
