Adulthood: What's the Rush?

The truth about 21st century 20-somethings.

by Barbara Ray

Boomer Parents Feel Squeeze of Supporting Their Young Adult Children

At dinner with friends the other night, Sarah, a mother of two young adults, said something that struck me. We've all heard how hard young adults have it during this recession. Latest estimates are that more than 50 percent of recent graduates are either unemployed or underemployed (working at a job they're overqualified for). Read More

What the Tyler Clementi Tragedy Can Tell Us About Young Adults and Culpability

As the the trial of Dahrun Ravi, the former Rutgers student charged with bias, intimidation and invastion of privacy of Tyler Clementi, among other charges, gets underway, the issue of culpability and developmental "maturity" comes to mind. Read More

The Downside of a Slower Path to Adulthood

I spent the weekend in a skilled care nursing center with my 95-year-old father, who is recovering from a staph infection and pneumonia on top of congestive heart failure. Needless to say, he is depressed, struggling with leaving his home for assisted living and all those difficult realizations that come with it. Read More

We're Reinventing What It Means to Age

Boomers are delaying death (or at least trying to), and 20-somethings are delaying adulthood. We're all reinventing what it means to age. But so far, only our own personal imaginations are changing. The big institutions in our lives are slow to respond to "the big shift." Read More

Smaller Families Mean Fewer Siblings to Care for Mom and Dad

I just read an article in the latest issue of The Future of Children that made me drop my pencil. Deep in an article by Susan Bianchi on work-family balance was this little nugget: When the average number of adult children was at its peak several years back, there were about three potential caregivers for every elderly person in need of care. That peak has passed. Read More

Young Men's Futures in an Era of Creative Destruction

It's like a low-grade fever that never quite goes away but never quite blossoms into a full-blown virus either, this anxiety we live with. It does not yet feel threatening, but the low-grade fatigue that settles over us like a shroud reminds us of its presence. This is what living at a moment of massive historical change is like. Read More

Gen-Y Optimism Prevails, But Should It?

Given the current turmoil in the country--from rising poverty rates to enduring unemployment to political polarization, we wondered how the latest generation was feeling about their futures. In a set of wide-ranging interviews, we asked about 100 23-year-olds what the American Dream meant to them, and if they thought it was still attainable. Read More

Insecurity Is Not a Recipe for Entrepreneurs--The Effects of the Recession on 20-somethings

I was asked by a reporter recently whether this generation was an entrepreneurial generation. It's a question on our minds lately as we continue to endure this prolonged recession. We hope beyond hope that we'll somehow innovate our way out of this downturn. It's the American way, after all. Read More

Empty nest or empty wallets? How much are parents spending on their young adult children?

As the recession hangs on, this graduation season will see many more young adults back in their childhood bedroom as they search for their first job. So just how much do parents spend on their young adult children? A reporter from the Dayton Daily News called recently with that question and others. Read More

Deciding what to do with your life. For graduates, four-year college isn't the only path

It's graduation season. As I head to Minneapolis for my nephews' high school graduations in a few weeks (they're twins, thus the plurals), I can't help but flash back to the pool scene in The Graduate. In that scene, the adults, all slightly tipsy, are relentless in their questions about Benjamin's future and his plans. Read More

Suicide higher among young adults

As bullying and suicide take center stage, it is worth noting that young men ages 20-24 have the second-highest rate for suicide. (The highest risk is older men over age 65.).

According to the National Institutes of Health, in 2007, suicide was the third leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24. The following are rates of suicide by age group: Read More

A new generation of "hippies" seeking meaning beyond the Mall

In interviewing young people, it strikes me that in some ways, this generation is a return to the hippie era. Among a select group of mostly college-graduates from more affluent, educated families, there is decided a turn away from consumerism and toward a more do-it-yourself ethos, where leaving a small footprint is the goal. Read More

Generation Stuck: The One-two Punch of College Debt and a Recession

The promise of college is the American Dream for working-class parents like David's. David's dad had bigger dreams for his son than removing asbestos in a refinery. Yet, the ins and outs of college were a blur. The result: unmanageable debt and a stunted beginning to adulthood. Read More

Is this generation as resilient as were children of the Great Depression?

Many in this generation, groomed as they were to succeed and believe in themselves, are finding themselves on unfamiliar ground. Adversity is not in their vocabulary. They grew up amid affluence (even if that affluence was on paper only). And as biography meets history in this Great Recession, it remains to be seen how they will cope. Read More

Unemployment nears 16% for young adults--and you wonder why they're moving home

If we had one goal with this book it was to change the conversation we have with our kids and them with us. But I fear that our book pales in comparison to the effect the recession will have (has had) on this conversation. Read More

How will the recession affect this optimistic, institution-trusting GenY?

Two things about the recession and its effects are dawning on young adults we've interviewed so far. First, the future is no longer as carefree as it once was. A second realization for those in the middle and lower-middle-class is that meritocracy is a ruse. Read More

Is Marriage “Just a Piece of Paper” Today?

Young adults are in the vanguard in carving a new and slower path to marriage. While the Boomers took early steps in changing the path to marriage, young adults have made this slower path the norm, with many options along the way. But the question now becomes: Are young adults unburdened by social expectations but overwhelmed by choices? Read More

Is it time to stand-down from the arms race that is college today?

The insidious thing about the education arms race is that it may be "smart for one, but dumb for all." Read More

This generation may be slow to embrace “adulthood,” but they're much more “adult” in going about it

Through our hundreds of interviews, one message came through loud and clear: it's critical to be strategic early on. Young people, and their parents, realize that the game has changed. In fact, you could say that today, young people are being much more "adult," even though they are delaying "adulthood." Read More

Young adults on the job--different motivations, different goals

What motivates you to show up and do your job every day? Speak to those motivations and you will understand how to get the best out of someone. In his new book, Daniel Pink, a Wired contributing editor, got me thinking that different motivations might be at the bottom of why older workers so often complain about this generation. Read More

Is Blaming Parents for "Failure to Launch" a Red Herring?

Have we raised a generation too willing to coast along on mom and dad's support? Have we spent too much time raising their self-esteem and not enough time making them face the music? Have we given them everything but made them lazy? I, for one, seriously doubt it. Read More

Will the "Youth Vote" Turn Out? Probably Not

It's probably not smart to predict the so-called youth vote today, but what the heck. Here goes. I'm putting the share of those under 30 voting today at less 23%. And the majority of those will be in college or recent grads. Why is the youth vote largely confined to the college educated, and why are the rest so turned off by politics? In a word: social trust. Read More

What does it mean to be "adult" today?

I'm intrigued by this question: What marks you as an adult today? Or more accurately, I'm intrigued that we're asking the question. Today if you tell young people that you're an adult only when you're living on your own, earning your own way, have a spouse and a kid and a house--you'll get a look of disbelief. "I'll never be an adult then" is their reply. Read More

Welcome to "Adulthood: What's the Rush?"

You're probably already shaking your head at the title of this blog. I know, I know, I get it all the time. "'What's the rush? I'll tell you what's the rush," you're probably saying. "I want my kids out of the house and on their own, so I can get on with my life." Read More

Barbara Ray is the coauthor of Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood and Why It's Good for All of Us (Delacorte, Jan. 2011).

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About Adulthood: What's the Rush?

Too often young adults are pigeon-holed as slackers or as refusing to grow up. The real story is quite different. This blog gets inside the heads of young adults, based on 10 years of research and more than 500 interivews. Along the way, it will dispel misperceptions about this generation and perhaps change the conversation we have about "kids these days" -- asking ultimately, 'what's the rush?' The blog draws on "Not Quite Adults" (Random House, Dec 2010), by Richard Settersten and Barbara Ray.