Why did the beginning of adulthood move to the age of 30 and what are the consequences of this change?

You may have heard of terms like baby boomersgeneration X, millennials and generation Z. This is how experts classify generations, according to their behavior in relation to topics such as family, consumption, the job market and others. The classification varies from author to author, but generally follows certain patterns. The people who are part of the generation of baby boomersfor example (born after the war), at the age of 25, 30 they were already raising their children, discussing political issues and listening to classical music.

But the calls millennials (generation born after 1995), even with their intellectual development and financial independence, at least until they are 30, 35 years old, they are looking for their “inner self”, live in rented apartments and say out loud: “This is probably how adults would.” Why are today’s youth still grown-up children, and why did the transition to adulthood become relative until the age of 40?

O awesome.club decided to analyze in detail the reasons for this apparently not accidental phenomenon.

Heads up: note that if at age 21 you are already a father, have a large family, have a thriving business, have 3 degrees and are not a geek, do not rush to protest. Keep in mind that everything has its exceptions and that the choices are yours and no one else’s.

Let’s review the historical data: until the beginning of the 20th century there was no period called adolescence. Until the age of 17, people were considered children, and on the night of their 18th birthday, they received a heavy gift: the responsibility of starting a family and the desire for immediate financial independence.

Only in 1904, thanks to the scientific work of the German psychologist G. Stanley Hall entitled “Adolescence”, the world community began to think, for the first time, about this phenomenon. It was Hall who described adolescence as a period of “storm and tension,” adding illustrated diagrams of the changing degrees of sadness and rebelliousness typical of age to the study. Only then did teenagers begin to be seen not as lazy and rebellious beings, but as people “who are going through the thorny process of maturing.”

Theoretically, the period between 20 and 30 years or even 35 years (what we will call premature adulthood) can also have its own problematic characteristics, if we study in more detail the psychological and emotional side of this segment. In the 20th century, everyone agreed that teenagers were not adults. Perhaps in the 21st century they will discover that the beginning of adulthood does not really mean… the beginning of adulthood.

For example, this year, scientists have already expressed themselves about the need to set a new threshold for adolescence, 24 years. But there is still much to be studied.

At the beginning of the 20th century, life expectancy averaged between 40 and 50 years of age. Of course, with a life expectancy of, say, only 45 years, it would be a little weird to try to find yourself until you’re 35. In this case, there was no time to waste, efficiency was synonymous with success in life.

Today, in many developed countries, life expectancy is over 80 years. So why not let 20-30 year olds try out the myriad job options before finding the one they’ll dedicate themselves to for the next 50 years?

And, anticipating your answer that not all people can live to be 80, we agree with the fact that life is always unpredictable. At any moment, an accident can occur, and no one is able to predict it.

There are several different aspects here:

The first and most notable is that we live in a relatively peaceful period. Young people don’t have to become instantly hyper-serious people. In modern families there are far fewer children. Having only one child instead of two or three, for example, parents can devote more time and resources to that child. And the children end up living longer with their parents. For example, according to statistics, one-third of young Americans aged between 20 and 30 live with their parents. Even one of the actors in the critically acclaimed film black Panther, Michael B. Jordan, 31, lives with his mother and father and feels no shame about it. Our society is becoming increasingly complex. And therefore, more time is needed to understand it. Before, if you were born into a blacksmith family, you would become a blacksmith. Today everything is more complicated. You can take a super sophisticated DNA test to verify your innate talents, but this will likely be a standard method accessible only to Generation Z, born after 2000. Globalization is a phenomenon that has recently emerged on the world stage and has already produced its effect: young people were infected by the philosophy of freedom, regardless of their culture. Of course, no tradition can surpass the Internet. As a result, the thinking pattern of the “millennial common” is the same everywhere, from Los Angeles to Shenzhen, passing through Goiania. Due to the weakening of religious and moral norms, the acceptance of sex before marriage and extramarital coexistence, young people are in no hurry to get married. Furthermore, the accessibility of contraceptives, the legalization of abortion in some countries and places, and the emergence of the “childfree” movement, which suggests people not to have children, have also played a negative role in relation to marriage. most developed, the first marriage is celebrated no earlier than the age of 32 (you can get more information about this here).

We must recognize that modern youth are not keen on adventures. Most likely, this is due to the oversaturation of the media and the absence of strict bans. In any case, the consequences are these:

Unlike their parents’ generation, millennials they are much less thirsty for the world of crime (at least in developed countries). The gangsters of the past would be disappointed in the youth of today, whose crime rate has dropped to the lowest levels (specifically in Great Britain and Wales) due to a lack of interest from millennials on the subject. Read a full article on the topic here. The new generation is sexually cooled. According to a study carried out by the The Next Steps, one in 8 British millennials remains a virgin at age 26. And this is a result of a hypersexualized culture and the proliferation of virtual relationships, which, according to the futurists, within the next 10 to 15 years, will completely change the way of relating sexually (a reference to the series “Black Mirror”). .

The indicator of the number of young people who want to get a driver’s license has decreased considerably. Even in relation to 2001, it dropped from 77% to 66%. It seems that using Uber is cheaper than owning a car. The level of teenage pregnancy in the US has also dropped “astonishingly”: even compared to 10 years ago, the current numbers are almost 2 times lower.

Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, professor of psychology at Clark University (Massachusetts, USA), marks the notion of “sense of opportunity” inherent in 21st century youth. It is an impression of insecurity about the future, combined with an optimistic feeling of possible opportunities.

That is: a job from 9 am to 6 pm; a Renault Logan; great family gatherings, but constant fights with his wife and children; family lunch on weekends; vacation once a year; all this is considered ‘the fate of others, not mine’. According to a young man between 20 and 30 years old. “I’m unique and I’ll be the second Elon Musk on this planet” – a reference to the cool rocket tycoon. But all these single “Elons Musks” are, at the same time, very afraid of the future and have no clear plans to conquer the world; they are a kind of complexed maximalist. This is the difference from their parents, who knew what awaited them in the future and were moving towards their goal.

All the aforementioned reasons and changes lead us to the fact that, nowadays, we have the following alternative adult life models (of course, if we don’t take into account the numerous followers of standard paternal maturity):

Kidults (from the English kid-child, and adult-adult) are young people between 20 and 30 years of age, self-actualized people with very adolescent hobbies, such as fantasy, the video game Dota and “The Simpsons”. They can give a brilliant presentation at a nuclear energy conference using memes, or go out dancing to techno house after a hard day’s work. In general, they are successful people with very youthful hobbies. Downshifters are people who seek and cannot find “their true self”. They are able to work every month in different places and in areas ranging from fishing to painting, joining a sect and moving to a distant city. Juventud NEET (not in Employment, Education or Training, that is, those who do not study or work, which in Portuguese is conventionally called ‘nem-nor’) are those young people who, as you have already understood, do not study nor do they work because of their condition (something chosen) of not having the resources or training to get a job; to be antisocial, closed off, passive or disillusioned with life and unable to fulfill their supernatural (probably creative) potential in today’s completely unjust conditions.

Clinical psychologist Meg Jay, in her presentation on the TED conference website, spoke of the “new adults” who come to her sessions complaining, disappointed, that they have wasted an entire decade of their lives.

She talks about 3 things everyone in their early 20s should know to avoid having to rethink their disappointing life at 40:

1. We must forget about the personality crisis and work on personal capital (i.e. learn new things, increase our value). Of course you can spend this decade searching for your self. But we must differentiate a search from a banal procrastination.

2. Don’t limit your social circle. New people, friends of friends of our friends can be very useful in life. For example, half of job openings are not posted on websites or on LinkedIn. Therefore, in order to get a job, you must contact the neighbor’s boss, for example. It’s not cheating. It is a fact of information propagation.

3. At age 30. When you suddenly realize that all your Facebook friends are already getting married, looking for the first available option to get married is not a good idea. You have to start building a marriage relationship before marriage. This means that love must be pursued with the same…