Chronically 20
Becoming an adult in a post-industrial era.
I came across a video recently in which a 20-something year old shared a day in his life living in New York City.
Here is the video:
Disclaimer: This blog post is not a dunk on this individual. Rather it is an observation of a much larger social phenomenon.
I think we’ve entered an age in which some people are stuck in a state I like to call: Chronically 20.
What does this mean?
Simply put, the time-span in which a person enjoys experiences limited to youth has increased exponentially. What has caused this? There are a number of reasons. I think the most important one is industrialization as all other reasons stem from this one. Other reasons include lack of stability, responsibility, lack of financial security, and increased educational levels.
Throughout history and across the world, youth was was marked with responsibility. Children were considered a vital part of a working society, especially in agrarian communities, where they worked on family farms and contributed to their financial well-being. As the Industrial Revolution saw the rise of factories, families were forced to sell their lands. Factory owners realized children were not desired workers which led to them congregating in the streets. Educational reformers of the mid-nineteenth century attempted to convince the public that a primary school education was a necessity if the nation were to advance as a whole. Although at the time they made it seem as if the creation of public schools was to break the cycle of poverty, the truth was that public schools were created to categorize young people by age groups in order to enable the easy management of the population.
The Creation of Public Schools and its Consequences
Biologizing youth and teenage-hood was a phenomenon that was unheard of until the 1920s, when hundreds of articles began to be published exploring childhood and adolescence as psychologically and biologically apart from adulthood. Media began to depict teenagers as having specific behaviours, such as being irresponsible and immature. The consequence of this was the creation of public schools - not to educate the youth, but to create an environment in which youth could follow a strict regime and be under surveillance, all while it being socially acceptable to do so.
In his book Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood, Mintz states that America has never been child-friendly country. That Americans have always resented their children’s intrusion on their parents’ time and resources, and that even reforms that were designed to protect children from abuse were instituted to protect adults from children.
The reason I mention all this is because industrialization led to the creation of public schools, which eventually led to the creation of higher education such as colleges and universities, than even higher education such as medical schools, law schools, and so on and so forth. We’ve already established that public schools were created as a means of population control, specifically to place children under surveillance and to limit their responsibility in the real world. Whether intentionally, or unintentionally done, this phenomenon extended into an individual’s adult life as well.
Why Are Some People Chronically 20?
In prior generations, young adults were expected to have finished school, found a job, and set up their own household during their 20s. Carl Jung stated in his theory on the first of half of life, which he dubbed starting at 13 and ending at 35, that our youth is supposed to be about skill-building and the creation of family. With the introduction of higher education levels, the opportunity to build-skills, start a family, or join the workplace has decreased significantly, even though schools were said to be created to do the exact opposite! Now, as seen in the video, men and women as old as 30 are living lives that revolve around drinking, partying, bar-hopping, lonesomeness, and a general aura of carelessness.
Most Americans today believe that educational and economic accomplishments are far more important than marriage and parenthood in order to become an adult. This overemphasis on attending university as well as finding a job before marriage has created a society in which individuals do not have to shoulder the responsibility of anyone but themselves. Furthermore, despite this overemphasis on education, only 52% of individuals aged 22 have completed school and found a job, further emphasizing that the experiences of youth seem to extend far into the 20s and even early 30s as most individuals simply do not have the tools to move up the ladder until much later in life.
About 1 in 3 of all 18- to 34-year olds rely on their parents for financial assistance.
\Young people are delaying marriage. In the 1970s, 8 in 10 people married by the time they turned 30. Today, not until the age of 45 have 8 in 10 people married.
In 1975, close to half (45 percent) of all 25- to 34-year-olds lived away from parents, were ever married, lived with a child, and were in the labor force. As of 2017, the number is 24%.
Between 1975 and 2016, the share of young women who were homemakers fell from 43 percent to 14 percent of all women aged 25 to 34.
These statistics tell us a lot about how radically adulthood has changed in the 21st century. What is clear is that today’s young adults look different from prior generations in almost every regard: how much education they have, their work experiences, when they start a family, and even who they live with while growing up. The lives their parents lived, and the lives they are living are worlds apart, which explains the frustration of many individuals. Advice from a previous era can simply not be replicated in a society with different structures and priorities.
Even individuals who are financially secure are simply not living with the same priorities their parents did. Consider these statistics:
Among older millennials (aged 25 to 34) who lived in their own household in 2015, about 41 percent had at least a bachelor’s degree and about two-thirds had a full-time job that employed them year-round.
Why Is This Happening?
Just because we are seeing less individuals get married, have children, and generally live isolated and unfulfilling lives, does not mean that the majority of the population wants to live this way. In fact, the statistics show that most individuals aged 22-35 desire marriage, but feel that they do not have the resources to commit to the responsibility. Many people emphasize having work experience and financial security as keys to getting married, yet as the statistics show, the pathway to adulthood in the modern world is complex. Today, more young people work full-time and have a college degree than their peers did in 1975, but fewer own their home. Additionally, young women have made economic gains, yet young men are falling behind. Compared to their peers in 1975, young men are more likely to be absent from the work force and a far higher share today are at the bottom of the income ladder.
Although our social structures have changed, our biology has not. Our desires remain the same, but the ladder to climb to them seems to have gotten much taller. Additionally, social roles have changed. Whereas men were the financial providers, they are less likely to be employed, and as the statistic state, women are less likely to be homemakers. The most common complaint I hear is that neither sex believes there is an incentive to marriage or having children in the modern world. These issues, and many more, create a society with a completely different atmosphere than 15-20 years ago, nullifying the advice and wisdom of previous generations. I don’t believe that the issue is that people want to be young forever, like Peter Pan. I think the issue is that opportunities to breakthrough to adulthood have been limited, for which we are now beginning to see the consequences in events like falling birth rates.
I’m not sure what the solution will be, or if there is one. However, even within my age group, I am beginning to see men and women adopt traditional ideologies. Perhaps people are beginning to recognize themselves the lies they have been sold disguised as progress. At least, I pray desperately for this to be the case.
Great thoughts, roobz. I agree with your diagnosis of the problem and your analysis but I think I disagree with one of your causes.
I don't believe that primary education begat higher education which begat graduate education. Universities are much older than primary and secondary education, even in the US. Granted, the only professions universities orignally taught were clergymen, canon lawyers, and doctors. Other uni education was meant to teach people how to use their freedoms virtuously, not for job training or skills qualification/certification.
You could certainly argue that the rapid expansion of educational institutions as a means of financial success is a corruption of education. Ideally those skills would be taught by a master tradesman to an apprentice. Instead we just shove everyone to a four year university for everything, necessitating that institution's expansion, perpetuating the problem. Surely this also contributes to the Chronically 20 phenomenon.
Beautiful article. When my husband joined the Marine Corps I was blessed to be a homemaker. My child receives the best care there is for her. In high school when people would think we were some Hitler Youth hateful couple who wants to “build our own militia” I knew the time would come when people figured it out. This is the way life is supposed to be. We are supposed to give ALL of our love and support to the next generation. My child deserves all of me, I brought her here, she had no choice. I won’t put her in public school or daycare to teach her she is a problem for me, I will give her my love and support.