My roommates and I had an epiphany while watching the Olympics this week. As the names and ages of the athletes flashed on the screen, we realized many of them were close to twenty years of age — some were younger — and began worrying. “How are these kids already so accomplished? How do they know what they want to do with their lives?” we wondered.
Seeing successful, adult-like twenty-year-olds is frightening for many our age. Most of us do not have concrete goals for our lives, nor clear career paths or standout talents. Society continuously tells us that we must have a plan, from making us declare our majors as University second-years to demanding we look into job options, yet I do not think many of us are experienced or mature enough to make these decisions.
To make matters worse, in addition to listening to the stories of the successful twenty-year olds of this generation, we are also forced to compare ourselves to the self-sufficient twenty-year-olds of the generations before us. At twenty, many members of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations were practically independent from their families. Many were already fighting for this country or working full-time jobs, and some were even getting married.
However, these kinds of choices are not as prevalent today as they were back then, and the twenty-year-olds of my generation are not ready to make such commitments. Personally, I still like to watch movies with my parents, read Seventeen magazine, eat Lucky Charms and wear my pajamas as often as I can. I am not ready to be married. I do not think I could handle a full-time job at the moment. I barely know how to make food with a conventional oven.
So how is our generation different from earlier ones? Often I feel as though we have vastly regressed as a generation, at least in terms of accepting responsibilities. My parents, and others’ parents, can be heard saying, “At your age, I was working a full time job, studying all night and taking care of a family.” Their often condescending tone is troubling for me and for much of our generation. But we should not allow ourselves to be viewed critically by past generations, nor should we feel any shame for our slow growth.
In 2009, the Pew Research Center found that three in four Americans think today’s youth are less virtuous and less industrious than their elders. In that same poll, two thirds of my generation believed older adults were superior to us in terms of moral values and work ethic. There is a clear divide here, where we are criticized by the older generations and begin to believe we cannot live up to their standards and that we are not as good as them.
My generation is perpetually accused of being the laziest generation ever, in books such as “The Dumbest Generation” and “Generation Me.” This dependence and lack of maturity is not a result of laziness, however, as older generations tend to believe. Rather it is a result of social forces that have slowed our progress. Barbara Ray, author of the book “Not Quite Adults”, said in a recent interview, “Young adults are thinking about what adulthood is in a different way. Those markers that we traditionally use to define adulthood don’t fit anymore. Young people are living strategically; when they are living at home, they are paying off debt, not rushing into marriage and finding a good fit in the job force.”
This makes sense, since, as college students, we are still living with our parents and are still on our parents’ insurance. Dependence is accepted and almost promoted today. We are who we are because of society’s influences, and we shouldn’t be ashamed. Times have changed. We shouldn’t compare ourselves to the twenty-year-olds of the past or present because we grow at different speeds.
We are only twenty; we still have time. Despite the other twenty-year-olds who appear so mature and who have already accomplished so much, I believe our time will come. That being said, while I do not think we need to have the courses of our lives mapped out right now, I do believe we must acknowledge that the dependence on our parents will not and cannot last forever. Independence will hit us eventually.
So when can we expect this moment of “aha! I am an adult”? When do we suddenly trade in the Lucky Charms for flax oatmeal and stop calling our parents every day? Luckily we don’t have to worry about it right now. We are young, impulsive and even silly at times, and we have a few years left to learn and gain experience before we have to know how we will spend the remainder of our lives.
Meredith Berger is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. Her columns run Mondays.
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