The advancing age of adulthood

The advancing age of adulthood
Colin Hannifin

Columnist

The age of adulthood is creeping up.

While the law may see us as adults when we turn 18, the age at which we’re truly independent adults is increasing. It is not uncommon to see mid- to late twenty-year-olds still living under the same roof as their parents, eluding the responsibility of footing the majority of bills.

This trend might be attributed to several factors but two leading causes outshine the rest. For example, many people might be apt to blame the economy, which is certainly a contributor; but this shift to increasingly older dependent children began long before the economy crumbled.

The two reasons seem relatively clear to me: A college degree is not worth as much as it was once, and technology creates a dependency on our parents.

Today many high school students assume the next step in life is college. Why? A majority of high schools push students to go to college; so much so that students are enrolling with no clear idea of what they want to do, even though colleges are the bastions of higher education and places to really embrace your studies.

This unforgiving amount of alloted time to prepare for the next phase in students’ lives leads the majority unsure about a field of study well into their sophomore or junior year of college – some remain perplexed until years after graduation.

Our market is so inundated with college graduates that a bachelor’s degree no longer separates “us” from “them,” and we’re constantly looking for ways to add layers to our ever-too-thin resumés. In order to stand out, you now need to earn your certification or master’s degree, and in many fields, even that’s not enough.

We spend thousands of dollars a year, unsure of what we want to do with our degrees after we graduate, only to get degrees that don’t set us apart from the crowd. This doesn’t lead to great job opportunities; in many instances, moving back home is the best option until something can be figured out.

Another large factor is technology. Years ago, if and when you went off to college, you’d stay in touch through letters or occasional phone calls. There was always contact, sure, but you had to make your own decisions and take care of things as they came up. That opportunity still exists today, but it isn’t demanded.

Our parents are almost always just a call or text away, and many of us rely on them to take care of many aspects of our college careers. While there are certainly exceptions, many people are coming through college on their parents’ dime.

These students often graduate and realize that they haven’t developed the skills they need to approach a tough situation and adapt as needed. There’s nothing to do in such a situation but to continue to rely on the ones that helped us get this far – our parents. This is true even if we don’t move back home.

Some of it is certainly warranted; our parents, after all, have been through more than us and almost certainly know more. To not ask for their advice or guidance would be foolish, but to depend on them to do for us what we are unmotivated to do for ourselves is just as foolish. The previous generation’s retirement funds are drying up taking care of older, dependent children who are unprepared – even after a college education – to take on the world.

Of course, there are other factors as well – like our parents’ generational backlash against their own Depression-era parents – that contribute to the issue. It’s not uncommon for a person in his 30s to still be financially dependent on his parents and not produce anything of value either for himself, his parents or the economy.

In a global market of highly motivated and increasingly skilled competition, the United States cannot keep coddling its children if it hopes to remain competitive.

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