Seasoned Living
by Mary Rose Remington

Emerging Adults Take Longer to Launch

Dr. Spock you left us too soon. We needed one last chapter from you: Warning! Emerging Adults Ahead.

The term ’emerging adults’ was coined by psychologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, research associate professor of human development at the University of Maryland and editor of the Journal of Adolescent Research. Arnett describes emerging adulthood as ’a period of exploration, instability, possibility, self-focus and a sense of being in limbo.’

Whereas young adults from previous generations were eager to take on adult roles such as moving out, settling down, establishing their careers and starting a family in their early twenties, the launching process is taking young adults five to ten years longer than it used to. A variety of trends are contributing to this: it takes more schooling to prepare for careers, young people are feeling more ambivalent about what they want to do with their lives and they don’t feel compelled to start families at a young age. Oh, and of course there is this thing called the recession.

Change of Attitude

Arnett says perhaps the most important factor delaying the transition into full adulthood is a change of attitude. Today’s generation of young people are watching their baby boomer parents; they notice the long hours we put in, the layoffs we have encountered and they see how stressed out we are. Many emerging adults say they find our lifestyle, well, unappealing. They have high expectations for their life and they view the responsibilities associated with becoming an adult as the end of spontaneity and wide-open possibilities.

Parental Implications

The fact that our kids are taking longer to become self-sufficient has major ramifications for us parents, especially financial. How long will our kids take to complete college and what’s our fair portion to pay? Will they be able to get jobs in this recession? Can we count on them to make good on the student loans we co-signed? Isn’t it time to have them pay for their own cell phone?

Even sharing a home with an emerging adult can be tricky. It doesn’t feel right to give a 20-something a curfew, but I don’t want to be waiting up ’til 3 in the morning worrying, either.

As mother of three emerging adults, including one that just took a teaching job in Colorado, I’m in constant flux trying to determine what they each need—and don’t need—from me. I’ve made mistakes: hovered when they didn’t need me, naively trusted when I shouldn’t have and paid for things they could have covered. And when my emerging adult still living at home calls in the middle of the night to confess a not-so-great choice they made that evening, I struggle to respond with the right mix of discipline, counsel, financial consequences and tough love.

Maybe love is the most important part of the equation: no matter what your behavior is, I still love you.

Spoiling the Nest

I learned about spoiling the nest the summer after my daughter graduated from high school. While venting with a girlfriend about my daughter’s icky behavior and demanding attitude, my friend (who raised six wonderful kids) laughed and said, “Don’t worry, she’s just spoiling the nest. It’ll be that much easier for you to say goodbye to her this fall when she goes off to school, because you won’t be able to stand living with her anymore!”

When your son or daughter is getting ready to leave, they may behave badly, push all the limits (and your buttons) challenge your authority, take, take, take and display a surly, sour attitude that reads, “I’m so totally sick of you and this house.” It’s normal, part of the process and trust this too shall pass.
Support Network

Each young adult is unique and they will approach this developmental stage differently. Some may sail through their emerging adulthood period with hardly a hiccup, while others may struggle against societal limits and push their parents’ patience to extreme limits.

A certain percentage of our youth will encounter problems with the law or complicate life with chemical abuse. Mental health challenges can make emerging adulthood harder, requiring treatment, medication or at times, hospitalization. In the words of Hillary Clinton, ’it takes a village.’ In order for our emerging adults to completely come of age and grow up, it takes a community of caring and helpful professionals including teachers, counselors, judges, police officers, pastors, health professionals and flexible bosses who say, “Don’t worry about work. Go take care of your family.”

On a positive note, this is not a Peter Pan story where our children never grow up. Eventually, they will. And although we don’t tend to participate in the same symbolic coming of age rituals like other cultures, we do need to honor and celebrate our emerging adult children when they become financially independent, move out, take responsibility for their actions and stop bringing their laundry home.

Mary Rose Remington is a freelance writer, career counselor and life coach, motivational speaker and mom to three emerging adults ages 22, 20 and 17. www.maryremington.com

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