How Extended Adolescence Is Changing the United States (And Takes a Much Higher Toll on Women)

What is with the ridiculous picture posted of a baby and you using the term "extended adolescence." Was there something wrong with the term "emerging adulthood" which the NY Times article you posted continually used? Regarding the 5 milestones to adulthood, if you choose not to have kids, you are still in "extended adolescence/emerging adulthood." If, as you claim, making a conscious choice not to have kids doesn't keep you from entering adulthood, you need to apply that logic to all of the milestones. People also make conscious choices to stay single, not go/finish to school or continue living with their parents. No reason those should keep someone in "extended adolescence/emerging adulthood" while choosing not to have kids doesn't preclude one from moving to adulthood.

While the NY Times article was an interesting read, I don't think I'll be reading that book soon. Not a big fan of sexism.

Your captions to your pictures raise a few questions.

1.) Does Hymowitz explain how men are supposed to enter into adulthood if women don't want men in "extended adolescence/emerging adulthood?" They are stuck from getting to adulthood if women won't marry them. Following the 5 milestones, women would have to marry a male before he gets to adulthood, since, according to the milestones, marriage is one of requirements to reach adulthood. It would be a marriage between two people in "extended adolescence/emerging adulthood," not a women in adulthood and a man in "extended adolescence/emerging adulthood."

2.) Why don't women just marry older men? As you said, their biological clock isn't ticking and they presumably might have "manned up" more (that's assuming any of the parties involved wants kids). Of course that doesn't solve the problem presented in my first question. If they aren't married (man and women), they aren't in adulthood.

3.) Do you have any opinions (of course you do) on your questions at the end? You and Aaron are still in "extended adolescence/emerging adulthood." When will you two grow up?

The 5 milestones aren't valid anymore, maybe never were. The only one that I would say is relevant to adulthood would be being financially independent, less so the one about living at home. Marriage, kids, and school? Those have nothing to do with being an adulthood.

Ben

Love this topic. I have been wondering for years where all the grown ups have gone!

I did a little research of my own and am on the fence about one thing. There seems to be a recognition of this stage as a new phase in growing up, and yet there is a lot of criticism of young adults who take the time to learn/explore/travel. I would agree that it isn't the job of parents to fund that period of time, but I definitely took time in late teens/early 20s to live abroad, travel, study other languages, etc with my own money and, for one trip, a scholarship. Those years were a formative learning experience for me and I wouldn't discourage anyone else from taking a similar path. I just disagree that it is the responsibility of parents to support a grown child (I consider 18 to be grown) who wants to do this.

But my generation is the generation where everyone gets a trophy and a pat on the back for trying; it is the generation where we were discouraged from acknowledging winners and losers because feelings might get hurt. That, to me, is coddling, but it is funny that our parents' generation would criticize us for not growing up while simultaneously creating an environment where it is never expected. People complain about delaying retirement in order to support grown children. Didn't someone once say that necessity is the mother of invention?

My perspective is definitely affected by my location; my personal goals do not seem to align with those of my peers. I know there are other parts of the country where people marry younger and where the parents of 20-somethings don't have the kind of disposable income that they seem to have in the DC metro area. But in my experience, it is extremely common for these parents to put massive down payments on cars for their grown children. Other norms: making Roth IRA contributions for their kids, or paying credit card bills monthly. By kids I mean people who are in their 20s and early 30s! It is sparing college graduates from the shock of realizing they can't buy a luxury car and $600k house after starting their first jobs, and it is not helping them be realistic about what to expect in life. Milestones are measured by acquiring  status symbols instead of more traditional goals. While marriage and kids may not be in the plan for many people, by choice, financial independence seems to have been bumped off the list in favor of cars and flat screens.

Thanks for a great topic - it has sparked some great discussions for me!

I'm a big fan of what the Europeans call a "gap year" between high school and college for young people to explore, see the world, and find themselves.  Personally, I wouldn't consider that a form of extended adolescence, but more of a transition period that is marked not by relying on others but by beginning the process of arranging your life.  You can't arrange your life unless you know what you want and I think gap years are a useful tool to accomplish that.  The thing is, as you wisely point out, it isn't the responsibility of the parents to fund that time.  I think it would be far better if an 18 year old wants to see Paris but has to take a job to support himself than it would be to help with the expenses.

Writing a check to a child to pay for expenses that should be their responsibility is essentially saying, "We don't think you are capable or successful enough to be independent.  You can't earn your own way.  You need us."  A few days ago, my brother and I were walking somewhere and talking about a situation involving a mutual acquaintance.  My brother was saying that he wouldn't be able to move in with our parents or accept their help if he was older than 22 or so years old.  That included having them cover the mortgage or rent because, in his words, it would be a failure; an embarrassment.  

The good news in all of this is that our economy functions largely as a meritocracy.  It has its flaws and there are always exceptions, but for the most part, 90% of millionaires are self-made today, whereas only 10% inherited their wealth (the numbers are a little less favorable once you get into the top fraction of "the rich" but it still holds generally true).  That means that when these people living on their parents' economic outpatient care are forced to wake up and realize there are no more checks coming, they have to either grow up or cut their standard of living.  

I can't imagine how humiliating it would be, though.  I would rather drive a 15-year-old car and live in a  small, inexpensive home that I paid for an earned myself than take a handout from my parents.  This Carl Barks comic sums up my feelings. (Still, that's a false choice, because my preference is to be a self-made man with significant resources. But you get the gist.)

"Although it is women who are becoming disenchanted with the way things
are, and although it is women who have created this situation, it is [in
her opinion] men who ought to change. And they are to change precisely
when women are ready.”

That is classic narcissism in my view, although I try not to have views. That strikes me as a sense of entitlement. Is she for real? At least she's open and honest with it.

This is a good post and I'll have to read and study and think about it more deeply. I'm a man who has adapted to the new paradigm but always wanted something classic and old fashioned. I'm 30 and desiring greatly to marry and have children, and men have a biological clock too, if not in their own bodies, then in their wives, and I don't want to be a man who marries a woman 15 years younger, and also I want a partner now for companionship. Also I have not one but 2 (twin) brothers with Down's Syndrome so don't think I don't think about age of motherhood. When I learned that relationship earlier, I was shocked, and it gives me more permission to be more old fashioned and traditional.

I don't think I ever got my career off the ground because I didn't have my priorities right. As I start searching for women and I start courting them, as my highest priority under God, I feel I am learning deep things and healing even. I realize I drifted because I didn't have a stake in the world that only a woman and children can give. I have been traveling the world teaching English and have no home. I don't want to be an adolescent but it is not easy in our culture, especially when women compete for men with jobs that could provide for a family and lower wages. I hate to make excuses but I also hate to be a blind fool denying the obvious. Anyway I think I had a toxic sense of entitlement, meaning I felt entitled to see the world but didn't feel the healthy entitlement that many women feel today of being able to make it in business or law or medicine or whatever. I had all the opportunity but I wanted to sort of make way for others. Even now I don't feel this, what I'm coming to realize is a healthy sense of entitlement, until I get married. Anyway career for me would only be good for supporting higher purposes like Wife and children and home. Now I at least have my priorities ranked so I can focus: God, wife, children, home, career, personal interests. Now I am just searching, and trying to learn, and such blogs as these are eye opening and helpfully thought provoking, so there's my story and thank you for the blog. And women: Before it's too late and before our population implodes, go do what you feel the deep desire to do anyways, and that is find a man and have a family. You have so much power to make this happen when you prioritize, and throw out the lies that were instilled in all of us.

Peace be with you

Welcome to the site!

I'm a 29-year-old male and I fit this description, but it's not by choice.

When I graduated college in 2006, I couldn't find a job that would pay me enough to live on my own, and I still can't (although things have been getting a little better in the past few years).

I'm stuck living with my parents because none of the jobs that I'm qualified for in my field will pay me enough to live on. They all want me to work for free or less than $30,000 a year. Many of my friends are experiencing the same thing.

I also feel like part of this has to do with the fact that I didn't fit in with the "normal" people in school because of religious and personality differences, which caused me to become avoidant of mainstream society and consider myself socially impaired, although I've always had an inner circle of close friends.

This has caused me to avoid applying to jobs in areas such as sales or teaching, or anything that I'm not 100% qualified for.

I'd like to run my own successful business, but I don't have the business savvy to deal with all the accounting and red tape and constant self-promotion, and I've never studied business formally. I currently work as a freelance contractor, but I don't make enough money to be comfortable living on my own.

College drew me out a little bit socially, but living with my parents for all these years is making me reclusive again. If I had been able to get a decent job after college, I probably would be much further along in life by now.

I think a lot of college graduates are in extended adolescence these days because businesses aren't paying them enough to live on, and they don't want to have to work 3 jobs to make ends meet like the high school dropouts, so they just live with their parents until they can become financially secure.

(Also, about the biological clock, men may not become infertile the way women do, but we are aware that once we get to be around 30, a lot of the attractive younger women will be less interested in us, especially if we are starting to develop things like wrinkles, gray hairs, or male pattern baldness, so we have a bit of a crisis around that age as well. And while we don't necessarily become infertile, there are some genetic defects that increase in frequency with paternal age, such as schitzophrenia).

A few problems with this article.

1). Marriage is no longer a measure of maturity. Many people don't want to get married. That is not to say they don't want relationships--just perhaps not marriage. This traditional model of marriage you are touting is often no so great for women, especially, which is why time and again studies show men reporting greater happiness being married and women reporting greater happiness being single. An egalitarian marriage might be different. But still. Many women and men are choosing to remain unmarried.

2). Having kids is no longer a measure of maturity. Many people don't want kids. Lots of women couldn't give a damn about their "biological clock" and don't want to be forced to "hurry up and settle down" with someone who is not really an ideal partner for them just to satisfy the requirements of nature. There are too many people in the world already. If you're an older parent and want kids and find it's difficult, adopt. You can always adopt an older child if you don't want to be on a waiting list for five years.

3). You are presuming everyone wants to opt into society and be part of the rat race. Opting out of society is not necessarily immature if it is undertaken thoughtfully and the person still supports him or herself, however unconventionally.

4). In many cultures all over the world, extended family is important, and children stay at home with their parents until they are married. Children living with parents well into their thirties is the norm in many cultures and not a sign of being a "loser" at all. If both child and parents are happy with this arrangement, and if the child works and contributes domestically and financially to the household, what's the problem?

I find it even more offensive that you would describe a person going back to school as being in "prolonged adolescence." Getting a graduate degree is almost a necessity now for those of us in fields that are not in high demand. I am 29 and finishing up an MFA, for which I have a full scholarship and a stipend for my work as a graduate assistant. An MFA will assist in getting me college teaching jobs or jobs in publishing, if I so desire. Between my undergrad degree and grad degree--and between my associate's degree and undergrad degree--I lived abroad and taught English. I lived in Japan for two years before starting my MFA, and I made $35,000 a year, a decent wage for a single person. I have been working and taking care of myself and out of the house since the age of eighteen, apart from a 9-month stint back at home after graduating college in 2009, because there were no jobs and it took me that long to find the job in Japan.

Because healthcare in this country sucks and I live on $10,000 a year as a student, I must sometimes ask my parents for help with medical bills. This is embarrassing but I have no other option; it's that or not treat my condition at all. This is actually a huge downside for me in coming back to school, the regression in lifestyle and the need to ask my parents to help out because of poverty and lack of healthcare. Apart from that I am totally autonomous. Still, I don't like it, because I don't like being indebted to my parents in that way. If I were doing a PhD I would undoubtedly be getting a great deal more of a stipend. A PhD can be considered a real "job" in which you are paid around $40,000 or so a year, half of that covering the cost of tuition, in exchange for which you teach some intro courses or do research work for the university. My graduate assistant position is also a job, although I make barely any money, discounting the $35,000 a year in tuition I don't have to pay. The ultimate aim of such degrees is to establish a better and higher-paying career than one could enjoy otherwise. For me, the three little letters "MFA" are the gateway to getting published as a writer. It's almost a requirement these days.

My plan in the coming years is to go abroad again and teach ESL at a university. As a university prof I will make a lot more money. I also prefer living abroad to living in the US and wouldn't mind if I ended up a permanent expatriate. But teaching ESL is a way for me to continue to gain teaching experience (more valuable at the college level) while writing and publishing. Experience and publications would make it easier for me to get a teaching job at a university in the US if I so desire. In the future I might decide to come back and go into publishing if I want to do that. I don't see any need to decide right now what my long-term career will be, as long as I am making money, saving, paying off student loans, traveling, and writing. I don't think this is "prolonged adolescence." It's just that I'm not particularly interested in a traditional existence. Any man who is interested in me is not going to be the prudent and boring and frankly sexist sort who decides on his wife based on how old her eggs are.

And thank God for that.

One of the major purposes of this site is to help people live better lives so that they end up happier, making intentional choices about the type of existence they want. For that reason, I'm going to respond to this. I would prefer to send this in a private email since it is going to sound a little critical, though that is not the intent, but I don't have a way to contact you other than through your Disqus notifications so this will have to suffice.

Based on your response, it is clear that you read this article, became defensive about decisions in your own life, and then jumped straight into the comments to post a message, without reading through the long discussion that preceded you nor any of the other posts that are related on the site. Otherwise you would have realized that half of your numbered arguments have been discussed in depth, in some cases ad nauseum, with similar conclusions.

Looking at your server activity on the site confirms this hypothesis.

Take, for example, your item #3. The entire point of many posts on this site is that you should choose your own path with open eyes based on what we call around here the primary mission of your life.

In my case, I went to music school and refused to get a job after I graduated - about as non-traditional as you can get for someone who loves business - but I did it to develop a deeper appreciation of the world, including philosophy, history, and art. I also was the first member of my family to even attend college, had to pay for it myself (which was $140,000+, covered in part by music scholarships for vocal performance). No rational person would have suggested that as a pathway to success, but I knew what I wanted to do and was willing to bet on myself.

Saying that I suggest people follow traditional paths of success is absurd. I tell people to examine the opportunity costs of every one of their decisions, make a choice based on what they want for their life with their eyes wide open, and then live with the consequences of those decisions.

That aside, which is forgivable since you will find a lot of agreement once you take the time to read the discussion, there are some big errors in your thinking.

First off: This idea that somehow you need an MFA to get published as a writer. Although I define my occupation as "investor" since it most describes what I do, I am easily one of the highest paid authors that no one has ever heard of because of my low profile. My single-man shop articles across multiple sites generates tens upon tens of millions of page views a year. I could live as well as a successful doctor on my publishing profits alone each year, were I so inclined. Why? I didn't wait around trying to get published by someone. Sure, that happened - I signed my first book deal with Penguin when I was 22 - but by then I was already collecting very large amounts of annual income from my own work that, frankly, made the book deal royalties look small in comparison.

It's a poor artist who blames the tools. At least twice a year, some book agent writes me asking to represent me and I turn them down (at least for now). Why? My content speaks for itself and attracts an audience.

The lesson: Doors open because of the quality of our work, not because of some magic piece of paper you may have with a few letters on it.

Otherwise, the Billboard Charts would be made up of students from Juilliard and Curtis. There are a few notable exceptions, such as engineering and medicine, where professional credentials are vital and even legally required. In the fine arts? No. It's about the quality of your work unless you want to go into academia.

In that case, if you are still relying on your parents' support: Then, yes, you are in extended adolescence because you are not self-sufficient. You are not saying, "I am going to go into academia and will scrub floors at McDonald's if necessary", you, an adult, are living off the work of other people despite being of age yourself. You're a teenager. If you are happy with that, fine. Continue onward. Don't delude yourself into thinking otherwise, though. Accept reality for what it is and own your decisions. That is the basic recipe for empowerment.

Finally, to address your closing sentiment: Not having children, as, again, has been discussed in depth on the site, is a perfectly valid lifestyle option. However, a man rejecting you because you are not capable of bearing children if that is important to him is not "sexist" - it is an issue of basic compatibility. Don't negate the emotional needs of others as a defense mechanism. It only makes you look immature. Mature adults don't speak that way because they have enough life experience to understand that different people want different things; there is nothing wrong with that. Someone not being compatible is not a form of rejection.

In other words: It's not about you.

First, you're 23. You're still young.

Second, proximity has a lot to do with it. You are in Japan right now, correct? The cultural studies that dealt with this phenomenon were based entirely upon the United States so they would not necessarily be true outside of America.

Third, without knowing your specific situation, all I can do is look at the demographic data. My suggestion would be to go where the more suitable men are (suitable being defined as desiring a life-long stable marriage for the purposes of this discussion); the ones who are likely to want to settle down with one spouse, have children, and grow old together. As with any endeavor, you are more likely to enjoy success if you are in an area where the supply / demand relationships are favorable.

Based on all available resources, marriage rates are far higher the further up the education and income scale you go. Move to a zip code with a lot of college graduates and with a far above average income because, again looking solely at the data sources available, these are the communities likely to put a high priority on settling down, getting married, and having children in stable marriages. In fact, it is the education that is the kicker - the higher income, the stable marriages, the longer lifespans - those are all symptoms of the education level.

Finally, it is possible that you are an outlier on the distribution curve. There are always people that fall on both ends of the spectrum - I met a woman earlier today who met her husband when she was a teenager and 27 days later they were married. They've now been together for almost 30 years. You could be her Gaussian opposite. If that is the case, you are still young. You don't have anything to worry about, yet.

What effect do you think family law has on all of this? Many men see the deck as being stacked against them in case of divorce and this makes marriage too risky. Since they don't intend to marry and start a family, there is less incentive to perform economically.

If they reach that position explicitly I'd call them MGTOW.

Stop blaming millennials for this problem. It's not their fault. It's all the fucked up adults from the baby boomer/generation x who fucked up the economy and adolescent/education paradigm for us. Why can't America have a similar education system like European countries such as Germany, Finland, and Denmark that not only provide high quality/rigorous/equitable education systems, but also provide vocational training so once students graduate they can immediately enter the job market. Secondly, most of the adults that bemoan the fact that millennials are lazy, narcissistic, and dependent are in part to blame for the socialization of extended adolescence. Believe me my generation might be shallow, and small right now, but this is not our fault so stop demonizing us just because we have more of what we want and need than your generation ever did. Ask any 18 year old today how they feel about the future or do they want to be dependent on their parents forever? They'll respond immediately with uncertainty for the future and answer no. Hell, I noticed this extended adolescent phenomenon at the tender age of 7 and I hated it and the thought that I would be dependent upon my family. It's also no coincidence that this generation is also the most politically disenfranchised and economically poor.

Trust me, no millennial wants to live with their parents forever. They want jobs and self-empowerment, but there are no jobs let alone training for them. Hell, look at the way the treat millennials during internships. All managers complain about them having to provide job training for millennials as if that's not the point of internships in the first place. #THANKSFORRUININGMYGENERATION'SPROSPECTS!

I find this article interesting, but altogether assumptive and discriminatory. I have always hung out with young men, for example, 18-30 or so, and most of them wanted to settle down. Some of them did, many of them couldn't find a woman who was willing. Or if the woman was willing, all was good until a baby was born and she found her adolescence again. On a personal level, I settled down because I was pressured to: by my peers, by my family, even by the damn doctors I visited when I was pregnant and single because daddy found another willing girl. It was constantly shoved down my throat that I must have a man in the home, I must be married, I must have an education. Two busted marriages later, I am about to get married because I want to, not because of societal pressure. The education was nice, if you don't consider the fact that the only way I could be in more debt is to buy a home. Oh, and the pesky nagging feeling that I wasted my time. There are no good-paying jobs. I am a top achiever with an impeccable work record, and glowing recommendations and references. The highest pay I have EVER been offered was $26,000 per year. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how far $26,000 goes in this economy. People do not choose to live in their parents' basement. I'm sure it was different for you, way back when, because I know in 1995 I lived pretty well off of minimum wage, and with a baby. Of course, my rent was $125 a month back then. That was for a house! Now I pay $480 for a trailer. A tiny living space, and pay about that again for gas to drive to work every month. I have an 18-year-old adult son who earns well, but who will have no hope of finding a place to move to without a roommate or a significant pay raise. I do not consider him an extended adolescent, because he works and has common sense. Now I have a 19 year old daughter who is definitely in extended adolescence. She no longer lives at home, but that's because she doesn't follow rules. She hooked up with a boy from a rich family and they do drugs in his parents' basement. She has no intention to work--in fact, thinks her boyfriend should support her, not that he does. He has affluenza, and can't possibly be bothered to do anything besides lay around. I know many adults who remain in the home to help out the parents, and I had family live with me over the years: definitely adults, definitely helped pay bills, etc. I think lumping them in with people who have no drive or gumption is not very nice. And what about other ethnicities? Mexicans, for example, live several to a room and treat their homes as communities. And let's not forget foster children, who are put out on their collective asses the day they turn 18, without so much as a meal for the night. I was one of them. I was certainly not an adult, yet, but I learned real quickly how to play the part. I wasn't a REAL adult, however, until my brain was finished developing: around age 26. But in the meantime, I had already passed your test by age 20. I think the major issue is society telling young adults that they are adults and must follow rules to act like it. We are not adults until we think like adults--and although that may happen at varying times, most true maturity cannot happen until our brains are wired for it.

The fact that the upper 50% of society isn't falling into this broken pattern, and the typical family in even the lower classes didn't up until the early-to-mid 1990's, tells us that your causal hypothesis - neurological maturity - cannot be the primary culprit. Therefore, the root must lie somewhere in sociology and the culture.

It would be interesting to get your take on this phenomenon, which has been furiously discussed in economic circles recently, even resulting in a series of New York Times pieces. Given your earnings level ($26,000), your life history is fairly archetypical of what is happening in your particular sub-demographic. What do you think the causes are? How did you find yourself in this position? How do you think it can be fixed, from your perspective?

This sort of societal shift, occurring in the sheer scope and scale is largely unprecedented. It speaks to how large the rift is when you assume I'm older. (You talk about earning minimum wage and having a baby in 1995. At that time, I was barely out of elementary school and my mom had just given birth to my youngest sister.) In fact, even reading about it is weird because I don't see it in my own life. I'm 31 years old and nearly everyone in my inner circle, professional circles, and social circles, is married, having been with their spouses for 10+ years. I don't know a single one of my peers who is divorced. All have household incomes approaching or exceeding six-figures. All have college educations. None smoke. Very few drink, and those that do are largely paired-wine-with-dinner types. Most are already setting up investments for their kids, as well as planning retirement together despite it being 35+ years in the future. Every one of them, to a person, owns their home. Almost all take at least one week-long vacation a year costing many thousands of dollars, often much more than that. Nearly all have a passport so they can travel outside of the country. We, and you, are literally walking stereotypes come alive from the pages of the academic data.

Is it simply a matter of behavioral and values? For example, you talk about having a baby and earning minimum wage. I can't imagine anyone in my peer group having a kid if they were earning that little money, married or not. Case in point: My 29-year-old brother is being pressured to have kids, yet he and his wife (a teacher) refuse until he is further along in medical school. By the time he was 20 or 21 years old, earning base pay in the Air Force, which he joined after high school, he had already managed to save $50,000+ in cash, stocks, and bonds. Those around him were buying new cars, renting apartments; he was living in a poor part of St. Louis, sleeping on an air mattress, and building his war chest for the future so he could someday not have to worry about money. By the time he is 40, his household will be earning a minimum of $25,000 per month, probably much more (especially if I have my way - with his income, I can have him acquire apartment buildings, oil pipelines, and other cash generating assets besides equities). He inherited nothing from our parents. He paid for everything himself with his military salary.

Is it just a behavioral difference? Or is there something else at play? How can your experience be so divergent from his when you both started with nothing?

The United States has become two different worlds, and the people occupying those worlds don't converse or even see each other. It's getting to the point where we attend different schools, work in different industries, and live in different neighborhoods. We don't even shop in the same store, anymore! Some private banks use metrics like, "Dollar General vs. Williams-Sonoma" families as they can pinpoint where in society one falls. I worry about that. How can the country remain united when we don't even realize how the other half live? (I went into a Sears recently for the first time in probably a decade. I stood in the aisles in complete disbelief because they sold $20 toasters. They were made of cheap plastic, were guaranteed to break in a few years, and felt poorly manufactured. The stores in the types of neighborhoods where most people I know live sell toasters between $200 and $400, that will last for decades, made of heavy cast iron or steel, with multiple settings and features. We aren't even seeing the same products, anymore. Gone are the days when everyone watched the advertisement for the new General Electric refrigerator on "What's My Line", which aired on only one of three television networks.)

I'm not sure how sustainable this is. What are your thoughts? And, again, how do you think it can be fixed?

This problem has been on my plate for a long time; the breakdown in the family among the bottom 50% of society has reached a tipping point in terms of debt load, wage earnings, divorce rates, out-of-wedlock births, etc., that I can't see any easy solutions as it is becoming self-reinforcing. There was a period in my life where my parents were poor, having lost everything, and I liked living in a town where the people who worked down at the factory had good jobs, could buy a new car they showed off with pride, and collected their pension checks. It seems like that world is gone.

I apologize if this response is a bit rambling. I grew up at a time when the rich banker and the poor janitor attended the same church, their kids played on the same baseball team, and they greeted each other in the grocery store. Now, they won't even know each other's name and I think it's bad for the country. I worry about it, especially a few generations down the line. I don't want to live in an oligarchy, even if I am on the right side of the dividing line. Maybe it's because I grew up poor.

The Great Divide of our generation. Through my education, I was given insight into the lives of the uber-wealthy ($400 toasters, for example, or thousands of dollars worth of vacations every year). I don't think I know one person, aside from my boss, who has ever taken a vacation outside of the US. I live in rural Missouri, and work nearby in the third-largest city. Seven years into my second job, I make a whole $12 per hour (the same I made decorating cakes for Dairy Queen, before I went to college)--and I graduated from a private college with honors, and a 3.78 GPA. Our toaster cost about $35, and has been around about 10 years--but is made of cheap plastic and would not survive a fall. It was a gift. It takes just about every penny we make, just to make the bills, food, and gas. Choosing to not have children at an early age certainly seems to make a difference. (My pregnancy was not intentional, and I was left holding the ball, by myself, despite doing what was considered "the right thing" in the situation.) But I know plenty of people close to thirty who have not had children, and who are also not well-off by any means. I do think part of it is the part of the country we are living in--wages are just ridiculous. I have made friends all over the US, and have been in more than one heated argument about whether or not it is possible to raise a child on around $24,000 per year. It is not the best way to raise a child, although from what I have seen from the wealthy set (my daughter's boyfriend and family, as well as both of my ex-husbands), throwing money at children doesn't make for the best morals, either. We get by with the basics, eat healthy and spend time together, however, and that's the best I can do for now.

A wedding ring didn't seem to mean much to my wealthy husbands. Both of them cheated within a few years. I know that the wealthier set puts up with infidelity--just from personal experience with my husbands' families, as well as my daughter's boyfriends' parents, and the Bill and Hilary debacle, haha. I find it hard to put trust into someone who will go behind my back as soon as the opportunity presents itself. The men I dated (and married) lived lavishly, on the assumption they would one day inherit all of their families' fortunes (one is standing to get a share of over half a billion dollars). Any savings I managed to accumulate was gone like a flash, as soon as husbands were on my bank account. Now with the economy the way it is, every week seems to be a struggle. We can barely keep up with rent, utilities, food, gas, household needs, kids' lunches, clothing, shoes, and insurance payments! Let alone deductibles and gas to appointments. My daughter had a brain tumor removed last year, and that will have to be monitored the rest of her life. Already she has been sentenced to poverty if she takes the working route, here. Maybe she isn't doing so bad, setting herself up for a wealthy future. Not that it ever worked out for me.

I don't see a way out of this, except for wages to be raised. I know the old standby, blah blah blah, raising wages will raise prices. Well I have watched prices raise, anyway, for the last 23 years, while I have worked and while wages have largely remained stagnant. When FDR signed the new deal, he said anyone working in the US deserves a wage that helps them to live comfortably--and any business who wanted to pay slave wages didn't deserve to do business in the US. I heartily agree. Too bad he didn't have the foresight to link minimum wage to inflation. The share of money going to the top 1% (many CEO's for these same companies) is steadily increasing, while the rest of our buying power is dwindling. We cannot have a robust economy without a healthy middle class. I was promised by my college that the average starting wage in my field was a little over $50,000 per year. This may be true in other states; in other cities. It is NOT true here. I feel like I was lied to. I am supposed to be part of the middle class. I was better off in my uneducated bubble, than I am now, knowing where I am stuck and not knowing what to do about it. Knowing the people around me are stuck and don't know what to do about it. Gone are the days where one can get a good job and support a family, unless one makes no bad decisions, or has really good connections. One of my ex-husbands had a (100% paid for) degree, and jobs were offered to him at $35 per hour. He didn't "like" the line of work, so he worked at a wood mill for $7.35 per hour--while I made $12 an hour decorating cakes and went to college full-time, while tutoring and working for the PR department in my school. I wanted to start a business when I graduated. He went to his rich family eight months before I graduated, borrowed $125,000, started a small business, and crashed and burned it within the year. I may have had a higher GPA if I wasn't working trying to keep us afloat while writing my senior thesis on poverty in rural America. And I certainly didn't have the time or money to try to go out of state, for a job.

It is interesting, how our worlds are so different. And I don't mind the rambling. As you can see, I do so, myself.

Is extended adolescence changing America, or did it come to be because America changed? The real answer is probably somewhere in the middle. 20 somethings in 2015 seem much more apt to take a "travel year", or two, or more, right after college than 20 somethings were when I was one, in the late 90's to early 2000's. I am not sure if this is really a bad thing, so long as the person is not living on public assistance while doing that. If that person's family can and chooses to support their travel years, that's really their own business. Everything that someone does in life brings experience, not just being employed at a company. I think that some young adults choose good experiences from which to learn, while others clearly do not. People are living longer today. So maybe it makes sense for people to take more time and care in figuring out what they'd like to do with that life. Also more people are going after advanced degrees. I would not consider someone in their mid to late 20's who attends medical school and is partially supported by their family and partially supported by student loans to be in the "extended adolescent" category. I'd consider it normal human development. I do agree that this phenomenon impacts young women more than men. My personal experience, at 39, I remain unmarried and without children. I've been open to meeting and marrying the right person since age 28. Until very recently, all of the men I would meet would seem like adults on the surface but turn out to be very much still boys. I was raised with the idea that it is not acceptable to have children outside of marriage, but honestly maybe it is time to go to a fertility clinic and go it alone.

My salary is 27,000 and I have a Master's degree in my field. So yes, companies have not raised salaries to match inflation in something like over 20 years. Starting rates right out of college have actually gone down. I don't live with my parents, but they send me a bit of cash to help make ends meet on a fairly regular basis. I never ask for this, they just do it. Most of the time I can stretch my budget to survive on what I earn by only buying basic groceries, not spending on entertainment, etc. But if just ONE thing goes wrong in a month, or if I purchase any clothing (90% of the time it is business or business casual attire to be worn at work, a professional appearance is a must for my career), then I absolutely can NOT get by only on what I make. Am I an "extended adolescent"? Probably not. Women are still underpaid, and if I were male I would likely be making close to 40k, not 27k. If I were married, I'd be in a two income household, and wouldn't need any help from my family. But I guess since I chose not to marry any of the incompatable guys I dated in my 20's and 30's, and I'm payed less than the male counterparts in my profession, the blame must be placed on me, and I must be called "extended adolescent". At least until I marry or get promoted.

As someone who is part of "extended adolescence," I feel I should make my opinion known. I've read the original post and the comments, and I feel that while some good points were made, some comments were almost offensive. I'm 26 years old, single, and live with my parents. I have no children. I am employed full time, and I am enrolled in college pursuing a bachelor's degree full time. I don't pay rent. I do, however, pay bills and support myself financially otherwise. If I were to judge myself based on what I read here, apparently I would be considered a failure. Honestly, I think that's more than a little ridiculous.

I live with my parents because I can't afford to pay rent by myself while I'm also paying my way through school. I'm still going to school because, like many people my age, it took me longer than it should have to make the HUGE decision of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I'm single because I don't have time to date, since work and school take up all my time. And I don't have the time, money, or inclination to have children right now. I have better things to do. Not only do I have those stresses, but I have to deal with people who look down on me for living with my parents. Who call me a "loser" behind my back. Lovely, isn't it? It doesn't really matter that I work harder than a lot of other people I know.

I'm sure you've heard it all before. And you can go on judging people who are considered "extended adolescents." But just so you know, I'm not ashamed.

The point is, there's an obvious trend. When you can't even afford a studio apartment without a roommate, you know there's an issue. It's not necessarily just lazy people who are living in mom's basement. People stick at home because they're unable to live financially. You can see a large enough trend that it's become a big-picture idea. We need to move away from calling "extended adolescents" FAILURES and start figuring out how to fix the economic situation that is causing the trend.

My two cents.

My response might come across as harsher than it is intended, but I want to give you the courtesy and respect of an honest, candid reply as if you were my own sister; someone whom I loved and wanted the best for; not the sort of polite accolades people will say to your face until you are out of earshot. I'm doing this because you were kind enough to provide such a thoughtful, detailed comment, which I really appreciate.

Right now, I want you to think about the adult demographic group into which you fall, which is 24 to 34 years old. Those are great years for most people. By the start of that measurement period, you've had 4 years since becoming a legal adult at 18 to do whatever it is you are going to do; join the military, go to college, get a job, start a business, learn to become a welder at trade school ... whatever. Those years are behind you so you're really hitting your stride, now.

Out of every 100 people in the United States currently in that demographic group with you, 86 of them live on their own. Only 14 out of 100 are still so far behind their peers they live at home with mom and dad.

Let that sink in for a moment.

You are part of that minority. For everyone else in your age group, 86 out of 100 have surpassed you. Regardless of how you feel about that, it is objective reality. You are very, very far behind all other men and women who started out at the same time in life you did.

That does not mean you are destined to be behind the curve forever.

It does not mean you can't accomplish great things in life.

It does not mean you can't build the greatest charity in history or amass millions of dollars, if that's your thing.

What it does mean is that you now have to close a whole lot of distance between where you are now and where you want to be because you spent too much time in adolescence compared to everybody else, who (please forgive the language, I'm not really a fan of cursing but the phrase is too appropriate) got their shit together while you were still trying to make a decision. In the metaphor of life, you were like the person holding up the line at Starbucks. You stepped to the side to stare at the menu while everyone else ordered, paid, picked up their coffee, got in their car, and drove on down the highway.

You say that if you were to judge yourself by what you read here, you'd be considered a failure, which you say is "absurd". That, to me, tells me that you really have not internalized the fact that your situation is not normal. You need to expect so much more from yourself, and believe that you are capable of more.

You say not being able to support yourself independently at 26 isn't a failure. So here's my question: What is it? What does it say about a person's effectiveness, self-discipline, and ability if a 26 year old woman with no children, in the most affluent economy in the history of human civilization, in a time of record low inflation and unemployment figures so paltry they cause Europe to look at us with envy, cannot provide enough value to her fellow citizens she can pay for her own needs without continuing to live like a parasite off her parents? That sounds harsh but, again, 86 out of 100 people in our age group have figured out how to do it so why haven't you? What makes you so special? Why does the universe just refuse to work for you? I personally know 20 year old single mothers who work low-wage jobs who own their own house and pay their own bills.

The problem is with your thought process. For the sake of curiosity, I pulled the foreclosure listings in your neck of the woods using the geolocation on your Disqus profile. It took me less than 30 seconds to find a decent house, in a decent neighborhood, that, were I a low-wage worker with little credit history, I could buy through one of the Federal government programs for only $3,000 or $5,000 out of pocket. It was large enough I could have taken on 2 roommates and, after collecting rent, not only lived for free, having them pay for the house, but actually pocketed a couple hundred bucks a month in positive cash flow. What makes it worse, you wouldn't even really have to come up with the $3,000 to $5,000 yourself if you used an individual development account (IDA) program, which will often leverage your down payment savings as much as 4-to-1 o r 8-to-1. You could do it in 6 months working minimum wage at a gas station with only $500 or $800 out of pocket.

You don't want to hear this but I want you to have a better life: You are being held back by not wanting to give up the comfort of things you didn't earn yourself. You have no idea what is normal or how rare your situation is comparable to the rest of the country. You seem to think it's morally and ethically acceptable to continue in your current situation. You don't seem to have any awareness that, despite people being nice to your face, it is highly probable they do talk about you when you aren't around, trying to figure out why you haven't gotten your life together. The longer this goes on, the worse it is going to get. It's not cute anymore. It's past looking weird.

You should want more. This is your life. If you're average, you'll have around 27,375 days to live on this Earth before your body gives out. You've already spend around 9,673 of those days. That means you probably only have 17,702 or so remaining before it's game over.

Stop wasting them.

Go faster. Demand better. Set higher expectations. The external conditions are among the top 1% that have ever existed in all human history. You're living in a social and economic paradise. Nobody in your family bloodline has statistically had it better than you do, right now. That means failure to launch is due to operator error. It's you. It's in your head. Like RuPaul says, this is all just a play. You are the star. It's all just drag. None of it is real. Stop taking it so seriously. Go out there, figure out how to make some money, and get out of your parents' house.

I believe in you. I believe you are smart enough to do it.

Joshua, do you feel you would be able to give this same advice had you been anyone other than who you are? Allow me to elaborate…

Your intelligence; Your upbringing; Your family; Your family's profession; Your exposure to other like-minded people...everything from your genetics to your environment have led to the creation of who YOU are. I won't deny you the sacrifice that you've made to manifest your dreams, but make no mistake, you are blessed.

Why do I say this? Because when I look at my cohort, when I look at my friends and family that I care for so dearly, I see the enormous gap between us: financially, intellectually, motivation-wise, and even emotionally. And, I know that while I worked for many of those advantages, I would be lying to myself if I didn't acknowledge that I was different from birth. My parents recount the stories often:

1) Completing hundred piece puzzles as a toddler

2) My unrelenting determination to complete whatever I set my mind to (Their favorite story to recount is of me as a 3 year old scurrying into the kitchen late at night when I presumed no one else would be awake. Unbeknownst to me, they observed my 3 year old self struggling to lift up a 10 lb potato sack in one hand, so that I could sweep underneath it with the other hand. Why a toddler would be fixated on cleaning underneath a potato sack is beyond me, but apparently I was hell bent on it.)

3) My natural affinity for numbers and all things math related. (Working in a
money-exchange store at the age of 9, I was able to calculate the profit for the day/week and I did this without prompting. I truly found the exercise fun.)

4) A seemingly endless thirst for understanding of WHY and HOW for all subjects that interested me.

5) A large disregard for the opinions of others. (I trusted both my own intuition and knowledge base even over that of my teachers whom I respected. This habit was only reinforced by the many times I found myself correct when we disagreed on a topic/problem)

These characteristics have played a major role in the success I can boast today.

And, reading your reply to Alison resounded with an epiphany I had in my youth on why this gap exists. As a freshmen in high school, I could not comprehend why my peers and I differed so much. And, one day as I was enjoying the sunset on a beautiful autumn day outside of my grandparents’ house, my uncle pointedly asked me: “Do you really believe that other people think like YOU?” I was 13 at the time and he was 30. It was common for us to grab a cold drink, take a leisurely walk in the country side, and have deep philosophical discussions; this was one of those conversations. The question struck me as odd, “Well, yeah? How else would people think?” I asked the question in earnest because I didn’t understand what he was trying to point out. “Bone (his nickname for me), not everyone has your gifts. Not everyone has your intelligence; not everyone sees math as you do; not everyone holds the same morals you do. You’re different, bone.”

I didn’t fully grasp what he was trying to teach me at the time; truth be told, I’m not sure when the idea fully sunk-in. But, eventually I came to
realize that we are largely a product of our circumstances (nature & genetics). And, when I finally came to that realization, my empathy for the situations of my peers grew. They had neither my gifts, nor my upbringing; I could no longer in good conscience state that I would do anything differently if I was in their shoes.

And, this is the prime reason I'm writing this comment now. Most people are simply unaware that they can do better. Most people do not have a line of thinking that leads them to the conclusions that YOU naturally draw from
self-reflection. Perhaps this is the cynical side of me writing this, but in my own life, most people lack self-reflection and objectivity - two qualities, that in my opinion, largely determine whether one will be ‘successful’.

So, when I read a comment like Alison’s, I feel the need to take a softer approach. It is very likely her IGNORANCE of her IGNORANCE that leads her to make the decisions she continues to make. Make no mistake, at my core I believe people are responsible for their own misery and joy. But, I also believe that if Alison had been blessed as richly as you or I, she would not be in the position that she is in now.

I hope this post makes sense. I’m posting it without reviewing it in depth. As always, thank you for your blog and posts! I know I’m better for it!

Abraham

Awesome post - really enjoyed reading it (and as someone on the other side of the gap, as you could possibly see from the pedestrian posts on my own blog, very necessary in explaining this otherwise frustrating epistemological gap).

I intend to reply to this tomorrow! Been at work for almost a week now >_<.

Thanks for the compliments. Honestly, though I feel blessed in many ways, reading Joshua's post reminds me that there are great minds that I've yet to be exposed to. The "gap" you speak of is relative: I see Joshua on one side and myself on the other.

But, there is a beauty in being on the other-side of the "gap"!

I, for example, was never gifted with athleticism. Everything I developed - strength, flexibility, endurance, programming, recovery - came through hours of study and physical training. As a result, I can coach/teach novices and develop their skills in a way that a naturally gifted individual cannot. The naturally gifted do not always understand the intricacies and nuances of their craft. How can they when they've never experienced the struggle of developing a skill set that they were gifted with?

So, I don't lament being on either side of the "gap" :). There is much to be gained from being on either side.

Bullshit Neuroplasticity Google it

Hey Joshua. I just stumbled across this article and found it very interesting. I suppose my stance on the situation is that everyone is different. I know people that for one reason or another couldn't progress at the same rate as others but their reasons were legitimate. I believe there is a difference between those who choose an "extended adolescence" as a lifestyle vs those who happen to be there due to personal issues (health problems etc...).

I work in mental health and have seen how people struggle (through no fault of their own) to flourish by certain times. I worked with a lady for example with crippling social phobia who had not left her home in 3 years. She had a poor work history and no friends and was naturally very depressed. Through multidisciplinary support she is now in her final year of university and is engaged to be married.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is there is hope for everyone in this situation once they get into the correct mindset. Mental health problems can wreak havok on a person's life but with the right support the sky is the limit as to what they can do.

Once again thank you for posting this Joshua. I like how it has openned a debate on the issue. All the best!

Mark

I'm one such man in a state of extended adolescence. I'm 27, still living at home, and currently unemployed, although I have been sincerely looking for a job. I have a mathematics degree but I haven't been able to use it as it seems that most of the jobs being created are low wage or contract jobs.

I'm probably one of the worst cases of extended adolescence. I've actually made more collecting benefits than I have by working. I graduated at the height of the recession and it was much easier to apply for benefits than it was to find a job. I'm not proud of this, but this was a rational decision at the time.

I would also say that the very economic conditions that you allude to in an answer below (low inflation, low unemployment, most wealth in history) are part of the reason why young people are able to be in extended adolescence. Younger generations are able to live off of the wealth produced by previous generations without having to work as hard. And because of the large size of government, it's practically impossible to avoid government assistance at some point in one's life.

The breakdown in the family as well as individual factors are part of it too. There are very many young people growing up in broken homes with poor role models and no father figure. Without a father figure, boys have no role model for responsible manhood, no discipline or guidance that only a father can supply, an impoverished childhood and a smaller network for finding a job. If you're a young man growing up poor without a father, it's much more difficult to succeed in life.

I'm torn between trying to respond candidly and kindly. Most of the time, they are not incompatible, but in this case, engaging in an honest conversation due to the medium (text, which doesn't allow you to read facial movements, listen to tone of voice, etc.) is inevitably going to come off as antagonistic when it's not intended to be so. Still, I'll try since you wrote such a wonderfully clear, direct message and seem to be fair minded and intelligent.

You say the breakdown of the family is a major cause. That's, quite literally, one of the most frequent, reoccurring themes on this blog given the rather clear socioeconomic data.

You say life is not a race or about hitting certain metrics. That is one of the core tenants in my entire body of work. There are hundreds of posts detailing everything about learning to prioritize your own happiness and learning to use the primary mission of your life to analyze trade-off decisions so you pursue what you actually want, not what you think you should want.

You say you're willing to bet that I came from a wealthy family; that is well connected. But even thirty seconds of searching would have let you realize my story is not a secret: My parents lost everything when I was young, I was the first in my family to attend college, my husband and I started with no connections, no inheritance, and very little else but decided to go off to music school, which, by the time interest was included, cost us over $200,000 in student loan debt. Now, it's true our future children and grandchildren will have massive financial and social connections, but we did not.

All of these things would have been easy, nearly effortless, to discover if you were a bit curious. But you were more interested in defending where you are in life right now. That says something to me.

It also says something to me that 6 or 7 years after the recession, you still haven't found a job. A job, as I've written before, isn't really a thing. What is actually happening is you are offering to sell your time and skill set at a predetermined rate to a person or institution who thinks they can put it to good use for their own mission. If you aren't getting offers, you can either change markets (supply and demand are not equal in all geographic areas), change the product (switch careers or modify the presentation so it appeals to a different group), adjust the rate (charge a higher or lower price), or sell products or services rather than hours and experience. That's it. Everybody, everywhere is selling something. Even if you live off a trust fund, it's from providing capital to sell something and collecting your share of the proceeds.

You're trying to sell your time, which nobody wants in the skill set you have at the rate you demand. Ray Kroc was a concert pianist who decided to sell hamburgers instead (McDonald's). Bill Gates sold software. Warren Buffett sold investment management services.

Yet, for going on three-quarters of a decade, you've sat there acting as if people not buying your product is somehow justification for living off everyone else. You have to find something you can sell the world at a price that allows you to deliver it for less than it cost you to source, create, or produce. I don't like team sports, yet I own one of America's biggest varsity jacket award companies, which Aaron and I started on a shoestring budget from our college apartment. Every hour, or every day, I'm selling sporting goods apparel to people around the world. We used some of those earnings to buy shares of The Walt Disney Company, which owns ESPN and pumps out dividends from selling advertising on sports shows. I've never even watched ESPN. I don't care about it but I'm smart enough to know people want it and are willing to pay for it (though I do have some doubts about the sustainability of the current cable television model, which I think is doomed in its present form).

The universe, your family, your peers - almost everyone will be perfectly content to let you sit there, wasting your life until you die. The average person lives 27,375 days and you are squandering yours. There is no cavalry coming to rescue you, as I've said to others in the past. You have to do it yourself.

I don't even know you but I want you to be successful. It sounds like you have absorbed this ridiculous idea that all you had to do in life was go to college and get a job; suddenly everything would work out and you could have a good life. That's nonsense. Everybody sells something and you have to figure out what you can sell profitably. The odds are good that you have some sort of insight or skill set that I, and many others, will never have. Figure out how to exploit it to do good; to bring in cash.

Stop thinking that your livelihood revolves around solely selling your time. If you can sell your time, great. But at what point does sitting around waiting for people to make a bid become a lifestyle choice. If I owned a hotel, do you think I'd just sit behind the counter and wait for guests to arrive? If I owned a restaurant, do you think I'd just open the doors and wait for patrons to walk in and ask to be seated? If I owned a car wash, do you think I'd just wait for cars to drive up to it? No! Why, then, are you sitting there?

Even if you were hellbent on selling your time (which, if you've read any of my work, is not my preferred method for income generation as I prefer to create and collect annuity streams) in the 6 or 7 years you've been sitting there, you could have gone to a police academy and become an officer. You could have joined the military. You could have learned another language and worked as a translator. You could have gotten an entry-level job at McDonald's, worked your way up to management, and started toward the company-backed franchisee financing programs that help you get your own restaurant (and nearly all McDonald's franchisees end up in the top 1% of income). Or is it a sense of entitlement? Are those things beneath you?

We all see the world through our own lens of experience. Perhaps because I watched my parents lose everything and swore I would not be poor, myself, when I grew up after seeing the toll a lack of money took on the family (my dad used to joke if we had money to buy peanut butter, we couldn't afford the jelly or bread), I have no shame when it comes to the hustle if necessary. Reading your comment, my impression is you are either misguided and a victim of being fed this lie about the nature of the economy, or profoundly lazy and lack any sort of initiative. I do not understand how a self-respecting adult male could sit around applying for jobs for years and years without doing something about it. Aaron and I would open a hot dog or cookie stand if we had to do so.

If you have a mathematics degree, you are smart enough to understand this formula: Your income statement consists of two meaningful variables: Cash in - cash out. The former is determined entirely by what you are selling and in the quantity you are selling it. It's not going to grow itself.

I mean, dear Lord after 6 or 7 years you could have picked up RenPy and written erotic visual vampire novels for overly emotional teenage girls, selling them on Steam. I mean, come on man. Are you going to keep doing this? You have to wake up in the morning and sell something. You, the product, doesn't appear to have a market value to would-be employers so change it up until you find something that works. Nobody is going to change your life for you.

Not to mention, if your income is low enough you qualify for benefits, you almost assuredly qualify for an individual development account, which can sometimes multiply your savings by 800% using loopholes and special rules in the Federal laws, which you could then turn into a big enough grub stake to at least get your hands on a rental property so you lived in one of the apartments and everyone else was paying for the place, letting you live for free. Finance is just math. You're a math major.

Please don't take this as me being hard on you. The first step is understanding that you are in control of where you are now, even if how you got there wasn't your fault. You can either fix it or accept it. Time is going to pass, anyway, so why not at least enter the game? What is your plan? Are you going to still be here in another 6 or 7 years? At what point does, "Well, I've been applying for jobs" start sounding ridiculous to you? I've literally never gotten hired for a job in my life. I've made them all up, from nothing. I figure out what people want and I figure out how to deliver it to them, taking an extraction for my services. This whole idea that you need a job to make money is bonkers to me. Even the work I have done for third-parties is on a freelance contract basis. Then again, given some of the things that shaped me as a person, I desired independence too much to ever trust my livelihood to a third party that could discriminate against me; not so much a concern these days, but very much one in the world in which I grew up.

You can do it. You really can. Throw out what you think you know about making money and realize the economic order is very different than what you'd been carrying around in your head. Every day, ask yourself: 1. What did I sell, 2. How much did it cost me, 3. Did it improve the lives of my customers, 4. Did I enjoy the process? Therein resides the secret to not just being financially secure, but, at some point, growing rich.

Thanks for the reply. I actually did look into your background before I made my comment, but I wasn't able to find anything so I assumed that you came from a wealthy family. Surprisingly, it seems that you did not. In my experience, most people who are wealthy in their late 20s or early 30s are so because they came from a wealthy family.

Joining the military or the police academy isn't an option since my medical background disqualifies me. I was diagnosed with OCD/Asperger's which is a disqualification for the military (can't be waived). The police academy probably isn't going to take someone with these diagnoses either.

I haven't done nothing for the entirety of the recession; I worked, I earned a degree, I did some independent mathematical research for my degree, I had a small business on eBay which I could still go back to in the future as I have a good reputation online. I worked an entry-level job at KFC for 6 months, and I can say for an absolute fact that being a manager of a fast food store isn't something anyone wants to do. That would be pure hell. Many managers are only making 30 or 40K a year and still do the disgusting gruntwork that crew members do. If they do make it in the top 1% in income, it's only after 25 or 30 years of doing disgusting work, dealing with bad customers and dealing with the drama caused by bad employees. Is that really worth it?

However, self employment as a hotdog/cookie vendor is a better option. I could go back to eBay and work as a hotdog/cookie vendor on the side. But food service is only worth going into if you're self-employed and you're working in a safe area with a good clientele. And by a safe area and good clientele, I mean the suburbs and white people, although exceptions exist. Otherwise, stay far away from food service.

I did take German and Spanish in university, although I forgot almost all of it. I know a good deal of computer programming and maybe I could go into that in the future.

As you said above, incentive systems drive nearly everything in civilization. Can you really blame people for taking benefits when the government creates disincentives to work by creating burdensome regulations, a progressive tax code that punishes higher income people, and by offering handouts?

Hi. I'm around the same age as you and I'm nowhere near as successful as Joshua, so maybe I can offer you some insights that you can more easily relate to:

I can say for an absolute fact that being a manager of a fast food store isn't something anyone wants to do.

I agree with you. However, let me add a very important rule - I would venture to say that this is the "#1 rule of adulthood:" adults do things they must do, even if they don't want to. Adults don't like to pay their taxes, but they do anyway. Adults don't want to compromise in a relationship, but they do anyway. Adults don't want to get up at 3AM to take care of a wailing infant, but they do anyway. The vast majority of people, me included, do not wake up in the morning thinking "I can't wait to get to work!" but we drag ourselves to the office anyway. Why? Because putting up with all this shit gives us more freedom, more happiness, more physical and socioeconomic mobility in the long run.

I know a good deal of computer programming and maybe I could go into that in the future.

Notwithstanding the question of why you haven't been doing that the last 6-7 years...the way you phrased that statement makes me think what you really meant was "maybe I'll get into programming after this game of (insert name of video game)." And you'll repeat that to yourself next week...and the week after that...and the week after that. I've been there, dude. Don't get lost in a fantasy world when your situation IRL sucks - it's a black hole. If you want to break out of the vicious cycle, then you need a hard, definable goal. Something like "if that one dude could make a boatload of money on Angry Birds, I'm going to make a better app, starting Thursday night. It's gonna have an tricolor aardvark that shoots cannonballs out of his snout."

Given your OCD/Aspie diagnosis, let me make it clear that I'm not literally saying you should make an app to rival Angry Birds involving an aardvark - that's one example out of many. If not a game app, then a utility app like a better portfolio manager for iOS. Or if you don't want to do apps at all, e-lancing your skills, like building a webpage for a small business. It depends on your skillset and what you like to do. And most importantly, you're not going to start "in the future," you're going to start "right effing now" because nothing is holding you back.

Can you really blame people for taking benefits when the government
creates disincentives to work by creating burdensome regulations, a
progressive tax code that punishes higher income people, and by offering
handouts?

No, I can't. But people who take the path of least resistance don't reap life's greatest rewards, and don't earn the respect of their peers. Can you blame people for getting fat because calorie-dense, cheaply-produced foods are available to the masses? No, but fit people are still more highly regarded than fat people, as they should be. Can you blame people for not trying in school because the standards are being watered down and every kid gets praised for simply participating? No, but the high school student who, by his own volition, developed a cheap, effective test for pancreatic cancer is regarded more highly than his classmates, as he should be.

So to answer your unasked question: is it okay for you to take benefits because the government has created disincentives to work for all those reasons you listed? Yes, it is. But know this: as long as you're in this situation that Joshua has called extended adolescence, you will not have the dignity, respect, and income afforded to adults, and nor will you deserve them. As a guy who was trapped in extended adolescence until I found Joshua's writings, I can tell you that breaking out is a great feeling, but you can only do it if you accept that "adulthood" (in the social context, not biological) is earned, not grown into.

TLDR; shorted DIS and the entire Malone complex.

(Just kidding. Really appreciate these very long responses you write to people. I would hope that others somehow find them too, buried in the comments.)

I understand that adulthood is about doing things you don't want to do. But there's a continuum of things you don't want to do; on one side of the continuum, there's things you're ambivalent about, and on the other side, there's things that you want to avoid at all costs.

Being the manager of a fast food restaurant is something I want to avoid at all costs. Anything is preferable to that. I would gladly collect welfare than have to do that.

Your responses here have been one excuse after another. You don't need to justify anything to us, like Joshua has said in the comments of this article, society, and by extension, we, are perfectly happy to let you juuuuust get by your whole life. In the end, no one will shed any tears for your situation but yourself.

I don't know your situation, so maybe your decisions have been rational. However, as @disqus_w0WZUAv4i6:disqus responded to you a few hours ago - it's one excuse after another. At what point do you swallow your pride? At what point do you shove your ego in a tiny box and put it on the shelf? If you're holding out for a job in which you don't have to do the "gruntwork" that you clearly consider below you, then you're probably going to be on welfare for the rest. of. your. life. Even programmers usually start out as code monkeys, albeit highly-paid compared to grunts in other industries.

You might feel like Joshua, Ang, and I are ganging up on you, but I can say with certainty there's no schadenfreude on my part and I strongly doubt there's any on theirs. I want to echo what Joshua said earlier: We want you to succeed in your endeavors. But we refuse to coddle you, like most people in your life are used to doing. You can make excuses to defend your ego and carry it intact to your grave, or you can tuck your tail in between your legs and take steps to break out of extended adolescence. These are mutually exclusive decisions.

I swallowed my pride when I was 30K in debt and taking a bus to work at a ghetto KFC making minimum wage. There was no heat during the winter and I often got no lunch breaks.

There is no way in this world that I'm ever, ever, ever going back to that.

You think being a code monkey is grunt work? No, that's an easy job. I've done tons of programming in computational physics, numerical analysis and mathematical biology for my math degree, and I can say that doing programming work in a comfortable, air conditioned office sitting on a comfortable chair is not a grunt work job.

If your body isn't sore or aching at the end of the day then it's not a grunt work job. Programming is not grunt work. Not even close.

Fair enough. Working a low-skill job does come with a fairly severe opportunity cost of taking time and energy away from honing skills you picked up in college. So I'll concede that the most rational choice may be to stay on welfare while you put 110% effort into developing rare, in-demand skills. Again, I don't know your situation, so no amount of "armchair preaching" on my part will result in an optimal solution.

The reason I initially brought up the "gruntwork" idea was because of what you wrote previously:

Many managers are only making 30 or 40K a year and still do the disgusting gruntwork that crew members do.

However, from your last message I can see now that my definition of "gruntwork" is very different from yours; I consider anything repetitive and not intellectually stimulating to be "gruntwork." This is where the terms "code monkey" or "lab monkey" come from - the idea that a highly-trained primate could perform the same tasks, even if the compensation is good. Despite the grind, I still think of gruntwork as something to be tolerated, not whined about. Hell, even Nobel Laureates aren't above this type of gruntwork - imagine the hours and hours running PCRs before making a big breakthrough. In contrast, your definition of "gruntwork" is synonymous with "low-skilled" and I'll agree that if you're ready-willing-able to contribute highly skilled labor to the economy, you should. I'll take back a lot of what I said about adulthood because I incorrectly assumed you have delusionally high expectations, i.e. the belief that everyone could have a job that's rewarding 100% of the time, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I'm pretty sure you didn't comment here with the intention of being preached to and downtrodden. It wasn't a warm welcome, and I apologize for that. I hope you decide to stick around, though - the folks who hang around Joshua's blog are all focused on improving our respective lots in life, irrespective of our current situations (I know there's at least one guy here who's in a similar, possibly worse situation than you're in but he's made significant improvements since he introduced himself a few years ago). If you decide to make computer programming your focus, keep us updated on your progress. We all love to hear success stories.

Spend some time with the gigs section of your local Craigslist. You can easily find work that will pay $100 to $200 a day. If you are good with your hands, have a car, some tools, and look respectable in a polo shirt you can easily earn $40 an hour doing installations for rich people.

I'll have to get a car to be able to do that.

I'm looking forward to reading the full Gilvus story someday.

Well, about a quarter a century ago I was a wailing bloody fleshwad recently squeezed out of a woman's vagina...

Eh, there isn't much to say about me. I'm just the resident troll of Joshuakennon.com 😀

Hi guys,

I know this isn't a problem page but just thought I'd ask for some advice if that's OK?
Basically I'm a 28 year old guy who's trying to change his life for the better. Without getting into too much detail I suffer from agoraphobia and panic attacks. For my entire adolescence I was bullied relentlessly for being the 'quiet' guy. The bullying essentially destroyed my confidence and left me the anxious guy I am today.

I guess my mental health problems have held me back in a lot of ways. I have worked in a few retail jobs down through the years. During these years I managed to get my anxieties under control and could function relatively well. However in my last retail job a co-worker began bullying me once again. I'm a very short guy and just like in high school the bullying was aimed at my appearance. The whole thing shattered my confidence once again and I became a recluse until 22.

AT 22 I mustered up the courage to return to education. I always wanted to work in a caring profession so I chose nursing. Getting back into college/society was very difficult for me but my family supported me all the way. During my college years I had my ups and downs but I forced myself to complete my degree. Since I graduated I have not found work locally and I am currently unemployed and living at home. In January my father passed away and I'm still in a state of shock I guess. I know I have to fly the nest eventually but at the moment my mom is still very fragile and I'm afraid to leave her alone. Things are very raw for us since my dads passing.

Although I haven't been working since I graduated I have been doing a lot of voluntary work for a few charities. I'm on welfare and I guess I want to feel like I'm giving something back.. My anxieties are still very high but each day I force myself to face my fears. I know I need psychological help and for my own sake I've decided to look for a therapist. Some people would perhaps view me as being in extended adolescence for still living at home. I know I have a lot of potential to be a success once I get my sh!t together. Another big source of stress for me right now is that I'm in the closet (I know I'm rambling now). I plan on coming out soon as I feel this is another issue that is holding me back greatly.

Apologies for this long post I just really needed to vent. Anyone else going through similar struggles?

Regards,
James

bravo. I really appreciate this article. I'm 22, completed college and have "real" full time job. However, I'm still single and no kids, so I don't feel like an adult yet.

Where have the men gone? UMM NO... More like, where have the *lots of things* gone, including women, who are no longer 'women' as much as men aren't 'men' anymore. Things that have changed: Local community, extended families and close relationships, workmanship/crafts/skills, knowledge of the land, knowing your neighbour, reading books, fixing things and making them last, regular people singing etc. Cheap energy (aka oil) and globalization is a factor in the destruction of these things. Once we have a crash, this 'men' problem being bickered about will cease to exist real fast.

Out of the five milestones that define adulthood, it seems to me that only the first three are actually valid today. I know plenty of people who are financially successful and, yet, are not married and have no kids. Marriage is desirable (actually essential) prior to having kids. However, I'm not convinced marriage is a necessary institution for those who choose not to have kids.

"Still live at home or in a home paid for by parents or other family member
Still rely on parents or other family member to cover living expenses in whole or part
Still be enrolled in school in some capacity
Single
No Children"

Age 26. Guilty on all counts aside from #2 and #3 😀

#1 - Yep, still at home. Travelling ~75+% of the time for work (management consultant), but based out of my home city - why waste the money on rent when I could be investing it?

#2 - God, no. Paid college and grad school all on my own. It's the principal, dammit!

#3 - Nope.

#4 - Yep. My fault entirely - I didn't make time for any of my partners. I could have if I wanted to, but if I'm honest I valued them less than my career prospects. Only perhaps a quarter of analysts are invited back after the standard two year tour of duty; you need to be near the top of your cohort to get business school paid for by the firm. There are women out there who are willing to be with workaholics like me, but I'm not about to go out of my way to track them down - that's what B-school is for lol.

#5 - Nope. See above 🙂

_______________________________________

Interesting that as a workaholic yuppie I basically miss all of the milestones of adulthood. I suppose I wouldn't be living at home if I didn't get lucky with my office placement, but the point still stands. Also definitely notice my female colleagues' dismay wrt the biological clock, but I just don't see a particularly good solution. It's a huge arms race to get into the best firms/b schools/partner track engagements/post consulting placements/etc., and competition is getting tougher each year. Thing is, this is equally true of my undergrad buddies (from a nearby school to yours, Joshua, if I'm not mistaken) in banking, law, medical school, etc - the family oriented milieu you describe seems completely foreign to me, although power couples aren't rare. Perhaps it's a coastal vs heartland cultural gap?

only fascism and extremist traditionalism will fix the west