Many of my dear readers hate it when I mention the Slackoisie. Some deny there’s any problem or issue with younguns. Some think I hate young lawyers because I refuse to coddle them. Yeah, I’m a mean, old man making up mean, old-man stuff about young lawyers because the older generation always says mean, old-man stuff about the younger generation. I’ve heard it all before.
Of course, the lead story in today’s New York Times Magazine asks “Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up?”
It’s happening all over, in all sorts of families, not just young people moving back home but also young people taking longer to reach adulthood overall. It’s a development that predates the current economic doldrums, and no one knows yet what the impact will be — on the prospects of the young men and women; on the parents on whom so many of them depend; on society, built on the expectation of an orderly progression in which kids finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and eventually retire to live on pensions supported by the next crop of kids who finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and on and on. The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain untethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life.
Clark University psychprof, Jeffrey Arnet. contends that there is a new life-stage, “emerging adulthood,” that hasn’t previously existed. He argues that my Slackoisie are simply 20-somethings who no longer need to grow up and accept responsibility until later in life than prior generations. Things are different now, and so they’ve adapted.
You can agree with me or not as to whether, and the extent to which, this is a problem, but you cannot deny the existence of the issue as many of those who disagree with me do. The suggestion that hard discussion of this issue is a reflection of hatred of young people is ridiculous; it exists and compels discussion. Does Arnet hate young people? Does Jean Twenge hate young people? Of course not, and yet they recognize the existence of the issue and address it.
It’s on the front page of the New York Times Magazine, people. Grow up and face the fact that this is a real issue. It’s not something I invented in order to demonstrate how great old folks are and how awful young people are. And don’t rationalize away your denial by telling me (yet again) how it’s all the boomers fault (it partially is, but so what?), how boomers are all evil (we are, but so what?) or how it’s not the substance of the argument but the tone, since I don’t make you feel happy about yourself when I call you the Slackoisie.
As the article describes, there are “early bloomers,” which are those who haven’t fallen off the track of adulthood, and it questions whether those who prefer to live in their parents’ basement will be at a permanent disadvantage. This mirrors my point that not all Millennials are Slackoisie, and there are certainly those who reject the life of entitlement that others contend is their due. This is not a commentary on the young per se, a point completely missed by those with myopic comprehension, but about the young who refuse to grow up and accept the responsibility of adulthood.
Don’t blame me for this. I didn’t invent it. I’m just trying to help those late bloomers who think that it’s perfectly fine to sit on their parents’ couch in the basement, eat Cheetos, and whine about their lack of a BMW. It may, as Arnet suggests, be perfectly normal, but it’s not a good way to go through life.
Update: And it didn’t take long for the whining to begin:
I tweeted about it at the time, noting the answer to the question, “Why don’t people grow up faster?” is incredibly, stupidly simple—because they are no longer any jobs for people in their early 20s that provide the means to be a full adult. Full stop. I don’t mean that entry level jobs only pay enough for a small apartment or a simple lifestyle. Often, they don’t pay enough to cover the rent on that small apartment—if they can find those jobs in the first place—and that’s why people move back in with their parents.
Which is why I saw red when I read this smarmy, self-righteous screed from some Baby Boomer. It’s a classic example of being born on third and thinking you hit a triple. She assumes that her ability to pay rent with her first job out of college is strictly because she’s so much more fucking awesome than you spoiled kids these days, and her parents were so much more responsible than the softies of today. For a millisecond, she ponders the possibility that things have changed because of financial constraints, but then dismisses that possibility with a handwave. It’s so much more fun to be self-righteous! It’s way more fun to wag your finger at young people and tell them how you lived on Ramen and beans to afford your apartment, never pausing for a moment to wonder if those kids might not be able to afford that apartment even if they lived on dog food.
We didn’t have Ramen. We had cup o’ soup.
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I don’t think that was “whining”. There were a few insightful remarks, particularly in noting that the baby-boomer mentality may be a little cramped by that generation’s unusually fortunate experiences.
I am speaking, of course, about the way cooler cars like the ’57 Impala.
The article discusses “synaptic pruning.” You just can’t make this stuff up.
It also uncritically discusses the psychological theory of “adolescence,” arguably an artificial construct to justify keeping energetic and creative young people corralled and irresponsible. If we tossed child labor laws and the minimum wage and lowered the school drop-out age to 12 they could fill their lives with work, responsibility, and opportunity. tjem what wouldn’t our young men and women be ready and able to do by their 20s? Bet they would make us proud. Too bad it won’t happen.
I am not going to sit around and watch you make baseless attack after another on Cheetos! Cheetos are a delicacy enjoyed by motivated self starters such as myself. Doritos are the food of the Slackoise.
You are absolutely, totally, dead wrong. Doritos are a delicious, wholesome snack preferred by self-starters and hard working young men and women with a refined palate and clear, focused mind. Cheetos are the food of the Slackoisie.
You’re both spoiled brats. Real self-starters ate Frito Lays Corn Chips and considered ourselves superior to those who just ate plain potato chips. 🙂
You can just imagine my pride, then, in my now-25 y/o son who went off to LA two months after graduating from university and found a job in TV that pays all his bills and includes three or four trips back to the East Coast every year. Plus he pays for his own health insurance!
You are either an excellent father or very lucky. Either way, congratulations. You’ve won the lottery.
Fritos are for kids.
I feel that I can weigh in on this debate, being a lover of all things in a chip form. Fritos are for kids. I get them when I’m feeling nostalgic for the days of the lunch box. Doritos are what I eat now, as an adult (usually with wine, but that’s not for this post) and cheetoes are for the slackoisie. Their advertising is clearly marketed towards them.
That is all. Carry on.
Finally. Someone with a sensible grasp of snack foods.
“You can agree with me or not as to whether, and the extent to which, this is a problem, but you cannot deny the existence of the issue”
Hans Rosling (gapminder) has some interesting data that indirectly illustrates the issue. Gapminder has age at 1st marriage for women data going back to 1800. Go to http://www.gapminder.org/data/ and click on the “visualalize” icon in the “Age at 1st marriage (women)”. The change starting at about 1980 for Europe and the US is fairly pronounced.
Of course there are all sorts of reasons why women are marrying later, but I suggest that this data at least partially supports the idea that young people are taking longer to grow up.
I disagree. I got married at 31 and it wasn’t because I was clinging to my childhood. I pursued a career and a life, bought a house and made my own way. I don’t think, for women at least, getting married young leads to growing up. As a woman from a country where the women still get married as soon as they are old enough to bear young, I can tell you that the level of maturity is not in line with the level of responsibility.
Well (she writes, inserting a verbal professorial-type tic), I’d stay and argue, but being a self-starter, I have to go work on my next article, “Snack food preference as predictors of career choices in lawyers and psychologists: A meta-analysis of blog comments,” which I plan to submit to the International Journal of Junk Foods.
While I generally agree with many of your observations regarding the slackoisie, I think that today’s social mores make it more difficult to force a sense of independence. By the time my sisters and I were 9 or 10, our parents were completely laissez-faire – we handled our own homework, chose our schedules in school, signed (or forged) our own report cards filled out our own college applications, sat at detention if we were late for school and found our own jobs. So when we entered college, and then graduated, our parents’ role had already been significantly reduced – and consequently, the thought of moving home after college (or grad school) was simply anathema.
In contrast, today, parents are dragged into every school activity and forced to be involved whether they want to be or not. My daughter is entering high school and so far, I had to attend a meeting with the guidance counselor to pick activities, go to a 3 hour evening meeting for sports teams (from which she was eventually cut anyway) and will be getting a daily email of every assignment she turns in along with a calculation of her grade to date. Why must I be involved, and when will it end? Will I have to fill out college applications and meet with the college guidance counselor? I suppose I will have to attend a job interview as well. If we want to encourage our kids to be independent, then our society has got to make it easy for us to cut the ties.
“Our society?” Who would you be referring to? Does “our society” have a blog or a website? Does it have a twitter account, perhaps?
We are “our society,” and it’s up to each of us to do the unpleasant work of changing the things around us that need changing. That includes, unfortunately, enabling Millennials to be perpetual adolescents by explaining away its cause as if that will somehow alleviate the problem.
The Slackoisie are also “our society,” meaning the people who are assuming the roles of responsibility, but without taking responsibility. They’ve got great excuses and explanations at the ready. I believe them. I even agree with them. But I fail to see how any of this helps them.
Unless they want to sit on the couch in the basement long after rigor mortis sets into our cold, dead bodies, wondering where the next bag of Cheetos is coming from, they have got to accept the responsibility of becoming adults.
Stephanie West Allen just sent me other this link from the Denver Post, “Colleges setting strict limits so “Velcro parents” will say goodbye to freshmen,” for those who can’t stop themselves from enabling,
When we dropped my daughter off at college two years ago, they have a wonderful ceremony where every new student was “rung in” at a bell in one of the quads. We then kissed them good-bye and left. Parents were told to just walk away and not look back. No school, teachers, administrator, can force you to be an enabler against your will.
Some institutions get it, or at least are beginning to get it. Some parents get it. Some are being forced to get it, whether they like it or not. The majority, unfortunately of both parents and youngsters neither understand nor have the slightest inclination to understand that they will one day be adults and needed to take responsibility as independent adults.
On going home… I didn’t have many friends who moved home while working or in graduate studies. And I certainly didn’t go back–I don’t think I ever even knew it was an option (and it probably wasn’t an option).
But in a world in which the upper middle class is able to give its children countless financial advantages, like paying for education, buying a first car, or making a down payment on a child’s first home, I’m not sure it’s useful to single out, as many who “study” the generations have done, one of the advantages that some lower middle class families can offer its children to help them start off in a better financial position: a place to stay.
Wow.
My childhood was also completely laissez-faire. The level of involvement you’re describing almost makes me not want to have children. The daily email, in particular, freaks me out.
Um, where are all these jobs for 12-year-olds? And, how would they get to them?
Now if I could hire me some 12-year-olds for about $1/hour, I’d be rich. Don’t know about them, though. School is a little tough when you’re coming off a 12 hour shift, at least for me. Maybe we could just stop edumacating them after 5th grade, and put them out in the fields.
Don’t know why I get the feeling you wouldn’t want your kids doing this, though. Maybe it’s just me.
I’m not suggesting that getting married young leads to growing up. What I am saying is that there is data that shows women are getting married later, and as I said:
“Of course there are all sorts of reasons why women are marrying later, but I suggest that this data at least partially supports the idea that young people are taking longer to grow up.”
This was deliberately a weak assertion.
It almost makes home schooling sound like an easier option. I won’t have to deal with any other parents that way, at least. But my kids won’t know math. That could be a problem.
Carolyn raises a good point re: the school encouraging this type of over-involvement that leads to kids who can’t handle life.
My kids are younger than Carolyn’s–they’re both in elementary school–but the school encourages all sorts of parental involvement.
There are “orientations” for parents each year for each grade (sometimes both parents will come, just to show how much they *really care* about their kid).
You can’t skip the orientations. I tried that one year. They always have some random sign up sheet there that’s actually important (like parent-teacher conference sign up), or some piece of info that you really need, so that if you’re not there, you’re screwed.
At the orientations, they explain the “intricacies” of 2d grade homework, explain to us that they know everything there is to know about teaching kids and we should trust the teachers.
Then they subtlety discourage parents from being annoying helicopter parents but then actively encourage parents to sign up to volunteer in classrooms, saying “we can’t do it without you.”
And parents stumble all over each other to publicly sign up for the different time slots, as if somehow it makes them better parents if they volunteer.
Then school starts and your kids ask you how come you never volunteer like so and so’s mom does. She’s “always” in the classroom.
And you patiently try to explain that so and so’s mom doesn’t work and you do. And, anyway, do they really need parents in the classroom all the freakin’ time? And besides, we pay a fortune in taxes here in Upstate NY and what in the world are they doing with our taxes? Can’t they teach science without parental involvement for god’s sake?
And then your kids look at you like you’re crazy (which you are, at that point) and then look crestfallen and say “well I wish you were there more often, mommy” and you feel like a complete and utter failure of a mother, even though you know you’re doing the right thing by keeping your classroom volunteering to a minimum.
The end.
It’s very hard to fight peer pressure and a well-crafted scheme to tug at your heartstrings. The same argument works for junkies and teenage pregnancy. Yup, it’s tough to be tough.
So if you don’t do the sign up how are you screwed? Like you don’t get to go to the parent/teacher conference? That almost sounds like a win to me. I’m just trying to formulate my plan of attack now. Would a heart to heart work? “Listen, I know you need parents here and whatever, but I don’t really like kids other than my own. You understand, don’t you?”
Mirriam–well, I feel like, as a parent, I have to attend at least one parent-teacher conference (I skip the second one each year, however, since it’s optional). I mean, you need to at least pretend to be interested in what’s going on with your kids so the school won’t call Child Protective;)
And, if you skip the orientation, you end up spinning your wheels trying to figure out how to sign up for the conference after the fact or locate the info. you would have obtained at the orientation.
And as for the heart to heart–maybe I’ll try that line next time…
So now CPS comes after you if you don’t go to parent-teacher conferences? Whoa!And I thought it was just if you shook the baby.
My littlest brother used to eat only mayonnaise sandwiches – mayo on white bread. He also had a super smart mouth. The school called my mom and said she should pack him a more nutritious lunch and that maybe he needed to get some counseling from the school shrink. He was 7. My mom told them to go f themselves. CPS was not called. I think they figured it out.
You’ll forgive me, it being my blawg and all, for interrupting, but it’s deeply disturbing to read this sexist agenda being promoted here. What does succombing to the peer pressure of other mommies have to do with properly raising your kids? It’s about your seeking the approval of the other mommies, not about your child’s welfare.
The refusal to be guided solely by what’s in your child’s best interest isn’t a justification, but an excuse. So children won’t grow up because their mothers are afraid the other mommies will frown upon them? Maybe they have fathers who care a little more about the welfare of the children and a little less about the validation of other mommies?
Thankfully, Mirriam rejects this sexist approach.
Thank you for not acceding to or reinforcing abhorrent sexual stereotypes.
Other mommies frown upon me a lot already. I’m just trying to protect myself from future angst. Besides, my kids blatantly prefer their dad.
Never said mommies in context of child rearing, Mr. Greenfield. You’ll note I said “parent orientations” and “parents” stumble over each other to sign up to volunteer.
My conversation with my kid related to mommies because she was talking to *her* mommy trying to lay a guilt trip on aforesaid mommy. Unfortunately for my kid, it didn’t work;)
I trust you knew I was kidding re: CPS and parent conferences–hence the “;)”. If however, that was lost in translation, I assure you, I *was* kidding.
And, love the story re: the mayo sandwiches. Good for your mom!
A a gentleman, and a friend who thinks the world of you aside from this shocking display of sexism, the least I can do is allow you this graceful exit from this otherwise sordid affair.
Another off-topic, free-association comment from me, but Mirriam’s mention of mayo sandwiches dredged up a long-repressed memory of my well-meaning mother feeding me white bread smeared thick with butter and then sprinkled with sugar. Maybe all that processed fat did something to my developing brain that explains my tendency to make off-topic comments.
Butter sprinkled with sugar? That sounds crazy. Almost as crazy as interviewing Elie Mystal with Doug Berman on the Markoff suicide. Well, maybe not that crazy. Nice segue though, don’t you think?
One jelly sandwich. Day after day, year after year starting in third grade, that’s what I would pack for lunch. Didn’t like peanut butter. Brings me back. Anyway nobody cared.
The moms hate me too. Whenever I show up at school events, I talk shop with a couple of lawyer-dads because I can’t abide being cheery and peppy and chatting about the book-drive or playground equipment. Unfortunately, the one problem with being unpopular with other moms is that it can make it difficult for kids to have friends, because parents are so involved in friend selection as well. I do not get along with a single mom in my older daughter’s class and as a result, her social interactions have suffered. And while it’s all good and well to say that the other kids are sheep-like losers who are missing out on befriending a great kid, those words aren’t exactly a great comfort to an almost 14 year old who is frequently excluded. This comment is separate from the kids-growing-up thread, but it goes to Niki’s and Mirriam’s comments about the more far ranging impact of peer-pressure.
Mirriam, if your boys grow up to be lawyers, it won’t matter that they don’t know a lot of math. All they’ll need to know is how to divide any large dollar amount by three.
You’re too kind, Mr. Greenfield. Too kind;)
It’s the very least I can do. The very, very least.
One way to avoid having to adapt to other parent’s weird concepts of parenting is to become a member of the PTO. Then they’re all busy kissing up to you instead of dissing you.
It’s also a way to get self-described sanity into the system. Far more effective the many parent-teacher bafflegaff sessions, too!
My boys are twins so they will always have each other, thankfully. I don’t feel prepared for all of this school stuff coming up.
On a related note I wonder, Carolyn and Niki, if you’ve noticed the sharp divide between stay at home moms and work out of home moms. (yes, Scott, I am going to engage in sexist chatter on your blog.) When I was home and involved in playgroups, it was astounding the disdain the moms had for women who worked, as if CPS really should be called. How do we fix this? Can we?
Maybe I should write my own blog post.
Feel free to have a sexist conversation about the trials and tribulations of motherhood. After all, you are the weaker sex.
Gees Scott I’ll jumpstart your rescue now that you’ve made yourself a target because it’s hard to disagree after reading some of this.
A playgroup? Why spend precious time with with women who are evidently not your friends or give a snap of your fingers what they think about you or well, anything?