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"Emerging adulthood"

Posted by Lotg on October 29, 2003

In Reply to: "Emerging adulthood" posted by Word Camel on October 29, 2003

: : : : : : The importance of single young people living with their parents as a market for the Irish billion-euro food-service industry has been highlighted in new consumer research compiled by the Irish Food Board.

: : : : : : SLOPs, according to the researchers, are Singles Living Off Parents, and they have been identified as prime drivers in the take-away sector.
: : : : : : - The Irish Times, 29 October 2003

: : : : : In a news article recently, it stated that the new age of adulthood is now 26 -- not 18 (voting age in the U.S.) or 21 (legal drinking age in most states). As the mother of two 20-year-olds, I'm sorry to hear that.

: : : : And, as the father of a 26 year old, I live in hope.

: : : : Another of those terms for groups of children is boomerang kids. This one is for children who leave home as adults only to return a few years later when times get hard. I've heard that in Sweden this group has got their own back on their parents for name calling. They call middle age parents the 'flashing twelve hundreds', claiming that when they return home that's what all the digital clocks on cookers, videos etc. look like as the parents don't understand how to reset them.

: : : ".Gone is the notion that adulthood officially started at 18, when one typically graduated from high school - or even 21, the modern-day age limit for drinking alcohol. Now many experts simply consider those markers along the way. And it appears that Americans agree. A University of Chicago survey, released earlier this year, found that most think adulthood begins at age 26. '"It's not like one day you wake up and you're an adult. It's much more gradual,' says developmental psychologist Jeffrey Arnett. A professor at the University of Maryland, he is writing a book on what he calls 'emerging adulthood' - the period between age 18 to 25." From "Rethinking The Age Of Adulthood," CBS News online at www.cbsnews.com

: : But the legal age of adulthood is still 18 in the US. That is, at 18 you can legally enter contracts and things of that nature.

: Is it really though? You can't drink at 18.

My partner wishes his 16 year old was aware of all this. After my partner and her mother separated, she lived with us for a while, but when I sprung her in bed with the boyfriend we made stricter rules.

She didn't like living with rules, so her mother bribed her to live with her by telling her there would be no rules - and there weren't. Her mother allowed her, at 15 to go out to dance parties 60kms away and do her own thing. At 15 she was a 5'8", leggy, good looking blonde with a great figure who of course, looked at least 18. All her friends were 18 and over. This unfortunately resulted in her messing around with 'e' and many other undesirable things and staggering home drunk (and no doubt drugged) at (what I consider to be) unacceptable times of the morning - (and I aint no prude).

This behaviour left unchecked, if not condoned, resulted in rebellion. But there's a sort of happy ending.

At 16 she's already left home, and living with her boyfriend. In this country, at 16 she can make those choices. She can legally sign some contracts, she can learn to drive and obtain her license, but she can't vote or legally drink at pubs yet. Fortunately, her rebellion has been relatively healthy, as she is now employed (actually by me) and her experiments with drugs and alcohol left her very sick. So she also appears to have rebelled against alcohol and drugs.

So, while it may sound like bliss to some of you still lumbered with your physically very adult children, to be able to divest yourself of your (adult) child, we do wish she hadn't been allowed such liberties, and thus decided so young that she was an adult.

However if you are still lumbered with your 26 year olds, for the sake of your own independence, it's got to be worth learning how to reset your clocks - surely (he he).

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