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CHAPTER 11

Adulthood

Emerging Adulthood

This chapter is the pivot between childhood and adulthood, between growing up and being “a grown-up,” as children call adults. The earlier and later periods of this book are all explained in twin chapters: one for Body and Mind, and one for the Social World. But this period of life blurs the boundaries of development. One chapter is best.

Emerging adulthood is a time when people continue learning and exploring, postponing marriage, parenthood, and career while preparing for the rest of life. This once seemed a luxury stage for those with relatively high SES from developed nations, but now it is apparent worldwide.

In every nation, the average age of marriage and parenthood is later than it was 50 years ago. Millions of young adults are attending college and exploring vocations—unlike the generations preceding them, who were quick to settle down. Emerging adulthood is a dramatic example of a cohort change: Now we see it, then we did not. Readers of this text have probably witnessed this stage in themselves or their friends.

I witnessed it, too. One example is my youngest daughter. My husband and I worried that she was not taking life seriously, not doing what needed to be done, not sticking to any one goal, or friend, or hobby. When she was in high school we thought the problem was too much TV. We hid the television. She was furious; she searched and found it. In desperation, my husband cut the wire (he reconnected it later).

My daughter vowed not to study and to watch her favorite programs elsewhere. Her English teacher said we shouldn’t worry; some teenagers take longer to settle down. We knew about identity confusion, so we waited.

We were relieved when she chose a small college in a semirural community; we hoped that context would quiet her down. Wrong.

She still experimented and explored, as emerging adults do. She tutored refugees, got a part-time job at a chain restaurant, and applied to transfer to another college with an essay that began “I miss sidewalks.” The following year, at her new urban college, she joined the crew team (which meant rising at dawn), majored in economics (as no one in our family ever had), and spent a semester in a nation none of us had visited (Spain).

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After graduation, she still did not follow one straight path. She lived in three places within a few years (breaking one lease because the landlord did not get rid of bedbugs), worked as an intern at one company, a temporary employee at another, and was an unemployed job-searcher for a while.

Finally, since age 25, she has had one job, one apartment, one persona. There is much more to her story, as is true for everyone from ages 18 to 25 as they navigate the new complexities of work and relationships. Suffice it to say that, in retrospect, I have seen emerging adulthood in many people I know. You probably have, too.