By Natasha Josefowitz, Ph.D.
LA JOLLA, California — It used to be that becoming an independent adult was something to look forward to. I couldn’t wait to leave my parents’ home and strike out on my own. Initial poverty was the price to be paid, but pride did not allow my generation to accept any money from home. We lived in cheap quarters, sharing them with a roommate, eating in inexpensive restaurants, mostly cooking at home and bringing a sandwich to work. In the 1950s, the Fifth Avenue bus in New York was 10 cents, while the Madison Avenue one was a nickel. I walked that extra block everyday to save 5 cents, but I was proudly independent, earning my own keep.
Something has drastically changed. There is a new phenomenon becoming pervasive from the United States to France, from Britain to Japan. This phenomenon has no name, but I call it the Peter Pan Syndrome. It is the refusal to grow up; it is adult children living with their parents, indulging themselves in the warmth of Mother’s home-cooked meals, while they are either waiting for the perfect job or working and saving. A few pay rent, most don’t.
Our whole society is glorifying adolescence as the best years of our lives. Twenty- and thirty-somethings express a nostalgia that used to be the prerogative of our grandparents. To wit, the popularity of the Cartoon Network among 20- to 35-year-olds. Adults play computer games, and Harry Potter is read by grownups. The media promotes this infantilization with shows like Glee, Gossip Girl, 90210, and One Tree Hill that portray adolescence as more rewarding than adulthood, and these are watched by older viewers. In popular shows like the Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, Family Guy, and the Simpsons adults are presented as either immature or dysfunctional.
It is one thing to not want to look old, it is another to not want to grow up. Adolescence has now extended well into the 20s and the line between childhood and adulthood is getting more vague. Growing up and being a responsible adult seem more and more unpleasant and something to be avoided. We emulate people who just want to “have fun” as a life goal.
The delaying of maturity allows young adults to stay home with their parents or return home after college or after any downturn in their lives such as divorce or job loss. Staying with a mother or father as a temporary measure in order to regroup is one thing. Making it a more permanent arrangement is another. Yet, this is the trend that we see today.
In the United States, over one-third of all single young adults live with a parent. In Japan it is almost double that number. Economic insecurity is only part of the answer. Parents are more protective than in the past, which encourages children to be more dependent, to wit: the helicopter parents who hovered over their children’s schoolwork and all extra-curricular activities. But perhaps even more important is the fear of commitment many young people seem to have. Falling in love, marrying, starting a family of one’s own includes risk. Loving is always risky. You can get hurt, whereas staying home with Mom and Dad is risk-free.
Are committed adult relationships seen as more fraught with potential disappointments today than a generation ago? It certainly seems so when we look at the growing demographic group of singles that has become a global phenomenon. In the United States it is the fastest growing group and keeps increasing. In France, it has more than doubled; in Britain it has increased threefold.
Yet these young people, the Peter Pans of today, who want to “have fun” don’t seem to be all that happy. It cannot feel right if one is not developmentally on track. In other words, if in your twenties you should be working and starting a family, but you are living in the same room you grew up in and mother’s doing your laundry, it feels like you are going backwards instead of forward. Stagnation is depressing and frustrating.
It behooves us as adults today to model responsibility, maturity, commitment and demonstrate to the next generation that being a grownup is a lot more interesting and fulfilling than staying a kid forever.
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This column also appeared in the La Jolla Village Voice