Storm wrote:
MediumTex wrote:
MachineGhost wrote:
I think we need to set smoking, drinking, driving and consensual sex to age 25 based on recent evidence in neurobiology. No joke.
It seems that people's bodies are maturing earlier and their minds are maturing later.
Not a good combination.
I think we're all finding that most people are still adult children until the age 35 or so. I know I was. This seems to mirror the experience of a lot of my old friends and college buddies who, for the most part, still lived life like a carefree teenager well into their late 20s.
I'm encouraged that a lot of people are actually taking the time to wait until their late 30s to start families. Those friends of mine that started in their early 20s are now all for the most part divorced with teenaged kids. At least if you wait until your life is more stable and you've figured out what's important in life, you might have a better chance of picking a suitable partner.
I know opinions are like assholes, but my pet theory is that society simply expects much less of people than it did before. Used to be by age 16 you were married, and men would be working and women would be mothers. Then with high schooling, 18 becomes the cut-off point at which you're expected to ba an adult, and then along came this glorious ideal of universal college education, so now it's socially acceptable to remain a kid until you're 22. If you go to grad school, you can easily push this out until 27 or 28, or even later. My mother has had grad students in their mid 30s who have been in some higher education institution or other continuously for almost 20 years! These are people we're talking about who may never have had a job, are probably not married, and are in no real condition to take on any kind of responsibility at all. Even if you don't go to grad school, for some bizarre reason it seems perfectly socially acceptable for parents to take their adult children back where if they want they continue to be jobless and carefree. I just don't feel that there's any real social pressure anymore for children to grow up. There's monetary pressure, as always, but that's easily mitigated by easy-money credit, welfare programs, and over-generous parents. I see it time and time again with my generation (22-27). it doesn't seem like people really express disapproval of able-bodied young people who pursue endless expensive education, remain jobless for large periods of time, delay or avoid marriage, move back in with parents, pass up menial jobs as "beneath them", party through their 20s, fail to think about their future, and so on and so forth.
Get off my lawn! [/crotchety old man mode]
Human behavior is economic behavior. The particulars may vary, but competition for limited resources remains a constant.
- CEO Nwabudike Morgan
