Talking 'Bout My Generation

Study Reports More 'Disconnected' Young: "Despite marked improvement in the lives of American children, a new study finds rising numbers of "disconnected" young adults — those who have no job, are not in school and have not progressed beyond a high school diploma. The Annie E. Casey Foundation study, offering an annual measure of how children are faring, showed that nearly one in six young adults — 3.8 million Americans from 18 to 24 — was not in school or the workplace in 2002."

I think that there is a general malaise and feeling of disorientation in today's young adults. I know from friends and collegues my age that we all seem rather...lost. Historically, our gender roles and class in society determined what we should do: get married, have kids, work until we die. Everything we did was essentially predetermined. Parents arranged marriages. Children were the natural result of sex without contraception. You either stayed home with the child, if you were a woman, or you probably did what your father did. There was no decision to be made, no direction to be followed. People's lives were more determined than they are today. Today you can do what ever you want, whenever you want. If you don't have to get married and have children at 18, why would you want to? So people wait. You can also choose any career you want, but the sheer number of options is unlimited, so people don't choose. Or they don't know what to choose or how to make that choice so they shut down.

The world is vastly different from what it was 50 years ago. The quarter-life crisis is now an epidemic without any real sign of relief. Our parents don't get it, because at 25 their lives were not the same as ours are now. We have no direction, no motivation, no goals, and they don't get it, because it wasn't an issue for them, so they can't help us effectively even if they want to.

Fortunately, I think that most people weather the storm of disenchantment and disorientation effectively. I've seen many people enter the storm and come out relatively unscathed but stronger with poise and direction and purpose. I think that this is just a trait of our generation, whatever that may be. We are the children of the baby boomers. We are the new lost generation. We are not generation X. We are generation next.