Why Some Young Adults Are Stuck in Adolescence

Transitioning into adulthood has always been a trying (but ultimately rewarding) experience. But today, it's become easier for young adults to delay that transition. Find out why.

[tyracritchley]

At 22 I've graduated college and worked at a job in my field for over a year. I've worked hard, I've worked 60+ hours a week and honestly it's all just to give my money to the landlord, the government, the debt repayment, you have to have a car to get to work so now you have to pay that off. I would honestly prefer to go build a hut in the woods and eat frickin bugs at least I would have my time back, and be able to choose what I was going to do each day. The "adult world" has become increasingly more difficult, convoluted, and uninteresting. The ability to stand out and be recognized for doing well is diminished by the sheer amount of people in the workforce. Not to mention work place politics, meaning working hard and going above and beyond goes unrecognized, so why would we do extra work for no extra benefit? I recently realized that and stopped doing overtime, I have time to myself now and it's nice. What happens when you overwork a machine? It breaks down and needs repair. They repair the machines but not the employees. We weren't raised to act like numbers we were raised to be people with passions and desires and to follow those passions and desires. Sorry but this rat race just isn't desirable, and people wonder why we're so unmotivated. What part of this was ever something we wanted to put our time and effort into?

[franciscocendejas]

Sometimes it's trauma that keeps people from moving forward. They get stuck in that space at a young age and it's all they know.

[millennial_falcon]

For myself, it’s directly related to trauma. I went through something at the age of thirteen, told someone I was thinking of suicide, did not get help and was allowed to live that way indefinitely. Lost all my friends, couldn’t focus on school or my future, etc. I was walking and breathing but I wasn’t living. I’m an adult and in some ways (developmentally) still feel like I’m thirteen.

[ginamcmanama]

I am 17 and just graduated high school, I don't blame anyone, the adult world is laid out to us as terrifying and evil. I haven't felt this lost and scared since middle school, I honestly don't even want to go on. Nothing gets better then we die, that's it, at the very least this way I am not alone. My friends don't have time for me anymore, they aren't forced to hang around me so they don't. At least I have my family. The jobs I have had have been pretty terrible and rent and any thing to pay is so expensive that you spend all of your time giving your money to someone else. I want to be better but I am just really sad. I am in college and about to start another job. I am trying but I just can't get rid of the feeling of dread and sadness.

[simonpedersen]

I blame social media and the invention of childhood

[lewispeart]

I'm 24, stuck at home, working full time, degree, savings, good life, just can't get out there on my own, not because I don't want fully 'transition' into adulthood, but because I can't afford it. Housing is scuffed, I can't afford to live with my partner, and we certainly don't want to be in a flatting situation for the rest of our lives, struggling to pay rent... economic insecurity.

[drownless]

As a 20 year old who moved out at 19, works full time, pays my own bills and insurance, I still dont agree with the "extended adolescence" thing. Only reason I can manage to pay rent and utilities is because of roommates. It used to be possible to live off of an entry level job 40 hours a week but now it just isn't. The ones staying with their parents while going through college and saving are the smart ones, as opposed to leaving home and working 60+ hours a week to barely live.

[Outdoorcookwarereviews]

Because parents today are too enabling...i left school when i was 16..the next day my dad was banging on my bedroom door at 5am yelling at me "if you think you're gonna sit on your but all day and watch tv on my dime you gotta another thing coming!" He proceeded ti do this until i found a job 2weeks later. I've been paying my own way ever since ..for 34 years in fact and now my 27 yr old daughter is doing the same.
This kinda of parenting is called child abuse today but i thank my parents for giving me guidance ...who knows where i'd be if they just let me lay around home all day eating and watching tv, that would be the real child abuse...no doubt i'd be strung out on anti depressants feeling sorry for myself.

[cassidyb.]

what's the cost? I can't pay something if I don't know what it is. I'm already thousands of dollars in debt after getting a degree, to get paid $10 and hour for a part time job and not enough years of experience to start a career. I've never once in my life met a person who is like you're describing in SCENE. The people I've known all work extremely hard, meet challenges, and work meticulously to have gotten where they are. I don't believe that adolescents are entitled, I believe that we are lied to about what life is going to be like (get a degree and you'll get a good job with benefits and a house!) when that isn't the reality of the situation. It's not that we're entitled, it's that we've been lied to and are expressing our frustration with the fact that our plans no longer work due to the crippling debt we face and the lack of well paying jobs. You say that you don't blame adolescents for their positioning and that it's cultural, but implying that we lack the characteristics to function if we find things boring, difficult or deem it 'work' implies that we're lazy and reflects more on our character than the culture around us. If you want to address culture address the expectations adolescents have for their future (due to societies influence) and how it's just not possible for many people. I understand your reasoning but I think there's a lot more at play that isn't addressed in this video

[axelwulf]

It's not so much the trouble of growing up, but the idea of having to physically go out into the world and be expected to understand it when no one took the time to take you aside and show you a couple of things that may give you a chance out there
The Boomer that invested long term, well they don't want some young punk coming in and screwing up their life's work, so they hold off on retirement as long as they can and never give anyone a chance to get anything
So we're encouraged to waste our time, money, and life on things that might have worked 40 years ago, but don't work anymore today because too many people who are underqualified were taking up all the positions and making the company lose money and look bad
We're either told continually that we need to go to college, but we're never prepared for it, or we stay in our parents' basement because finding any sort of income has become next to impossible

[chriscodling]

if a basic house is $1.2 mill and minimum wage is $6/hr why are we debating why kids can't afford to grow up? you dont need to a ted talk to explain this shit.

[AnaLu]

I'm technically a gen Z, because i was born in 2001, but i got into medical school in the age of 17, and i've matured more in one year than in my whole adolescence, because it's an ambient that requieres you to be mature, to be resbonsible and resilient.
It's weird that i got to mature so fast, but it's worth it.

[alphabanjaxedbanshee]

I'm 24, going on a fucked up 90s kid lost in timelines and the fixtures of this

[franciscocendejas]

I also don't blame students from k-12 saying it's "too hard." Have u seen the stuff they make them do for homework? Some of it is ridiculous

[adderon]

Half of the people that are 30 years old in the U.S. live currently with their parents. About the same stat before covid came along too. Social media for the most part is teen culture and anyone investing their time and energy in that is living in it

[EHAmos]

These days it feels more like you overprepare and have $10 ready instead of $1 just in case, but when you get to the tollbooth they tell you the price went up to $30.

[elainealibrandi]

There were expectations, for example, the expectation that we would get our driver's license and a job at 16. Everyone signed up for driver's ed classes at school, got our permits at 15-and-a-half, and took our tests at 16 after having had driving lessons. This wasn't necessarily expected by every parent, but by society and by each other.

Provided you were reasonably physically healthy, if you still lived at home after about age 22 or 23, you were considered dependent and kind of lazy by your peers, especially if you didn't have a job. I'm not saying that was good, but kids were expected to do many more "adult" things in the past that didn't have to do with spending money on college.

I think that's why a lot of boomers and Gen X'ers assume young people are lazy: because WE were considered lazy or lacking if we hadn't done all of those things at a younger age. Even if we'd been traumatized at home and/or at school -- and there was a lot of trauma back then as well, myself included -- we were expected to just get on with things, and that was terribly, terribly wrong.

[dannycanfield]

I don't know. I get some of what he's saying here. But, it's coming off as if he's attempting to fit a how young adults understand things into a previous culture's neoliberal mindset. The work one especially. Young generation now just understands why should my labor be exploited if the return is not good since I've seen what the economy did to others. It's not the job is beneath them, it's more they know the employer is just trying to make them work for not a fair amount.

[Rishi]

i remember sep 2015, i want to go back so bad i can't stress enough wish there was s time machine man

[eduardoquiroga]

i was never an immature inexperienced person at age 21 I feel mentally ill and stayed home without getting help for years and the people I was around didn't help at all I'm 28 now got some psychiatric help and started taking medication and ive realized what the fuck happened to me no the people that I looked down on as immature or as pussies are having a better life then I and im stuck in my parent's house still trying to get out and get into something worth living and doing. and hard has never been a problem for me, im trying to get rid of that feeling where everything feels like a punishment, or im being looked down upon, I want to get this over with and get out of this hell I put myself in. ive always ignored and wondered why the hell people needed this type of help. I couldn't wrap my head around it lol until recently its amazing. -.-