In Friday’s New York Times Patricia Cohen had an article about delayed adulthood. It talks about how turning 21 no longer qualifies as a transition to adulthood. Traditionally, the model was that a person would turn 21, finish their studies, get a job, and marry within a few years. Now, people continue to study, and pursue long term professional goals so that marrying and family has become a lifestyle choice rather than a rite of passage.
The passage that stood out to me was this:
The stretched-out walk to independence is rooted in social and economic shifts that started in the 1970s, including a change from a manufacturing to a service-based economy that sent many more people to college, and the women’s movement, which opened up educational and professional opportunities.
I love this important shift in the rhetoric of career versus marriage. A few years ago, and even now, I read so often that women had chosen career over family. But I believe that for my generation, that was not quite right. My sense is that we did what was expected of us. Feminists were so enthused about the possibility of working that they consciously and unconsciously pushed their daughters to pursue professional achievement. No one was thinking what impact this might have on family. When I was 35 and longed for a family, I remember thinking, “When did I choose to put career first? I just did what I was told. I never thought I’d be here worrying that I might never have a family.” (Note the following comment from the subject of the article: “That probably did have an influence,” she added, since her mother always encouraged her to get an education and have a career.) So what is the lesson here? I always say, change is good…particularly the massive changes of the last 50 years. But, we now have to work to rebalance the change and pull a new, more effective equilibrium from the fallout.