EAD Fall 17 Paper 3: Txeiters, The Responsible Adult

THE ‘RESPONSIBLE ADULT’
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The ‘Responsible Adult’
Today, the group transitioning from adolescence to adulthood is more educated than any other generation in history. The older generations should take pride in bringing up an educated generation. Quite the contrary is happening, more of these adults in their 20s are perceived to be seemingly ‘regressive’ in their approach to life and the older generations are raising a red flag and attempting to establish a baseline to judge their efforts. For example, some of them move back to their parents while others move in with friends in big cities as they attempt to settle. Those who move out and start their lives are praised and adored while those who go back to their homes are criticized and often perceived as lazy, dependent and unaggressive in their approach to life. As CITATION Flo07 \l 1033 (Vasquez, 2007) notes, going back to the family home signals a reluctance to take on those challenges, as well as a sense of entitlement to a particular lifestyle that these young adults grew up with and don’t want to sacrifice. They have often been branded, kidults, a term coined by psychologists, sociologists and economists and they call people in their 20s who are legally and biologically adults but seem to have adolescent mannerisms. Most of their decisions are judged and branded ‘responsible’ or ‘irresponsible’ oblivious of the reasoning behind them. The purpose of this essay is to debunk the myth that kidults are irresponsible adults and show that their ‘flawed decisions’ is a misunderstanding.
To begin with, kidults’ predicament stems from the developmental markers and timelines instituted by the society which exert pressure on them. Completing college or becoming a graduate are some of the developmental markers that ‘label’ people and the society pushes them to measure up to their expectations. They are expected to find a job and become independent though these jobs do not come by easily and most of these young adults a caught by the brutality of the real world. CITATION Rya07 \l 1033 (Healy, 2007) wonders ‘why the society wants them to go from adolescent to adult in a matter of weeks or months?’ The unforgiving world either forces them to reconsider their decision to move in with their family or settling for lower paying jobs as they seek to liberate themselves from their predicament. This period according to CITATION Lev05 \l 1033 (Grossman, 2005) is where ‘people stall for a few extra years, putting off the iron cage of adult responsibility.’ They become job nomads and partly dependent on their parents as they seek to build their careers. Though the developmental markers are important moments in their lives, it exposes them to real unforgiving world which not only takes them by surprise but also alters their lives forever. Those who are not ‘mature’ enough or do not have the capacity to survive this phase, they make bad decisions that affect their lives and those around them forever. The developmental markers come with timelines. These timelines may be based of biological, economic and social factors and they come with ov...