2.     In between

We all live our lives in between what is no longer and what is not yet.  But being in between defines the lifestyle of today’s young people in their twenties.  For about a decade they live in between the dependence of adolescence and the dependability of adulthood.  Emerging adulthood is a historically new developmental stage in the life span.  The previous generation (today’s parents, teachers and employers) never had to deal with this period of emerging.  They moved directly from adolescence into young adulthood.  Which may be why they want today’s young people to get on with it and to grow up.  But for all sorts of historical reasons today’s young people have no choice but to spend a lengthy time emerging into adulthood.  Living in between lives for a time is developmentally inescapable for them.  That first of all.

Second, this in between life is also a period of uncertainty.  For about a decade they live their lives between a childhood certainty and an adult certainty.  As children these young people accepted what their adults told them and that settled the matter.  What they had was an unquestioned certainty. They could be sure about something if mom, or dad or the teacher said so.  That all changed during adolescence when they developed the ability to think for themselves.  This led them to question the validity of their childhood certainties, which was a healthy process because this questioning formed a necessary bridge between the innocence of their childhood and the formation of a more realistic adult outlook on life.  For most of their parents this shift to an adult outlook on life occurred in late adolescence or early twenties.  But most of today’s young people do not arrive at this new understanding of life until their late twenties or early thirties.  Their questioning continues for another decade, which predisposes them to live in between lives.

Third, young people generally use the experience of their parents as a template for finding their own way.  Stories about what their parents experienced during their twenties and how they behaved form a kind of prototype for what they can expect and how they should behave.   But, their parents’ experience of life in their twenties was in many ways substantially different from the challenges facing today’s emerging adults.  Their parents needed less education, had more job security and married earlier than today’s young people.  All this leaves these twenty-somethings without a roadmap on the way to adulthood.  Even if they wanted to do no more than imitate the developmental trajectory of their parents they could not.  The map and the territory do not match.  This is yet another way in which they are compelled to live in between lives.

Finally, the personal development of individuals is greatly influenced by the cultural-historical unfolding of the society in which they live.  This is true also for the development of today’s emerging adults.  However, they have the misfortune of living their youth at a time in history when society is in the process of exchanging one generally accepted outlook (modernism) on life for another (postmodernism).  It is clear to many people in the know today that the old ways of looking at life are no longer adequate to the challenges of the day.   However, it is not at all clear to them what world and life view should take its place.  In the words of Arthur Zajonk: “ The old forms rattle and the new delay to appear.”   The tragedy of today’s emerging adults is that they were “born too late for the old and too early for the new faith.”