Mandatory Culturing

I keep thinking back every day now to when I read Robin Marantz Henig’s article “What is it about 20-somethings?” and read what he proposed as some ideal benefits of Emerging Adulthood. He proposes the following as something the government could create: “a federal program in which a government-sponsored savings account is created for every newborn, to be cashed in at age 21 to support a year’s worth of travel, education or volunteer work”

The reason I sep thinking about this is because I see how extremely stressed people around me who are graduating are. Everyone wishes they could take some time off after graduation to explore the world and have new experiences. I totally relate to this, who doesn’t want to break free and try something radically different after being literally boxed up in the education system for our ENTIRE lives thus far! It’s making me anxious even to write this but I can’t stress enough how important I think traveling and getting a new perspective on life is for everyone.

I’ve been able to travel to many countries around the world in my lifetime with my family and I feel like I am a better, more open and cultured person because of that. Seeing a new country and a new culture and way of living life really opens one’s eyes to how wonderful the world is. I think it’s a horrid thing that most graduates are forced to earn a living as son as our graduation caps are thrown into the air. I hope someday Henig’s idea is possible. 

Voices in my head

I find it cruel and yet funny how over the years our parents’ voices and opinions get engrained in our heads. As children we idolize them and do everything they say as if it is law. As teenagers we hate them and disagree with everything they say under the excuse that they don’t understand us. As Emerging Adults though we start to see them as what they really are: human beings just like us with their own faults and strengths. We begin to respect them, appreciate them and yet distance ourselves from them comfortably.
But we never escape them. As children it is drilled into us that they are the ultimate authority, and even though we know better now there is still some deeply rooted need to satisfy them or impress them. I know that I always hear my mom’s voice in my head when I do something questionable or when I am wrestling with tough choices; I know what she will say and how she would react and still sometimes use it as a guiding force through life.

I recently read Stanley Milgram’s book “Obedience and Authority” where he describes the process and results of his famous experiment. In it he asks volunteers to act as a ‘teacher’ for the ‘learner’ in the next room by reading out a list of word associations to the learner through a microphone, writing for their answer and shocking them if the answer is wrong. The shocks increase in intensity with each wrong answer and the purpose of the experiment is to see how far an individual will go to satisfy a figure of authority, in this case the experimenter.
I just think the ultimate figure of authority will always be our parent’s because whether we like it or not they are basically God to us, they created us!!! Parent-child relationships are definitely something to keep researching as theories on Emerging Adulthood continue their debate. 

Pre-marriage

I find it strange that according to Choan’s findings in “Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Communication”,  “spouses who cohabited before marriage demonstrated more negative and less positive problem solving and support behaviors compared to spouses who did not cohabit.” I would have absolutely thought the opposite; couples who do things as if they are married, before they are actually married, always seem to be the more content ones to me because they’ve had a test run before committing fully to each other.

For example, my parents became pregnant with me a year before they got married. They are still in love and happy. I don’t actually remember if they lived together in their own place before getting married, but they definitely dated for a few years. Of course I understand Choan’s findings are general and don’t apply to every case but I still found it unexpected. I wonder if it has anything to do with that 2 year lust effect wearing off. 

Life Cycle

After reading’s Nelson’s paper  “Rites of Passage in Emerging Adulthood: Perspectives of Young Mormons” I felt a need to write personally on this topic as I have a friend who I grew up with who is Mormon. She was the oldest of seven children, and her mother was so young (20 when she had her) that now they almost look alike. That girl has just become a wife and mother herself — and I remember thinking that her life was over before it had even begun! I could not believe that she would be content preparing all her life, going to school, obeying her parents, only to drop out of school halfway through to become a mother and start the whole family duty circle again. She’s spending her emerging adulthood as an adult, or according to Henig’s article she simply skipped EA.

Nelson writes: “One of the most notable features of emerging adulthood is the opportunity it provides for identity explorations in the areas of love, work, and world views.” It seems sad to think of so many people who don’t get to experience their twenties freely and therefore do not get to see themselves become their own people, simply because they are following age-old rules and obeying their faith.

That said, she seems genuinely happy and I guess that truly is all that matters. Arum and Roksa write that grades are an effective was of evaluating a students progress. I could not disagree more. Maybe it’s because I go to film school and what really matters is the quality and the passion put into your work rather than if you satisfied some professor’s personal taste. I think grades are useful to the extent of reflecting the true level of understanding a student has reached in a classroom when they take a test, but I don’t think grades themselves should be the motivating factor in any young learner’s life, we should find a way to engage and motivate students without the alternative to learning 

College Cultures and Student Learning (Arum & Roksa)

This article discusses how the format of college makes the student learn less than they actually should. While this may be true, I find grade school to be filled much more with empty space. In grade school, we would sit around for long periods of time waiting for the other students to quiet down, our class periods would be so short we would barely have enough time to absorb the knowledge before hustling off to the next class, and most of school was a social playground. It was always a huge concern, who was “popular” or not. 

In college, everything is completely different. We don’t have to worry about who is popular; we are all different groups of people and have friends that fit our personalities perfectly.. We also are going to a school we have hand-picked and decided to go to because it would fit OUR needs and interests. The process of selecting a college is so careful and personal that it is inevitable that we are able to grow more in college than in grade school, where we are all just thrown together since we live nearby.

While time may be wasted in any classroom, I thoroughly believe college — with all its teachings on how to live your life as an adult, how to be responsible for yourself, etc. — is a far better use of a student’s time than grade school ever was.

One final thing I feel a need to express that I think all educational systems are extremely flawed in is the grading system. 

"Grown-ups"

"Most people never define who they are as a personality type until their 30’s”. This quote from the TIME article “The Me Me Me Generation” by Joel Stein is interesting to me because there have been so many developments in science over the years that it seems these predictions sep changing. Not so long ago it was thought that a person’s brain fully finished developing in their late teens, now they say it actually happens into their twenties, but then Stein says crucial parts of who we are are still being developed at 30!

I’ve been working on a feature film as an assistant editor these past few weeks and I’ve found it very interesting that my employers feel much different than you would expect regular bosses to be. They are indeed young (I’d estimate early 30’s at most) but they act very laid back and relaxed as if we were all part of the same Emerging Adult group.
This is a change I’ve noticed in young adults lately. Those in higher level positions who are still young (above 30) definitely feel like part of my same generation, unlike someone from the 60’s who would be a more stereotypical kind of adult. I think the millennial generation has been so traumatized with how stern and dry adults used to be that they proposed to themselves to never grow up like that, I know that’s what I’m proposing to myself. Or maybe I’m just reading too much into the “dude’s” and “man’s” that I hear from them.

So I don’t think that Stein or anyone else for that matter is correct in assuming that who we are is ever done developing. We are social and interactive animals who experience the world and others around us day to day. According to Hendry and Kloep, these experiences change us every day and  therefore development is constant and never 

Arnett Video on Emerging Adulthood

I think it's super helpful and interesting to put a face to the voice we've been reading in class. Check out this video where Arnett is interviewed about Emerging Adulthood and maybe share it with future classes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_f8DmU-gQQ