Designated responsible adult
Young, wild and free
How do we define adulthood? Is it on our 18th birthdays when we’re officially out of the guardianship of our parents or carers, free to become legally independent and make decisions for ourselves? For women, is it when they start their periods or become of a ‘child-bearing’ age? The two are not mutually exclusive. Is it when you’ve left university, started your first ‘proper’ job, bought a house, and become truly financially independent? Is it when you favour a salad for lunch instead of jam sandwiches cut into triangles, or when your teddy gets demoted from the bed to the back of the wardrobe? I harbour no bias. All my friends are pushing 30 and have recently become obsessed with playing the game Dress To Impress aimed at teenagers.
In the wake of various bouts of economic, social and cultural uncertainty in the last 15-20 years, it feels harder to encompass adulthood in terms of markers of traditional milestones than ever before.
A few weeks ago, I listened to a Today in Focus podcast episode about more people living at home than ever before. Specifically, millennials are finding themselves still living or moving back in with their parents to save money for house deposits or due to astronomical rent amounts. Since 2019, rent in London has increased by 32%. It’s reported that in 2022-23, the average age for a first-time buyer in England was 34 which is up 5 years since 2011. Given the fact house prices have been increasing at a rate far higher than salaries, it’s no wonder more young people are struggling.
If living alone is a ‘sign of maturity’, living with your parents longer than you expected can feel like a failure for many, while sharing with strangers can be what
describes “one of the most complex living set-ups of the 21st century”. In her new book, How to Stay Sane in a House Share, Wilkson explores the ‘lost’ and ‘stuck’ feelings she grappled with co-existing with others at home. Ultimately, her story is one of finding connection and companionship but this is not something that arrives effortlessly or for everyone.Last year, a 75-year-old Italian woman won a case against her “parasitic” sons in their forties who refused to leave home, adding fuel to the raging burning fire of their mother’s frustration by not contributing to running costs or helping with chores. The case speaks more to the idleness of the men in question. But what burden of responsibility should parents have (if any) for their children who may otherwise be struggling to become financially independent, particularly when trying to flee the nest and find somewhere else to live?
There are a myriad of reasons I could reel off right now to suggest why the average age of people having children has increased. In England and Wales, the average age of mothers giving birth in 2021 was 30.9 years, and the average age of fathers was 33.7 years. These are the highest ages since data collection began in 1938 for mothers and 1964 for fathers. The correlation between this increase and that of the average age of a first-time buyer seems obvious. Lacking the ideal home environment and financial ability to get there has surely delayed or postponed many people’s decision to have children.
Many people are now choosing not to have children at all. Birthrates are plummeting worldwide.
Suppressive one-child policies, the climate crisis, the state of maternal healthcare, or restricted access to reproductive aids like IVF are just some other influencing factors. We are an ageing population. Life expectancies are continuing to increase having skyrocketed in the twentieth century. Does this justify a coming-of-age into adulthood at a later point in time than we’ve held on a cultural basis in the past?
Family planning and marriages- by 2016, the average age of marriage, for a first-time marriage, had risen by 8+ years to 31.5 for women and 33.4 for men- would seem to suggest so.
For many, this isn’t seen as a good thing.
cites this as a “terrifying infantilisation problem” for America. Whereby Gen Z are developing slower than any generation. She expresses fear for children growing up today and blames softer parenting for not enforcing a greater amount of responsibility onto them from a young age.Peter Pan syndrome is used to describe adults who are socially immature and having difficulty ‘growing up’. It's more common in cisgender men and people assigned male at birth and while
PPS is not officially recognised as a clinical diagnosis, psychologists may use the term to describe a certain behaviour pattern in people. Since the 1980s, people who prefer to engage in activities associated with children, neglecting the responsibilities and challenges of adulthood. A person with such traits may be denounced by others, reinforcing the idea that to live with challenges, or even suffering, is something you must accept moving forward into adulthood. It feels quite reductive to dismiss the idea that becoming an adult is not without struggles that can oftentimes become overwhelming.
The rejection of the duty, responsibility and seriousness of adulthood has been somewhat reinvented and become more popularised in recent media content. “I’m just a girl” is a TikTok trend (of course) that attempts to preserve the nostalgic experience of being a teenage girl, while simultaneously justifying making decisions that are a bit silly, or relinquishing responsibility for mistakes. It’s satirical in its origins, often used as an ironic statement of incompetence against male-dominated spheres. But is also a testament to how many adults want to reclaim and connect with childlike parts of themselves, into their twenties and beyond.
Age is just a number, you’re as old as you feel. Being an adult, a person with ultimate agency, is what we all dream of when we’re growing up and feel curtailed by our parents in getting our own way. But I’m inclined to agree with Sophie Lucido Johnson that for the most part, adulthood is a myth.
