Emerging Adulthood: Extending the Angst of the Teenage Years

In the newly defined stage of "emerging adulthood," young adults in their late teens and early twenties often find themselves struggling to find a unique and individual identity that they can truly call their own. It is common to find emerging adults who either shun their parents or whose parents have thrown up their hands and given up on trying to relate to them. In these cases, young adults will often turn to their peers for advice on who they should be. Ironically, the majority of emerging adults are stuck in this same limbo stage.

It is adaptive for us to have this limbo stage of "emerging adulthood," in our culture because finding your role in society is a big part of moving on to actual adulthood. Right now, the idea of emerging adulthood is still being explored, but as it becomes a more well recognized stage of development, it would be beneficial to use this time to help these youth by enrolling them in programs that will help them learn about enriching job and life opportunities that relate to them.

My personal experience with emerging adulthood has been stressful due to my absolute uncertainty about the future. As I near graduation, my classes have helped me learn a lot about myself, but my post-college career plan is basically nonexistent. My mom (always worried about her children's futures) enrolled me in an aptitude testing program in Seattle that I will be participating in over spring break. I have heard good things about these tests, but can't speak for them from personal experience yet. My hope is that it will point me in a direction where I can find a fulfilling and stable career.

If tests like the one I will be taking are accurate and do tend to push people in a direction that is right for them, I could see this becoming a great college graduation present, especially for students with degrees that don't necessarily have an obvious career associated with them. Emerging adults need direction, but they aren't typically going to find it from their peers. As we learn more about this developmental stage, it will be interesting to see how Americans choose to address people in this age category. Ideally, we will see less ambiguity and more career counseling and direction for this very uncertain and angsty group of prospective adults.

The Misleading Media

This PediaSure advertisement really gets under my skin. It's one of those "quick fix," "easy solution" advertisements. PediaSure uses an experience shared by most, if not all, parents: "My child is a picky eater," or "My child won't eat X, Y, or Z." Never fear though, because instead of disciplining your child or finding some creative way to teach your children to eat foods that are good for them, why don't we just appease your children with a sugary drink we know they'll just love.

It's not just the shameless marketing of their product (which is obviously inferior to actually eating fruits and vegetables) that bothers me though. This ad is promoting and normalizing the lax-permissive parenting style that is becoming more and more prevalent in the United States. It teaches parents to make their kids happy, while avoiding teaching them valuable life lessons like, "Hey, broccoli is good for you!"We can't afford to bend over backwards for children all of the time, because the real world doesn't bend over backwards for anyone. When these hypothetical pampered PediaSure children enter America's workforce, they won't know how to deal with criticism from their bosses because they have always gotten to do things their way. They won't follow directions particularly well because they've always been the boss.

This advertisement also shows parents what "success" looks like. This mom is "successful" by the end of the ad and even claims to have "peace of mind" thanks to using PediaSure to ensure that her child is well-nourished. But what has this parent really succeeded at? Preventing a temper tantrum? Does giving your child a nutritional beverage really make you a successful parent? Obviously not, but many parent viewers are victims of advertisements like this one, promising easy solutions to your parenting problems.

The real solution to this greater, media problem is absolutely education. Promoting media literacy, as we have discussed in class, is incredibly important for children, teens, and parents alike. As consumers of media, we are responsible for understanding the risks involved when we are exposed to commercials like this one. Americans need to learn how to take these advertisements with a whole lot of salt because unless more restrictive laws are passed, advertisers will only learn how to become more and more convincing with their audience analysts and psychologists helping them along the way. It is hard to say what the future of advertising holds, but for now, the easiest solution may be to hit the mute button as soon as those pesky commercials start running.

Delusions of Grandeur

Lori Gottlieb's article from The Atlantic on How to Land Your Kid in Therapy resonated very strongly with some of the topics I am currently interested in studying. Her observations about the connection between self-esteem, narcissism, and feelings of entitlement are very insightful. I found myself linking her discussion of narcissism back to an article that the Huffington Post Blog shared a few months ago entitled Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy (link below). The post gives a beautifully, brutally honest assessment of why this particular generation of college students (and recent graduates) are ending up in therapy despite their mild, sheltered upbringing. Whereas in past generations, Gottlieb noted that she had no trouble "making connections between [her patient's] grievances and their upbringings," a new trend appeared that was at first difficult to decipher. Patients in their 20's and 30's who had lived relatively privileged, cushy childhoods, were still seeking therapy for feelings of depression or unhappiness.

The Huffington Post blatantly describes what Gottlieb patiently explained in a more politically correct way. Essentially, the blog post explains (with lots of lovely visual aids provided) that there is a disparity between what today's children expect from the so-called "real world" and what reality gives them instead. Children are told that they can do anything they want and that they are exceptionally special. When you set a child's expectations so astronomically high, reality could only be disappointing in comparison to the child's inflated idea of what opportunities the world holds for them. The blogger refers to Generation Y as delusional as a result of being raised to believe that we are somehow more special than all of our peers. Because of our inflated sense of self, we expect that opportunities will be knocking on our door as soon as we graduate from college. We also cringe at the slightest bit of negative feedback because it is in direct conflict with how we perceive ourselves (as essentially perfect).

The blog post concludes with some advice for Generation Y, the most important of which being that we are not special...yet. But we might be able to become special one day if we work incredibly hard for something. And as Gottlieb explains in her article for The Atlantic, we can't continue to tell our kids, "You can do anything you want, you can quit any time..." Kids need encouragement to be sure, but they also need direction, structure, and a grasp on the sometimes harsh nature of reality before stepping into the real world and experiencing it first hand.

Gen Y Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unhappy_b_3930620.html

Pressure to Perform

Academic pressure to perform well in school is a stressor for most high school and college students. When grades can greatly broaden or narrow your chances at getting into a university or getting the career of your dreams, who wouldn't want a boost to set themselves up for success? Doctor prescribed amphetamines administer that necessary boost, and many students are choosing to use these drugs whether or not they have a prescription.

The problem with prospective colleges and employers is that they often love to see their applicants' "stats" on paper (e.g. SAT scores, grades, and other standardized test scores). Unfortunately, the more students feel pressure from teachers and parents to perform better, the more likely they are to turn to questionable means in order to obtain higher scores. If, as New York Times writer Alan Schwarz claims, up to one-third of students choose to take these academic performance-enhancing drugs, will these scores maintain their integrity for much longer? In the end, these scores that colleges and employers value so highly will consequently mean less and less due to the unfair advantage some students using amphetamines have over their non-drug-abusing counterparts. We can't weed out the scores that were enhanced by drugs from the scores that were genuinely earned.

Educational institutions and employers may need to find other ways to measure the aptitude and abilities of their prospective applicants if they hope to provide equal opportunities for everyone. Teaching to the test and pressuring students to study harder if they want to have a future adds enough strain to force some students to resort to some desperate measures. Is this a sign that our educational system needs some revising? Possibly. But the issue also screams "white-people problems!" It is difficult for us to label our upper-middle-class white youth as deviant, but societal pressures can even make our most privileged population turn to illegal means if that's what it takes to please and impress the right people.