Posted by: Denelle
There was a fascinating article earlier this month in the New York Times discussing the stages of life and how they've changed/expanded over the past fifty years or so. Now instead of the four traditional stages of childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age, we have childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age. While most of these are self explanatory, what exactly is odyssey?
Odyssey, the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood.
Ahh, this is all suddenly starting to make sense.
During this decade, 20-somethings go to school and take breaks from school. They live with friends and they live at home. They fall in and out of love. They try one career and then try another.
Their parents grow increasingly anxious. These parents understand that there’s bound to be a transition phase between student life and adult life. But when they look at their own grown children, they see the transition stretching five years, seven and beyond. The parents don’t even detect a clear sense of direction in their children’s lives.
Sounds like he's been talking to my mother.
They see that people in this age bracket are delaying marriage. They’re delaying having children. They’re delaying permanent employment.
Check, check and check.
Let's face it. Life just isn't the same as it was even twenty years ago. While education is becoming broader jobs are becoming more specific so that you need more education. Most employers aren't hiring you with the intention of keeping you for 30 years and then giving you a gold watch and a pension fund as you retire. And most of us won't live our lives in the same communities where we grew up, went to school, or where our families live. Nothing seems to last forever.
Dating gives way to Facebook and hooking up. Marriage gives way to cohabitation. Church attendance gives way to spiritual longing. Newspaper reading gives way to blogging.
Social life is fluid. There’s been a shift in the balance of power between the genders. Thirty-six percent of female workers in their 20s now have a college degree, compared with 23 percent of male workers. Male wages have stagnated over the past decades, while female wages have risen.
This has fundamentally scrambled the courtship rituals and decreased the pressure to get married. Educated women can get many of the things they want (income, status, identity) without marriage, while they find it harder (or, if they’re working-class, next to impossible) to find a suitably accomplished mate.
AMEN!
The odyssey years are not about slacking off. There are intense competitive pressures as a result of the vast numbers of people chasing relatively few opportunities. Moreover, surveys show that people living through these years have highly traditional aspirations (they rate parenthood more highly than their own parents did) even as they lead improvising lives.
Some of us have starting calling this phase of life the twenty-something crisis (instead of having a mid-life crisis). When you wake up one morning at 27 (or 26, or 28) and suddenly think "what am I doing with my life." Then you look around at the friends/family who do have the spouse/kids/home and suddenly feel like a failure despite your multiple degrees and well paying job. And instead of staring down thirty being settled and content you find yourself trying to figure out what the next step is-gradschool, move to a new city, join the peace corps-so that maybe by 40 you'll be able to have the things you want most in life.
And what would really help are support groups, specifically religious groups, that offer a sense of stability for the Odyssey generation. But as the author of the article points out "It’s a phase in which some social institutions flourish — knitting circles, Teach for America — while others — churches, political parties — have trouble establishing ties."
We have children's church, pre-teen/jr. high groups, youth groups, young married groups, and senior groups. Some churches have "singles" groups but too often they are comprised of those in their late teens looking for love or those in their forties and up who are often divorces, have kids, widowed, etc. and thereby have a whole separate set of needs.
Instead, the Odyssey generation is left to fend for themselves and to continue desperately searching for a place to belong. Is it any wonder that so many find that connection in book clubs, volunteer work, and other secular groups? Why is it that religious groups can't find a place for single twenty and thirty somethings? Are we so stuck in the mindset that says "you go to school, you get married, you have kids" that we can't tell that the world has changed (if you need further proof, I challenge you to stroll through the Word Aflame Bookstore booth at the next general conference and see exactly what/how much material you can find for this group - trust me, it's an exercise in futility)?
And as the new generational structure solidifies, social and economic entrepreneurs will create new rites and institutions.
One can only hope that the religious community will wake-up and be at the forefront of the development process.
