Praise for
PARENTING YOUR EMERGING ADULT
There are numerous books to help parents through the sleepless nights and difficult days of infancy, the tumultuous terrible twos, the emotional roller coaster of puberty and the overall angst of adolescence. However, in my experience working with and studying parents, no period of their children’s development is as perplexing for parents as emerging adulthood and no task more difficult than helping their children successfully transition to adulthood. Despite the challenges in and the importance of emerging adulthood, for no period of development have fewer books been written to help parents. That has changed completely with this book!
Varda Konstam provides parents with an empirically based book that delivers an insightful, informative, and interesting look into the major issues facing young people as they make the transition to adulthood. Konstam’s experience as a teacher, clinician, researcher and parent enables her to present information and ideas in an accessible way that will empower parents to be able to help their children flourish rather than flounder as they navigate the wonderful yet perilous years of emerging adulthood.
—Larry J. Nelson, PhD, Associate Professor,
School of Family Life, Brigham Young University
Today parents and young adult children inhabit a new world of child-parent relationships. Konstam translates research findings on the worldview of today’s young adults into sound parenting ideas. After a careful analysis of the economic and social transformations that place emerging adults in a world quite different from their parents’ experience, Konstam helps parents think through the challenges of parenting in very pragmatic ways, with attention to issues in living together, finances, managing conflict and supporting the developing adult’s full emergence.
Konstam’s voice is clear, supportive and realistic. Throughout, she remains marvelously sympathetic and attuned to the perspectives of both parents and their emerging adults. This wise book helps parents understand their emerging adult children and provides an optimistic view of how parents can support the development of their children’s adult identities.
—Douglas Davies, MSW, PhD, Author of
Child Development: A Practitioner’s Guide, Lecturer,
School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
PARENTING YOUR
EMERGING ADULT
PARENTING YOUR
EMERGING ADULT
Launching Kids from 18 to 29
DR. VARDA KONSTAM
New Horizon Press
Far Hills, New Jersey
To Marvin, Amanda, and Jeremy—who continue to inspire me
Copyright © 2013 by Varda Konstam
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, including electronic, mechanical or any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher.
Requests for permission should be addressed to:
New Horizon Press
P.O. Box 669
Far Hills, NJ 07931
Konstam, Varda
Parenting Your Emerging Adult: Launching Kids from 18 to 29
Cover design: Bob Aulicino
Interior design: Scribe Inc.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012945206
ISBN-13 (eBook): 978-0-88282-4338
New Horizon Press
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
171615141312345
Author’s Note
This book is based on the author’s research, personal experience, interviews and life experiences.
The quest to define and reach adulthood plays itself out uniquely in every family. The voices of individuals used from the author’s research come from different walks of life and different sociocultural contexts. In order to protect privacy, names have been changed and identifying characteristics have been altered except for contributing experts.
For purposes of simplifying usage, the pronouns his/her and s/he are sometimes used interchangeably. The information contained herein is not meant to be a substitute for professional evaluation and therapy with mental health professionals.
Acknowledgements
A special thank you to two exceptional individuals, Selda Celen-Demirtas and Alex Bayne.
Their assistance, support and commitment have been invaluable in writing this book and have affirmed the best qualities of this generation of emerging adults.
Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter 1“I Child-Proofed My House, But They Still Get In”
Chapter 2Emerging Adults at Work
Chapter 3Career Indecision or Experimentation?
Chapter 4From the Professional to the Personal
Chapter 5Technology in the Lives of Emerging Adults
Chapter 6Parenting an Emerging Adult
Chapter 7Standing By, Letting It Be and Letting Go
Chapter 8Second Time Around
Chapter 9Conflict and Your Emerging Adult
Chapter 10Working With the Grain
Notes
Chapter 1
“I CHILD-PROOFED MY HOUSE, BUT THEY STILL GET IN.”
—Author unknown
In many ways more savvy and mature than their parents’ generation, in other ways bewilderingly slow to develop, emerging adults are perplexing and hard to categorize as a group. They seem at once to be more fearless and yet more anxiety-ridden than generations past; more practical and yet more irresponsible, more globally aware and yet more self-absorbed, more interconnected and yet more isolated. The paradoxes persist.
Emerging adults are not a monolithic entity. Their behaviors are, in part, informed by the global, unpredictable and unstable context they are negotiating. In a world of lightning-fast social, technological and economic change, the future is a vast unknown for today’s emerging adults. Familiarity, predictability and stability are in short supply. This generation of emerging adults may be the first generation that is growing up without the illusion that the world they will grow old in will look anything like the world they live in now. Ambiguity and uncertainty prevail.
Each generation, over the last century, has taken longer to assume the roles of adulthood than the previous one. Rather than viewing this as a problem to be fixed, it can also be viewed as a natural development, given that the world has grown vastly more complex and the fact that people live longer. The old rules no longer appear to apply. Being an emerging adult is a different experience today when compared to previous generations.
Who Are Emerging Adults and What Are They Thinking?
Dr. Jeffrey Arnett, a developmental psychologist, coined the term emerging adulthood to describe the stage of life that typically occurs between ages eighteen and twenty-nine years. It is interesting to note that, initially, emerging adulthood was thought to encompass ages eighteen to twenty-five. Recently, the age range was modified to reflect the way emerging adults are living their lives. Arnett’s efforts have resulted in focused research efforts that are specific to this critical stage of development. In his ongoing work, Arnett explores the myths associated with emerging adulthood, myths that are often supported by the media and popular books.1
There is consensus among most developmental psychologists regarding what it means to be an emerging adult. Dr. Arnett identifies five features of emerging adulthood:
•Identity exploration
•Instability
•Self-focus
•Feeling in between
•Possibilities2
While it is a mistake to speak in one voice for an entire group, emerging adults share common concerns. Some of these are anxieties that previous gener
ations did not face. Emerging adults today worry to an unprecedented degree about the state of the environment, the political and economic stability of the world and whether they will be able to protect the next generation—their children—from grievous harm and privation. Some emerging adults question whether it is responsible to have another generation of children.
Emerging adults worry about finding jobs that are suitable, match their skill sets and intellect and cover their living expenses. They are concerned about the wide array of problems they are inheriting but did nothing to create; problems neglected by their parents’ generation, such as global environmental crises, dwindling natural resources, massive national debt, a broken Social Security system and spiraling healthcare and education costs.
Perhaps surprisingly, though, many emerging adults remain optimistic when it comes to their personal hopes and dreams. For the most part, they anticipate lives of success and fulfillment.3 I believe they are in an intriguing place psychologically: They are aware of a larger, “perilous” world, yet at the same time they subscribe to a view of themselves as “empowered” and resilient, a stance that serves to buffer them against personal threat.4 Across socioeconomic backgrounds, emerging adults tend to believe that they will prevail in life. However, “optimism frequently coexists with an undercurrent of trepidation.”5 Many emerging adults feel anxious about the instability that surrounds them, but these anxious feelings are balanced by their sense of enthusiasm and optimism.
This is not, however, unique to emerging adults. Most individuals, regardless of age, tend to believe that unpleasant events will happen to others and not themselves. This belief in invincibility is a coping skill that helps individuals adapt to their environments. Adopting an optimistic outlook, even if it isn’t entirely justifiable by the presenting facts, permits people to go forward with their lives and pursue their goals and dreams. It is easy to see why this coping style is particularly useful during emerging adulthood, a period in which a sense of instability pervades all things.
While most emerging adults remain hopeful about their own future lives, they are less optimistic and hopeful for the world in general in comparison to previous generations. The economic downturn from 2008 onward has given them ample reason to question the prevailing wisdom. However, it is important to note that most have not given up on the institutions of past generations.
Ambivalence is another key theme of emerging adulthood. Many young people are conflicted about entering adulthood.6 They welcome the rights and responsibilities that accompany being an adult, including increased social status. However, they also associate adulthood with monotony, lack of spontaneity and the relinquishing of dreams. For many emerging adults, adulthood means replacing possibilities with major compromises. Arnett poses this question:
Are they not right to recognize that adulthood, whatever its rewards, involves constraints and limitations that their lives during emerging adulthood do not have?…[It] seems evident that their ambivalence about adulthood is reasonable, and does not merit contempt or derision.7
Emerging adults are worried about taking the final step to adulthood, and with good reason. But a note of reassurance is in order: Few emerging adults actually fail to launch. By age thirty, “three-fourths have entered marriage and parenthood, nearly all have entered stable employment, nearly all have become financially independent and hardly any live with their parents.” 8
What Is Adulthood?
The search for a concrete definition of adulthood is difficult and elusive. There is no magical transition point that marks one’s “arrival” as an adult. Typically, it is much easier to know when one is not in the presence of an adult. Chronological age provides only a crude approximation of maturity. Nevertheless, representative adults such as employers tend to view emerging adulthood with this invisible marker in mind.9
When and how do we know that emerging adults are really adults? How does an adult act and look different from an emerging adult? Adolescence, emerging adulthood and “full” adulthood lie on a continuum with no hard dividing lines. The exercise we will discuss next will help clarify and expand your own understanding. It was developed by Dr. Arnett.10 As you work on this exercise, remember that your definition may differ from others in your network of friends and family. The aim of this exercise is for you to receive greater clarity in terms of your own definition.
Rate the importance of each of these criteria in terms of defining adulthood (1 indicates not at all important, 4 indicates very important).
Dr. Larry Nelson and his colleagues compared the criteria that parents endorsed with those that their unmarried emerging adults between eighteen and twenty-five years old stressed.11 The emerging adults and their parents gave differing emphasis to many of the criteria, but they agreed on others.
Areas of agreement included: accepting responsibility for oneself, making independent decisions and becoming financially independent. In contrast to more traditional cultures, marriage was not viewed as a definitive marker of adulthood by emerging adults or parents. Both emerging adults and parents viewed relational maturity as highly significant when conferring adulthood status.
On the disagreement side, parents rated the Norm Compliance factors (e.g., avoids drunk driving, has no more than one sexual partner) as more important than their emerging adults did, while emerging adults gave Family Capacities greater weight.
Differences emerged not only between emerging adults and their parents, but also between mothers and fathers. Men and women varied in their emphases. For example, fathers assigned Norm Compliance factors greater importance than mothers did. Mothers, in contrast, assigned Relational Maturity factors higher values.
The gender of emerging adults and parents also influenced the results. Fathers in the sample rated Relational Maturity as more important when considering their sons versus their daughters. It may be that fathers view males as less competent in the domain of relational maturity and therefore rate those qualities more highly regarding their sons. Whatever the explanation, gender expectations are in play. Despite advances in gender equality, expectations still differ for emerging adult sons and daughters.
Emerging adult women considered Relational Maturity and Norm Compliance more important than emerging adult men did. These findings suggest that many parents socialize their daughters to become more care-oriented and may be more protective of them. The meaning of launching a child to adulthood differs for mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, parents and emerging adults. It is informed by cultural considerations.
How do your views regarding the status of adulthood differ when considering a male emerging adult versus a female? If there are differences, how do you feel about them? Is there anything that surprises you about your own attitudes? Are you projecting a double standard in any way? If so, do you feel this double standard is justified?
Defining Adulthood
When defining adulthood, is there any common ground? Attaining adulthood has a good deal to do with the ability to be responsible to oneself and others. Social and economic roles are important. The abilities to hold a job, sustain relationships and run an independent household suggest certain levels of freedom from parental dependence.
The definition of adulthood varies from culture to culture. In Chinese culture, for example, adulthood is associated with the ability to take care of one’s parents. Adulthood in a consumer-driven society such as the United States is more likely to be associated with ownership of material goods.
Most emerging adults in the United States reject the idea that one is “complete” once one has entered adulthood. They prefer the view that adults continue to evolve and improve over a lifetime, revisiting and revising parts of the self. Emerging adults disapprove of stagnation and favor lifelong growth. They believe that reaching adulthood status is a gradual process that builds upon previous experience and that it does not necessarily occur in all dimensions of their lives simultaneously. Physical maturity, emotional maturity and artistic maturity, fo
r example, may occur at very different ages.
Regardless of gender and generation, there does appear to be a consensus regarding entry to adulthood:
•Accepting responsibility for oneself and one’s actions
•Making independent decisions
•Becoming financially independent12
These criteria are viewed as gradual and incremental rather than all-or-nothing. Emerging adults do not tend to view marital status as key to attaining adulthood status.13
Additional Factors
Adulthood is an opportunity to negotiate differences and to learn about what one wants and doesn’t want. In the process, emerging adults can discover that they are no longer dependent on the whims of others and can respond in ways that are consistent with their own values and identities. According to Dr. Harry Blatterer, author of Coming of Age in Times of Uncertainty, adulthood brings an increasing sense that despite supports, one ultimately has to be responsible for oneself and take a proactive stance in relation to one’s future.14
Dr. Blatterer offers added observations about the meaning of adulthood. He notes that some of the new freedoms of adulthood may carry a price tag: a newfound sense of isolation. One emerging adult expressed that “adult” feeling this way: “No one is gonna look after me. I have to look after myself; I’m an independent and discrete person.”
Adulthood includes the acceptance of one’s aloneness, despite how scary it may feel.15
Loss of innocence is another milestone that marks the transition to adulthood. The realization that power, politics and appearances, as opposed to substance, justice, talent and fairness, often play major roles in the adult world can be disillusioning.16 The emerging adult relinquishes a notion of the world as he or she imagined it to be and comes to terms with the world as it is. However, this does not necessarily mean that one forfeits belief in the possibility of a better world. One can experience the loss of innocence and still strive to make the world better.
Parenting Your Emerging Adult Page 1