"The Death of the Grown-up"

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I'm of the belief that all honest work is noble. I know lots of maturing and mature people that work at clerical or service positions. Maybe she needs to save some money, or maybe her parents need her around to help? [huh]

Yes,...ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
So I think I'll get a job playing video games.

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

"I Won't Grow Up!"

Leave it to Peter Pan.

 

[Diamondback]

Like I said, having an "inner child" isn't a bad thing, as long as you can function as an adult when the situation requires it, and make decisions with reason and maturity.

A favorite computer-game character described society today perfectly:
"What y'all need is some good old-fashioned discipline! That's what you need..."--General Edmund Duke, StarCraft

Discipline meaning the ability to strike that aforementioned balance, in this case...

 

[Fletch]

That my be evolved or reasoned discipline, but it sure as hell ain't old-fashioned. Old-fashioned was playing the part you were given to play in society 100 per cent, or getting a sock in the chops whenever you slipped up.

 

[Diamondback]

Hey, it was a throwaway line I dropped for laughs. (The irony of quoting a game character struck me as funny.) Bear in mind, the game's set hundreds of years in the future, when we would be considered old-fashioned...

 

[HadleyH]

Blame the 20s?

If Ms. West is advocating a return to Edwardian formality and gravity, she can go sit on a flagpole. In a whalebone corset.

You took the words out of my mouth Fletch!
Sorry Ms West [huh]

 

[Fletch]

Hey, it was a throwaway line I dropped for laughs. (The irony of quoting a game character struck me as funny.) Bear in mind, the game's set hundreds of years in the future, when we would be considered old-fashioned...

Yeah, sorry - I have very little sense of humor where the "d" word is concerned. I consider it the third most criminally misused word in English, behind truth and love.

 

[Diamondback]

True, it has been abused a lot in the past, in any number of ways from both people and institutions.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

I moved back in with my parents in 2000. My younger brother never moved out. My older brother moved back in after a divorce almost three years ago. My twenty-eight year old nephew moved in a few months ago.

I work a warehouse job that doesn't pay enough to rent an apartment, let alone buy a house. My younger brother started at JPL a few months ago and will be married in October 2008 (his fiancee also lives with her mother). My older brother has a bad back (and a recent triple by-pass) and collects unemployment. My nephew takes odd jobs, and needs to get a real one.

My mother doesn't collect rent. Instead, we pay the utilities, buy groceries and do chores and yard work. We take turns driving; voluntarily, not a "your turn to drive" situation.

Sometimes, because of this situation, I feel like I'm less than a man (in fact, it's one of the reasons I'm not dating anyone right now.) I'd love to get out of here and into a place of my own, but I'd need to double my income to manage that - apartments are expensive in Southern California, unless you enjoy living in gang-riddled slums.


Lee
________________________________

"A great many people have come up to me and asked me how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated. My answer is, 'Don't you wish you knew?' and a pretty good answer it is too, when you consider that nine times out of ten I didn't hear the original question." - Robert Benchley

 

[Samsa]

Sometimes, because of this situation, I feel like I'm less than a man (in fact, it's one of the reasons I'm not dating anyone right now.) I'd love to get out of here and into a place of my own, but I'd need to double my income to manage that - apartments are expensive in Southern California, unless you enjoy living in gang-riddled slums.

I for one see nothing wrong with living with one's parents, though I do understand feeling the itch to get out. There's a world of difference between people who are hard working and living at home and those who are simply too lazy to get out on their own. You are definitely the former, not the latter. I also don't think it has anything to do with being "grown up." My Grandfather lived in the same house that he grew up in until he was in his 60's - after the war (WWII) he lived in the same house with his mother. He got a solid job, married - and still lived there. He was also a hard working man. If anyone suggested to me that he wasn't "grown up" they would regret having opened their mouth.

Instead of taking of taking care of our parents (which often meant living with them in some form or another) the last couple generations seem content to stick them in nursing homes and never see them again. That is FAR from being grown up.

 

[Salv]

I thought these paragraphs in the Wall Street Journal article were very interesting:

The 1920s is a far better place to begin detecting the seeds of adolescent revolution, but Ms. West thinks not. She finds "no mention of teen-age problems" in the famous Middletown studies done in Muncie, Ind., in the '20s and '30s by Robert Lynd and Helen Merrill Lynd. But in fact the Lynds noted the rising conflict in Middletown between parents and their young. Arguments about too much drinking (this was during Prohibition) and staying out too late were common. The automobile, mass produced and available to ordinary families, offered the young the means of forming peer groups and a place to have sex.

The Roaring '20s were a shock that did much to loosen parental controls. A familiar argument holds that the rebellion of the 1960s might have occurred decades earlier if the Depression, World War II and the recovery period of the 1950s had not intervened. By not noticing the forces unleashed in the '20s, Ms. West misses a chance to analyze the 1930s youthquake that might have been.

If the global economic depression and WW2 had never happened, would the 40s have become the decade that some Loungers love to hate?

 

[Kishtu]

Thinking out loud (on a keyboard?) here....

I wonder if the (alleged) death of the grown-up is more to do with the popularity of the disposable elements of our culture, rather than what we do with our free time....

If you get married and it doesn't work out, what the heck, you can always get a quick divorce and no one any the wiser.
Or if you want a new car, you don't have to save up for it because you can get it on credit, and you'll probably "upgrade" it in a year or two anyway so what's the point in trying to keep it immaculate?

People just don't seem to have the same (moral? cultural?) obligation to take on responsibilities that my parents' generation did... which in one sense can only be a good thing. But I suppose because mistakes can be so much more easily undone without stigma now, people seem less inclined to think seriously before they make the mistake in the first place.

Just my thoughts, based on personal experience!

 

[Brian Sheridan]

I think the concern about video gamers is that, unlike a card game or a board game, there is no interaction with people. It is just you and the screen. Even if you play someone via an internet connection, there is still no real interaction. There is no problem blowing off some steam on a video game. The problem arises when it begins to replace real human contact.

In class, I ask my college students what they watch on TV and I get blank looks. They don't watch the news to learn about the world they will soon be a part of, or even any entertainment shows, they instead play video games - endlessly. That's not good. And for young children the problem is much worse since it can lead to a sedentary lifestyle and the expectation of instant gratification. We don't have to look far to see why attention spans keep getting shorter and shorter.

We had Pong when I was a kid - you had to go do something else after a short time because the game got so darn boring.

 

[Spitfire]

The death of the grown up

The title of this thread, made me think of this one:
(Sorry to those of you, who has heard it before)

"The life cycle is all backwards. You should die first and get it out of the way. Then you live for 20 years in an old-age home, and get kicked out when you're too young.

You get a gold watch and then you go to work. You work 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement.

You go to college and you party until you're ready for high school.

Then, you go to grade school, you become a little kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating, and you finish off in a grand orgasm, as a gleam in somebody's eye.

 

[ScionPI2005]

I live with my parents part of the time as of now; mainly when college is out and the dorms are closed.

I am now a senior, getting ready to get my degree in just over a year. While I am ready to completely move out of my parents' space, I value the wonderful relationship I have had with them for so many years. I help with things around the house, and we have not had arguments in who knows how many years. Maybe this is possible because they had me when they were older, and therefore because of that, I have become a much milder, more disciplined 22 year old than most of my friends.

While they do help me with funds some of the time, I manage most of my finances, and am now working enough to have the extra cash flow to get me through my final year of school. Without a doubt, living with my parents part time until the age of 23 is not a bad thing in my case, and will not impair me in starting my career.

Course, I'm also an only child, so that could be it too.

To the folks who have been discussing computer and video games in this topic, I would like to say that I have a Playstation, and many of my elementary school weekends were filled with playing Zork, Tex Murphy, Alone in the Dark, Myst, and numerous other adventure games with my dad. Course, my parents taught me that homework came first, and he and I only cranked up the PC when homework was done.

I still play video games from time to time, though not nearly as often as I used to (I think this past summer, my playstation was on for a grand total of one hour in three months!). I don't like the first-person-shooters, and get much more involved in adventure, puzzle oriented games that get my mind involved. To me, its really not that much different than reading. And it all balances out considering how I couldn't even begin to tell you what television sitcoms are popular these days--television just isn't my thing.

Just my long, elaborated 2 cents.

 

[Paisley]

I haven't read the book, but I got the impression that it wasn't aimed at young adults but rather people in their late 20s and older who aren't trying to expand their horizons.

 

[Paisley]

I'm of the belief that all honest work is noble. I know lots of maturing and mature people that work at clerical or service positions. Maybe she needs to save some money, or maybe her parents need her around to help? [huh]

There's nothing wrong with serving coffee or answering phones or living with your parents. But if you're a 40-year-old who is broke (and in debt), wants to get married, travel, go to school and buy a house, and perhaps retire from work someday, drifting from one low-level job to another isn't going to help you. Getting economic inpatient care indefinitely from your parents isn't going to light a fire under you. (This topic was researched and presented in a book called The Millionaire Next Door. It's also been my observation of my nieces and nephews.) I'm afraid that if she stays with her parents more than a few months, my friend is just going to end up frittering her life away.

 

[jamespowers]

Thinking out loud (on a keyboard?) here....

I wonder if the (alleged) death of the grown-up is more to do with the popularity of the disposable elements of our culture, rather than what we do with our free time....

If you get married and it doesn't work out, what the heck, you can always get a quick divorce and no one any the wiser.
Or if you want a new car, you don't have to save up for it because you can get it on credit, and you'll probably "upgrade" it in a year or two anyway so what's the point in trying to keep it immaculate?

People just don't seem to have the same (moral? cultural?) obligation to take on responsibilities that my parents' generation did... which in one sense can only be a good thing. But I suppose because mistakes can be so much more easily undone without stigma now, people seem less inclined to think seriously before they make the mistake in the first place.

Just my thoughts, based on personal experience!

You are thinking out loud pretty well. I see those trends as well. The demise of shame in our culture as well as personal responsiblity.
Once you would be afraid to bring shame on your family if you were a complete failure, committed crimes or were a complete bum. There is no stigma to any of that now. In fact, some of that is now called street cred or experience now. :eusa_doh:

Regards,

J

 

[$ally]

When I read this article I nearly dropped my yo-yo.

lol

 

[RedPop4]

Spot on James and kishtu.