boomerang

Since graduating from college, we (and by we, I mean those who have graduated and those who haven't - wait and see) have witnessed an interesting divergence in the lives around us. As we start school, we all seem to be on the same or at least similar tracks. We go from first to second to third (and etc.) grades, looking towards the inevitable. For some, it's college. For others it's a job or starting a family. That's where the predictability ends. All of a sudden, the road signs are not pointing towards the Rest Stop of Adulthood Beginnings, but instead the arrows are pointing left, right, and everyone in between.

Where to go? There's an interesting phenomenon that has recently been "discovered." We have become a generation that "boomerang" back home and are experiencing what has been coined as the "quarter life crisis."

Of course, there are a few variables in this sweeping generalization, but for the most part - a majority of middle class American thirty-year-olds and under will identify with this terminology.

I'm sure there are many, many more qualified sociologists and anthropologists who have studied our modern day culture and the recent changes of those young people who decide to return to the nest or experience said crisis. But really, why is this happening? One hundred years ago, such a concept would have been absurd. Let's think. What was life like one hundred years ago?

By my age, most women had been married for an average of 5 (or even more) years and would probably have 2 or 3 children. That woman would have zero time to think about having an identity crisis (due to being elbow deep in raising children and other wifely duties) and she had a home with her husband. She didn't have the option of "being" something else. My first thought is: "Thank God I didn't live 100 years ago...", but seriously - would it be so bad? Today, maybe the prospect of 34,249 (note: not a scientifically proven number) options and possible careers/lives/choices is causing such a crisis.


So what about the modern day young man/woman. What is the general consensus on the idea of moving back home? Is it economical or is it adding to this prolonged adolescence trend? Personally, I think its a little of both.