I'm feeling Peter-Pannish these days. This is not because I've given up on my goal of becoming a real adult. It's just that, more and more I'm starting to question the definition of "grown-up." I read an article the other day about how 25 is the new cut-off for adulthood. It made me gag a little bit. The argument for this was that people continue to grow in emotional maturity, self-awareness, and judgment until they are 25. Well... of course they do. I'm pretty sure people continue to grow in pretty much all these areas for their entire lives. Isn't that the benefit of experience in the first place?

Then I started thinking that the external markers we use to measure adulthood are pretty shallow. In American culture, these markers seem to be getting married, buying a house, and having a family. Interestingly, getting married and having a family seems to take precedence over having an actual job. I have several acquaintances who married young, before they had finished their education. This somehow gave them more "adult" status than we carefree, unmarried undergrads. There's some logic to that, I suppose. All of these markers - marriage, house, family - are signs of stability, and stability shows that you have established your adult identity. But. I think we can all agree there are pretty lousy reasons to get married, buy a house, or have a family. Signs of adulthood? Possibly. Guarantees of maturity? Doubtful.

When I was growing up, I had unwavering confidence in the Big People. They were godlike beacons of wisdom and I couldn't figure out how they knew so much. So it was a little freaky when I officially became an adult in the eyes of society and (gasp) I didn't have it all figured out. Had I missed some sort of vital training? Was I stunted by my upbringing? Then I looked around me and began to wonder if, horror or horrors, the Big People didn't really deserve the sort of reverence I'd been instructed to give them hitherto. But no! It wasn't possible! If they didn't have it figured out then nobody had it figured out and that wasn't a reality I liked to contemplate. Yet reality has an unfortunate way of persisting.

I've been in the middle of an interesting mix of conversations these days. I'm completing my practicum in a high level reading/university prep class and some of the coursework involves using a textbook about American culture. One of our discussions the other day centered around the American value of self-reliance and how we essentially kick our children out at the age of 18. This is not a universal human custom. My students were genuinely shocked when I told them it was shameful to stay at home with your parents. They conceded that eventually you should move out and start a family of your own, but the timeline was not so strictly set.

Meanwhile, I've been reflecting on some of the perhaps hidden advantages of my generation having a later start. 1) We are more highly educated than previous generations. In my book, the world could always use a little more edumacation. 2) We "floaters" may not be building up corporate resumes or making babies, but we are gaining a wider perspective of the world and its people. I truly believe this is going to be more and more necessary as globalization continues to force us to rub shoulders with people who are different from us. 3) Maybe starting with less and feeling our limitations is actually a blessing in disguise. Maybe this recession is forcing us to question the materialistic drive of our culture and giving us perspective on what the good life really means. I know that post-grad life has given me a much-needed dose of humility and perspective. I've discovered that I can find joy in things that aren't related to my pocketbook or personal accomplishments.

So my millennial friends, maybe we really are on the way to making the world a better place. Maybe we truly are standing on the shoulders of our parents' generation, able to see just a little bit further. Hopefully we'll be able to use these experiences, good and bad, to make life suck just a little bit less. Maybe we are on our way to being awesome and we don't even realize it. And if not, we can always hide from the student-loan people in a millennial liberal arts grad commune somewhere abroad.