[pf] the future for young folk.

>At 02:30 PM 28/1/01 -0800, David Mac wrote:
>>· ... wait until Eric gets to 25-26 (for most boys, the age at which
they'd have a similar maturity to Ruth at twenty three). ...
>>· When she was 16-18, we couldn't get along at all ...
>
At 16:05 28/1/2001 -0800, tully wrote:
>I wonder sometimes if I'll survive that long.  ;)
>

· I didn't get the timing right; those ages are as of right now, but Ruth
and I started getting-along-well about one and a half years ago.
· So you should only need to wait (and stay consistent!) until somewhere
between  Ryan's 21 years (which is a bit early, in my estimate: you're
doing well, Priscilla), and more likely about 24 years old.


>Perhaps it simply takes being out and truly independent for 
>awhile.  Proving of own self-worth and the like before this step truly 
>happens.  It makes me long for some semblence of culture in our society, 
>with rites of passage, accepted roles, common spirituality, all those 
>things so lacking in the culture I see around me here.  We have to 
>make it all up as we go along. I can't believe that is the best way...
>

· In general I think it's necessary to show to oneself that you can hack it
on your own, but that doesn't suit everyone. Our 27yo Peter (the one I
called "a future person" 12 years ago for his quietness, frugality and
ability to empathise with others) is now as independent as he wishes, but
still living under the same roof with the rest of us. I don't call it
"living at home" (though it is) since that's freighted with the assumption
that he's supplied with cooked meals and virtually everything he wishes,
which hasn't been the case since the rest of the family (4 then) took over
from me the cooking of our evening meals in 1986-7.

· There have been a few regrets (by Ruth, mainly) about us being satisfied
living on a single modest income (a little above the NZ average), the most
recent one being when we made it clear that, for her 21st birthday, we
wouldn't do anything different from other birthdays. She was hoping to make
a bit of a splash among her friends, and in particular invite some whom she
hadn't contacted for years, to a biggish event. One aspect probably was
that "coming of age" rite of passage, but she had been living in China on
her own (and survived winter pneumonia on her own) a year or two before,
which was a much more real rite of passage IMO.

· There are two fairly recent developments (a couple of decades) which make
a young person's transition to independent adulthood quite uncertain and
worrying now. { 1. and 2. below; but first:
         is "independent adulthood" a necessary goal for the mid-20s? The
assumption a couple of generations ago was that the young people would go
away, feel lonely, find new friends, get involved with a member of the
opposite sex, get married, buy a house and start a new family. Government
and economics saw this as the ideal, since household-formation was an
obvious way to "grow the economy", as well as increase that nation's
population and "make it more powerful". 19th century thinking. _Eventually_
becoming independent is obviously necessary (parents die, after all), but
what's the rush? And what about the very real advantages of the extended
family, over the 19th-20th century focus on the nuclear family? And
_reducing_ the number of children born now that there are 2-3 times too
many people in the world? }

 (re: the uncertain and worrying future for young folk.) :-

(1)  I don't really know about the US tertiary education sector, but in New
Zealand there used to be govt. financial support for academically able
young people in the form of scholarships available after doing well enough
in a nation-wide exam, ensuring that men and women in their late teen-age
could assert their independence (and get well on their way to adulthood) by
living in a far city while studying at the university there. (I'm skipping
technical colleges, apprenticeships, etc.) But with the economic
conservatives taking over government and the economic planning here in
~1985, financial support was switched from (effectively) grants to loans,
and a big majority of tertiary students have to live at home now, because
otherwise further education costs too much. Bera's quite lucky to be doing
a job she really enjoys (most of the time), so she can supply /our/
students with ~$60 a week of living allowance, instead of the earlier govt.
student allowance of ~$95 a week.
     That living at home, in most families (e.g. Peter's and Ruth's
friends), means continuing dependence, attempts to control on the part of
the parents (based on habit, often, but also: "we supply you with this,
that and the other; you should do what we want in response"), and rejection
of this causing friction - a bad scene. I suppose some of this has happened
throughout the ages in extended families, but #2 below means it goes on
longer and for far more young people than it ever did before.

(2)  Throught history and pre-history, "help" was highly-regarded; even
economics for over a century had the basis of "value" (on which it erected
itself) being human production, the creation of value by human hands.
There's an echo of it today, in the increase in wages being acceptable if
based on "productivity": often the machine's doing all of what was work,
and the human is just a monitor who feeds it the next job. So, in the
present context, young people were (& still are in some countries) seen as
highly valued helpers, who would enable the obviously necessary work to be
done.
     There's a good possibility of that again becoming the case generally,
after more labor-intensive industries become widespread, such as
family-farming, renewable energy supplies distributed all over the
landscape, town-focussed horticulture ("market-gardening" here), and
generally a re-structuring of economics towards benefit for people rather
than (money-)wealth creation (and "the economies of scale"). 
     But as of now, the developed world has gone much too far in the
direction of this latter "modern" economics, and there's very little place
for people in it. Even those /with/ jobs, let alone new entrants, the young
people we're talking about. By the way, I'm aware of the likely response of
most on this American-based list, that: "but we've got the lowest
unemployment in years!" (in many of the contiguous states of the USA, right
now). My time-horizon isn't so limited; I'm talking about some multiple of
5 years, the future as seen by late teenagers and their parents. With the
US economy "grinding to a halt", wait just half to 1.5 years and the
labor-market will get back to normal after the recent anomalous blip. 

· There's possibly one bit of good coming out of the prevalent angst among
a lot of young people: they've been one of the sources of ferment over the
ages, and we need more than ever now to throw off the old ways of thinking
- we need the agitation and new ideas and energy of these young folk, if
we're to make large enough steps toward sustainability soon enough to have
a vibrant world left to live in in the future: a Positive Future.

David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.geocities.com/davdd.geo/index.html#top
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