I became an adult at 22: Why can't you?

Becoming independent in my 20s made me a stronger person. Why is this generation content to stay at home forever?

An article in this weekend's New York Times Magazine addresses a question much on the minds of the middle-aged these days: "What Is It About 20-Somethings?"

Drawing on the work of psychologists, sociologists and neuroscientists, writer Robin Marantz Henig explores possible reasons that 20-somethings no longer use that decade of life to move through what sociologists have long considered the five milestones that signify adulthood: the end of formal education, separation from the family, financial independence, marriage and parenthood. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had passed all five milestones by the age of 30. By 2000, fewer than 50 percent of the women and 33 percent of the men had done so.

Delaying marriage and parenthood until one's 30s is generally seen as a good idea these days, but postponing financial independence is another matter. The phenomenon of 20-somethings living with their parents (partially or even fully supported by them) is so widespread that most people reading this have surely witnessed it, many within their own families. It's a frequent topic of puzzled discussion among people my age, who wonder why things have changed so much in a generation. While the baby boomers were seen by their own parents as cases of arrested development (still arguable given their penchant for behaving as if they don't want to grow up), they did leave home and start independent lives at the usual age, while their children seem to have embraced prolonged dependence with very few qualms.

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