Everyone's talking about 20-somethings

If being an ethnic minority has taught me anything, it's that there's nothing more comforting that realizing you've been made into a stereotype.

But I'm not talking about being Indian - no, no. It turns out that, according to the mammoth New York Times Magazine piece, I am a typical 20-something:

Have you gone back to school to pursue another degree?
- Yes.
Have you ever done Teach for America?
- Yes.
Have you moved almost every year since college?
- Yes.
Are you in an untethered romantic relationship?
- You bet.
Are you slouching toward adulthood at an uneven, highly individual pace?
- Define "adulthood."

There are a few areas where I don't quite fit the mold: I've never moved back home, I've been largely financially independent from my family since after college, and I have almost no debt. My credit is decent, I own a car that I bought with my own money, and have been in a relationship with the same person for nearly five years now. So by a lot of measures, my life is quite stable.

For these reasons, I don't fully buy the argument that our 20s is a new stage in psychological development. Don't get me wrong - I've gone through a lot of psychological changes in my 20s (at age 18, I didn't cry in public; now, I can cry in front of anyone, anywhere, for literally any reason - try me). But I just don't buy that I've been inclined to spend the vast majority of my 20s faffing about because my brain has developed just so.

I think this because despite the so-called representative sample this Dr. Arnett character seems to have compiled from college towns across America to corroborate his "emerging adulthood" theory, myself and many of my friends who suffer from this quarter-life shitstorm (which Robin Marantz Henig calls a "transient epiphenomenon" whatever the hell that means) are downright spoiled. I know for a fact that, though I've never taken him up on it, if I called my dad tomorrow and told him I was poor, unemployable, and homeless, he would take me back. And this is precisely why I've been allowed to do whatever I want for my whole "adult" life - live a holier than thou life in rural America; date cretins; get master's degrees in wholly unmarketable fields. I've done it all with no regrets and no debts.

So my (albeit unexamined) guess is that only those of us who can afford to carelessly futz our way through our 20s do so, something pointed out by Kimberly Palmer's letter to the editor and that people who are not blessed with middle class parents might not.

Now, don't get me wrong. I appreciate the difficulties associated with being middle class and educated (I hate the way I sound right now). Having too many options and too many big decisions to make is what drives me to keep this blog alive. That said, I'd be interested to know which kids whose parents booted them out the door the minute they graduated have really caught the whole "the world has limitless possibilities" bug.

And one more thing before I get off this rant: WTF is up with the Magazine's choice of photos representing life as a 20-something? They asked a bunch of 20-something photographers to capture what their life was like using iPhones. This is ostensibly what we can learn from the collection: We're all hipsters and we all have fucking iPhones.

I much prefer the Atlantic's collage, which, although they're all pictures of the same girl, seems a little truer to life. I also liked their response to the piece (thanks Kelso).

Lemon out.