Posted on 07/13/2007 7:40:11 AM PDT by qam1
Imagine a television show that revolves around a group of married men and women. They run their own advertising agencies, raise kids in suburban homes, argue about who should do the dishes and obsess about whether to have affairs.
They are also just past their 30th birthdays.
When the show Thirtysomething made its debut 20 years ago, in September, 1987, the hour-long drama was praised for its realistic portrayal of angst among then-30-year-old members of the baby boom generation, with characters who bemoaned the impact of always having "too much."
If a show with the same title were made today, it is a fairly good bet that excess would not be an issue. Few of the characters would be married, many would work as Web designers or graphic artists, they would all be renting condos, and at least one would be considering freezing her eggs for future in vitro fertilization.
In the course of 20 years, Thirtysomething has been reduced to Thirtynothing, as the members of the generation currently approaching their fourth decade of life realize they have achieved few of the trappings associated with adulthood.
"We live in this era of a delayed adolescence, but it should be over at 30," said Oonagh Duncan, whose play Talk Thirty To Me is currently showing at the Toronto Fringe Festival.
"Everyone's coming to grips with the fact that they're an adult, but it's not what they thought being an adult would feel like."
Ms. Duncan decided to write the play while struggling to deal with her own 30th birthday, a milestone that sent her into a tailspin of reflection and self-doubt.
Hoping to discover that she was not alone, she interviewed an array of Canadian 29-year-olds.
All of them admitted they were having trouble reconciling where they were in life with where they thought they should be.
"I thought that I would know what I was doing," one man told her. "That the experimentation would be over."
"I just changed careers, went back to school," another said. "Got no house, no wife, no kids, no car and 71 cents in my bank account. Not where I thought I'd be at 30 if you asked me when I was 20."
During the play, Ms. Duncan intersperses these confessionals with figures from Statistics Canada, which flash on a screen on stage: "The average 30-year-old has had 7.5 jobs," "has an average income of $29,013," and carries "between $1,500 and $19,200 of debt."
These numbers help to give context to her own fears, she said, but also to show her generation - and their parents - that age-related disappointment is not unusual.
"Everyone talked about how they were broke and don't have a family yet and their parents think they're a screw-up," she said of her subjects. "The expectations of 30 have not really changed. Everyone says, 'Where's my picket fence and RRSP?' but they all just got out of school."
Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, explored the root of this conflict in her new book, Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before.
In it, she uses three decades of psychological surveys to compare the assets, personalities and priorities of the baby boom generation when they were in their late 20s with those of a group she calls "Generation Me," men and women born in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The latter group, she found, have higher self-esteem, assertiveness and narcissistic tendencies, but also report higher anxiety levels and are more likely to suffer depression.
Ms. Twenge, who is 35 and considers herself part of Generation Me, understands this profile, saying people her age were encouraged to be individuals without thinking about where it may lead them.
"We grew up in a world where we could take it for granted that the self came first," she said. "The downside is that a lot of people spend their 20s doing things they think will make them happy, but end up lonely and depressed."
Part of the problem, she believes, is the chasm between where her generation finds itself today and the lifestyle their parents had achieved by 30.
"Most parents bought their house in 1968 for $65,000, but it would go for $800,000 today, so they don't really get how hard it is to get by," Ms. Twenge said. "At the same time, they are very rightly pointing out, 'Look, you're not putting down roots, you're not making any commitments, what are you going to do when you hit 30 and you haven't held a job for longer than a year?' "
But the priorities of today's thirtysomethings have little to do with those of their parents.
A Pew Research Center poll released in January showed that 81 per cent of 25-year-olds in the United States said getting rich is their generation's most important life goal. Fifty-one per cent said the same thing about getting famous.
While researching her play, Ms. Duncan was told by several straight-faced subjects that they had expected to be a movie star or millionaire by age 30. Others seemed genuinely upset they had not become legends by their late 20s.
"I always thought I would die at 27," one woman named Kendra said. "I never pictured myself older than 27, so on my 28th birthday, I was like, 'Wow, here I am. I didn't really make plans for this.' "
Mike Gayle, the British author of the angst-filled novel Turning Thirty, admits on his website that he actually expected to marry Madonna by the time he hit the big 3-0.
"I've lost count of the number of times I've read interviews where some twentysomething celebrity begins a sentence with the words: 'By the time I'm 30 ...' then reels off a long list of things they hope to achieve," he wrote on his blog. "I think we've all done that at some point."
Ms. Twenge said the tendency to dream big is not new, but lasts longer with today's young adults. "Kids in the 1930s dreamed of being baseball players, but reality intruded a lot sooner," she said. "Now we grow up thinking we're going to be rich and famous, and when we hit 30 and that hasn't happened yet, we wonder what's going on."
That reality can send many people into what has been dubbed a "quarter-life crisis," something New York journalist Doree Lewak is trying to avoid while researching her book, The Panic Years: A Survival Guide to Getting Through Them and Getting on Your Married Way, to be released next year.
"Thirty is the first birthday in our lives when we really start to take stock of where we are and where we should be," the 27-year-old said recently.
For her, the panic is related to the personal aspects of her life, not the professional.
A successful journalist and published author, Ms. Lewak said that she had concentrated so fiercely on success in her work that she delayed settling down and having kids, the ultimate measure of success in her parents' eyes.
On her past birthday, she received a gift certificate for a dating service.
"All these subtle hints from your loved ones really help," she said. "There's a tremendous pressure from family, I call it panic by proxy."
But while Ms. Lewak believes there are ways to remain calm in the face of 30, she says the anxiety is really just a part of being raised with sky-high expectations.
"It just comes down to wanting it all."
Oh, maaann! I knew it was gonna be something hard like that.
heh don’t ping me...I’m not that old yet! It’s the old hubby who turned 30 this week! :P He’s settled into old age nicely...he didn’t go to see the Transformers movie! Granted, if the baby turns out to be a boy...I suspect sweetiepie will use that as an excuse to buy the DVD!
I bought my first house in 1977 for $19,000
Exactly what I said (in my head). I don't remember what my parents paid for our first starter home in 1967, but I do remember our "big" house in 1973, and they paid $42,000 for it. It was a three-level, 4 BR, 3 BA house that was only a year old. To us, it was a mansion. ;^)
I had the honor and pleasure of raising and supervising the best "kid" in the world, who came to the clearing at the end of his path just yesterday.
My daughter?
32 years old, married, owns a home, two sons, nursing degree, good cars, never asks for $$$ from dad.
The “subjects” are a bunch of narcissists.
Oh, dear. What a sad story and what a beautiful animal. I’m sorry for your loss and glad you had such a wonderful kid.
When I turned 30 I was in the Army. I had a major motorcycle accident, left for Germany two days after I got the final cast off, and my wife left me while I was gone. Pretty much everything I owned would fit into 2 duffle bags. I wasn’t issued any kids. Overall, I was having a pretty good time though. :^)
“”I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read interviews where some twentysomething celebrity begins a sentence with the words: ‘By the time I’m 30 ...’ then reels off a long list of things they hope to achieve,” he wrote on his blog. “I think we’ve all done that at some point.””
Ummmm....no - “we” haven’t “all done that”.
How about everyone quit wishing for this and wishing for that and look at what you DO have and be thankful for it.
No matter how bad you think you have it - it always could be much much worse.
Grow up, be realistic about what you CAN do, and face up to what you cannot do.
“I turn 40 this November. My kids are ages 21, 14, 12, 10. People my age are, for the most part, do not have kids the same age as mine. I typically find that my friends parents are 5 to 10 years older than me.”
Same here.
My oldest just graduated high school (I’ll turn 40 next year).
By the time I was 30 I had 3 kids. Now we are raising 6.
Although, when my youngest graduates I will be pretty durn old.
“Its to realize what you do have and if you aren’t satisfied change it”
good point.
Are they going to whine for another 10 years and still be full of angst at 40?
Or will they get busy and shape up?
The important thing in life is to be holy. Nothing else really matters.
What’s sad is that most people think only of this life and not plan for their eternity...”For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul”...I am first and foremost the child of the king of kings and my inheritance isn’t here on earth. I work as an Office Admin and make good money for a non-college grad, almost as much as my husband who is a graduate teacher (he teaches in a private Christian school so he makes less than a public school teacher). My two young adult children are a blessing and my parents are still alive and working in their mid 70s. So, I am extremely thankful to God, to my parents, to my husband, to my kids for such a blessed life. My job is another story (every hear of KKR/GMAC or Barbarians at the Gate? - that job ended in May) thankfully I do have a new job and that’s going ok...
“So, I am extremely thankful to God, to my parents, to my husband, to my kids for such a blessed life.”
And that is the key right there.
We can already see that fame and money do not make for a happy life or else Hollywood would be full of happy well-adjusted folks.
Take a look around - how many gifts have already been given to all of us?
If we were to die tomorrow -what would we be thankful for today?
That’s different - I’d probably have had more kids after the first three if I hadn’t married the wicked witch of the south.
” I’d probably have had more kids after the first three if I hadn’t married the wicked witch of the south.”
Sorry to hear that?
Did she become “wicked” before or after the kids?
I'm not rich but my life is comfortable and there's something to be said for having someone to share burdens and unfortunate events with.
"We live in this era of a delayed adolescence, but it should be over at 30,"
IMO, that's part of the problem. We live in a world of delayed adolescence.
Used to be, unless your parents were well off, you put yourself through college, or got a job.
You were pretty much on your own at the age of 18, one way or another.
You might have been in college but probably not living at home, or you might have a job and living in an apartment, but not living at home. The thing was, you weren't living at home.
"We grew up in a world where we could take it for granted that the self came first,"
Ahh, another part of the problem.
Self should rarely come first.
For me, family comes way before self. That's just the way almost our entire family was raised from both sets of grandparents on down.
Self was way down on the list.
A Pew Research Center poll released in January showed that 81 per cent of 25-year-olds in the United States said getting rich is their generation's most important life goal. Fifty-one per cent said the same thing about getting famous.
Another part of the problem.
I'm not sure about my generation but my goal by the time I was 30 was to have a family, be self-sufficent, and be able to help others in my family should they need it.
Did I dream about being rich and/or famous? Sure, but it wasn't a goal.
"Thirty is the first birthday in our lives when we really start to take stock of where we are and where we should be," the 27-year-old said recently.
Maybe I'm just different but 16 was the first time I took stock and 21 was the next time.
By the time I was 30 I had taken stock about 3 times.
I've taken stock twice since then and am due to take stock again in the next 3 years.
If you don't take stock, products begin disappearing. ;^)
long story - worst mistake of my life. let’s just say I was 25, she was 30, I was naieve, she was newly divorced with a young daughter - I thought I was her knight in shining armor... I don’t remember much after that.
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