Week 3

This week I struggled to connect to the reading in our text.  The chapter on adulthood was very informative, but I found my mind wandering as I read the sections on middle and late adulthood.  It is hard to relate when it seems so far away.  I have however spent time thinking about those periods of my life and what I want for those years.  Still---very hard to make it through the section on your sixties.

To be honest, as I read through the book I was getting annoyed and frustrated, because I didn’t feel like I fit into one of those categories.  Adolescence has definitely passed, but I’m not comfortable with the term adult.  So once I started the article, I immediately felt a sense of relief.  It reassured my sense of belonging and normalcy.  I am the epitome of an emerging adult.  The article made me feel so much better about certain aspects of my life that are not yet “adult”.

 I think the toughest thing for me right now is the fact that I still live at home.  I personally think it’s wonderful and love it this way, but I always wonder what runs through people’s minds when I say it out loud.  Usually you get the standard response, “Oh that’s great!  Smart girl- you might as well save your money.”    But then I picture them saying to themselves, “Ehhh isn’t that a little old?” As I look around at my friends though, there are many who have finished college and returned home as they start their careers.  Or others are making their way through a graduate program.  To reach the other end of the spectrum, I also have friends who are married and own their first home. I think the article said it best when they referenced the idea that, “Emerging adulthood is the only period of life in which nothing is normative demographically.”

Another part of the Arnett article that really stood out was the brief section on relationships as an emerging adult.  I saw this list on Pinterest the other week that was something like, “20 things that will happen in your 20s.”  One of the items on the list was about undergoing a break-up that would be very hard and extremely drawn out (the year long break-up).  I began wondering if it is because this is where we begin to ask ourselves questions like, “What kind of person do I want as a partner to share my life with?”  Maybe we begin to form an answer to that question that does not necessarily match the person we are currently with.  It is not that we do not love them or care about them, and maybe this makes the break-up so confusing.  I’m sure this could cause couples to be torn on whether to stay or leave—hence the longest break-up ever.

Arnett, J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, Vol. 55, No. 5, 469-480.

Corey, G. , & Corey, M.S. (2008). I never knew I had a choice: Explorations in personal growth (9^th ed.). Belmont, California: Thompson Brooks/Cole. ISBN: 9780495602293.