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Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times

#11

Post by beaglesss »

nytesky wrote: post #4

Is the u shaped curve just a proxy for financial condition? Young people starting out didn’t make much but eventually earned more saved and could look forward to a house and affording a family The U curve is lowest when career starts plateau or decline, financial demands for college couple with a mortgage, and then once kids launch and mortgage is paid off (because you could afford to buy in your 20s), happiness rise…

I would also expect child support and alimony demands peak from 35-49 or so. It's got to be stressful knowing if you can't come up with the cash not only will you starve but you'll be tossed in a cage and your professional license, dl, and passport revoked

Re: Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times

#12

Post by ascorbic »

lisper wrote: post #5

It has apparently escaped the notice of the authors of this article that in 2022 we had just begun to recover from a once-in-a-century global pandemic that lasted two years, killed eight million people (so 30% more than the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust), left countless thousands living with debilitating long-term symptoms, and permanently deprived an entire cohort of once-in-a-lifetime formative experiences…

From TFA

> Later, as he put it, he “thought that everything was COVID.” Now, Blanchflower says, he sees that was an error. “COVID extended trends that had existed before,” he says.

Re: Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times

#13

Post by mgkimsal »

iwanttocomment wrote: post #2

Hey, Gen Z. Gen X here. I personally think this whole "young adulthood is the happiest time of your life" is some sort of bizarre Boomer artifact, and certainly wasn't in play in the late '80s or '90s. I was told that repeatedly when I was a teenager, but it certainly wasn't the case for me or most of the people I knew when I was a young man, 35 years ago. We were all totally blindsided by how bad the high school exp…

'boomers' had their youth in the mid 60s... a booming time - music, revolution, sex, etc... and coming of age as western economies were booming (or about to) after WW2. GenX... 'greed is good' age of Wall Street, AIDS epidemic, constant threat of nuclear war permeating every aspect of culture - go watch 80s shows and see how many references to 'commies' and 'ww3' and such - it was everywhere.

Yes, I know every generation has their burdens, but yeah, I think the 'high school/teenage years is the best time of your life' may have been true for a small cohort of folks, but has become a myth perpetuated by the first consumerist generation who then got to shape culture and media for a few decades.

Re: Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times

#14

Post by l3x4ur1n »

thriftwy wrote: post #10
l3x4ur1n wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for me adolescence was pretty OK. Had my fun, played games all day after school (which itself was alright too) and that continued well into my college and even few years after that. In college I had a blast, really the best years of my life from "careless freedom" point of view. Never ever will I live like that again, it is not sustainable in the long run, but it was really fun when I was under 25. I continued t…

For some reason, college was super stressful for me emotionally. I was struggling academically, then commuting to part-time work while trying to contain personal issues creeping up on me. Yes, there was its fun, such as golden age of PC games, pre-Facebook internet and the whole 2007 thing; but my life is far less stressful nowdays, even though I too have family and kids.

I'm glad it eventually got better!

Re: Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times

#15

Post by nytesky »

mgkimsal wrote: post #13
iwanttocomment wrote: post #2

Hey, Gen Z. Gen X here. I personally think this whole "young adulthood is the happiest time of your life" is some sort of bizarre Boomer artifact, and certainly wasn't in play in the late '80s or '90s. I was told that repeatedly when I was a teenager, but it certainly wasn't the case for me or most of the people I knew when I was a young man, 35 years ago. We were all totally blindsided by how bad the high school exp…

'boomers' had their youth in the mid 60s... a booming time - music, revolution, sex, etc... and coming of age as western economies were booming (or about to) after WW2. GenX... 'greed is good' age of Wall Street, AIDS epidemic, constant threat of nuclear war permeating every aspect of culture - go watch 80s shows and see how many references to 'commies' and 'ww3' and such - it was everywhere. Yes, I know every genera…

While I agree with you, the Cuban Missle Crisis was the 60s, so I assume nuclear war was very vivid. But having fresh memories of WW2, perhaps we felt confident “never again?” or were numbed to the idea.

Re: Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times

#16

Post by PhasmaFelis »

beaglesss wrote: post #11
nytesky wrote: post #4

Is the u shaped curve just a proxy for financial condition? Young people starting out didn’t make much but eventually earned more saved and could look forward to a house and affording a family The U curve is lowest when career starts plateau or decline, financial demands for college couple with a mortgage, and then once kids launch and mortgage is paid off (because you could afford to buy in your 20s), happiness rise…

I would also expect child support and alimony demands peak from 35-49 or so. It's got to be stressful knowing if you can't come up with the cash not only will you starve but you'll be tossed in a cage and your professional license, dl, and passport revoked

People are expected to care for their own children, yes.

Re: Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times

#17

Post by fdhfdjkfhdkj »

iwanttocomment wrote: post #2

Hey, Gen Z. Gen X here. I personally think this whole "young adulthood is the happiest time of your life" is some sort of bizarre Boomer artifact, and certainly wasn't in play in the late '80s or '90s. I was told that repeatedly when I was a teenager, but it certainly wasn't the case for me or most of the people I knew when I was a young man, 35 years ago. We were all totally blindsided by how bad the high school exp…

[dead]

Re: Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times

#18

Post by szundi »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #16
beaglesss wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also expect child support and alimony demands peak from 35-49 or so. It's got to be stressful knowing if you can't come up with the cash not only will you starve but you'll be tossed in a cage and your professional license, dl, and passport revoked

People are expected to care for their own children, yes.

Point was probably about the higher ratio of these people

Re: Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times

#19

Post by beaglesss »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #16
beaglesss wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also expect child support and alimony demands peak from 35-49 or so. It's got to be stressful knowing if you can't come up with the cash not only will you starve but you'll be tossed in a cage and your professional license, dl, and passport revoked

People are expected to care for their own children, yes.

Child support actually is a transfer payment to the custodial parent with no check any of it goes to the child, 'child support' is a misnomer like 'patriot act'. Taking care of the child is a separate consideration, it can be spent on the kids, shoes, or a case of jack daniels.

Re: Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times

#20

Post by lisper »

ascorbic wrote: post #12
lisper wrote: post #5

It has apparently escaped the notice of the authors of this article that in 2022 we had just begun to recover from a once-in-a-century global pandemic that lasted two years, killed eight million people (so 30% more than the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust), left countless thousands living with debilitating long-term symptoms, and permanently deprived an entire cohort of once-in-a-lifetime formative experiences…

From TFA > Later, as he put it, he “thought that everything was COVID.” Now, Blanchflower says, he sees that was an error. “COVID extended trends that had existed before,” he says.

I searched for "pandemic" rather than "covid" to see if this had been considered, but the data presented do not support the claim that "COVID extended trends that had existed before".
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