(A version of this entry appeared in the New York Times on July 15, 2012)

 
Before we start lots of handwringing about parents and children today, let’s get a grip:

If the 20th century American family were displayed in an animated flipbook, the first pages whizzing by would show large families with many children clustered on the margins, evolving to the present with just a few children situated at the center. Children would move from being of great economic value to having great psychological value. Parents would begin to invest greater time, resources and emotions in their children. The relationships between parents and children would become deeper and more complex and would last for many more pages.

That big, sweeping picture is positive. As the economy was restructured and the need for higher education grew, the role of parents has become ever more crucial in determining how children fare on the high-stakes road to adulthood. I’ve learned a few things about that process.

• The support of parents — emotionally and financially — is the single most important predictor of the success of young adults. Involved parents provide many advantages that are necessary in today’s world.
• Relationships between parents and young adults are closer and more connected than ever before. New generations of parents have wanted more, and they got it. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. There are no guidebooks for how these relationships are supposed to go when children are grown — or when parents are middle aged or old. But a warning to men: This positive story is still much more about moms than dads, despite how far we like to think the American father has come.
• Goldilocks parenting is best. Extreme Parenting is a problem for everyone. If you’re over involved, step back already. (You know who you are — or if you don’t, watch for not-so-subtle eye rolling, especially from teachers.) If you’re under involved, step up. The Hard Knocks School of Parenting of a bygone era — 18, you’re out, with no support thereafter — is not an effective strategy today.
• Building the self-esteem of children will carry them far. But children also need to know disappointment and failure if they’re to be resilient adults. Psychologists call it “transformational coping.” Of course, some hardships are more consequential than others. Parents must choose when to make the save and when to let a child fall.
• If you want to see just how much involved parenting matters, track the lives of young people who don’t have it. Many serious problems in our nation stem from parents who are absent, neglectful or abusive. In obsessing about helicopter parents, we’re focused on the wrong end of the spectrum. Involved parents, even hyperinvolved parents, are creating these problems.
• Involved parenting is especially important for boys and for fathers. Many of the crises of child development concern boys, and many the crises of parenthood—and adulthood, for that matter—concern men. Both boys and men benefit from involved fathering.
• There is extraordinary inequality in the capacities and resources of American parents. These things determine what parents can do with or for their children. Unequal childhoods become unequal adulthoods.

As for the future, parenting will probably continue to be the arm’s race it is — at least in the middle class, and at least until the game of getting ahead in our society eases up. In the meantime, you’ll find my heart heavy for kids with parents who care too little rather than those who care too much.

(A version of this entry appeared in The Oregonian, June 17, 2012)

College debt is in the news these days as the class of 2012 throws their caps in the air in that springtime middle-class ritual.

But there are some dirty secrets about college-going and college debt that families need to know, especially in the wake of recent announcements about rising tuition in our state.

Over 90 percent of newly minted graduates in our nation have a loan to repay. While average undergraduate debt from a public four-year institution—$23,000—is “only” the price of a car loan, there’s a much bigger story behind that average.

One part of the story is that loans normally soak up what’s left after the already large contributions that many families struggle to make. A second part is that this average means that many students are carrying far greater debt—but don’t have job prospects that can even begin to pull them out of the holes they’re in.

But a third troubling part of the story is mysteriously absent from public and political discussion: In an eerily familiar tale, it is students from families with the least experience with college, like those with the least experience buying a home, who are saddled with unmanageable debt.

Many will say: these students should have understood what they were getting into. But like the predatory lending of the mortgage crisis, they face stiff hurdles and savvy marketing expertise.

The crisis of college debt today reflects the invisible hand of privilege in our country. It is about a generation of young people who, in an earlier era, would not have gone to college but had other opportunities. It is about a generation that has been sold the line that college is for everyone—and a set of institutions that have capitalized on it. And it reveals just how dangerous the college game is when young people and their families don’t have information or resources to play well.

Families rightly wonder whether a college degree still pays. It does. But recent evidence also suggests that the payoff is flattening.

The big problem is that families mistakenly assume that a college degree is worth it at any cost. And no one is telling them otherwise. Families must have honest conversations about four questions before they sign on the dotted line:

·     First, how likely is it that the student is going to graduate? This is a tough assessment to make in a society so devoted to political correctness and self-esteem. But nationally, nearly half will not graduate within six years of entering, and after that, their chances of finishing are slim. This startling truth is somehow out of public and political discourse. These students won’t have degrees to leverage in order to pay off the debt they accumulated before they struck out.

·     Second, what kind of earnings can the student later expect? If she wants to be at teacher, don’t take out $60,000. Debt has to be in line with anticipated earnings. Of course, many students today don’t know what they want to do; plus, they’ve been told that college is for figuring it out. But unbridled exploration is an expensive enterprise.

·     Third, where will the student thrive? Choosing a school and major that are well aligned with one’s personality, skill, and learning style go a long way toward success. Mismatches can be a recipe for disaster.

·     Finally, what are the alternatives? When it comes to institutions of higher education, the Toyota equivalent may be as good as the Mercedes if it gets you where you need to go. Students who should be in college should go to college. A crummy economy or limited family resources shouldn’t change that. But it should affect a decision about where to go.

We put blinders on about the college prospects of our youth, and not going to college is perceived as a sign of failure. So, we channel them toward college, even when we know the risks are great. We don’t give them frank advice along the way. We let them increase their debt as they struggle. And then we blame them for not making better decisions when they are burdened with debt they can’t possibly manage.

As a country, we don’t want a system in which only the brightest and best-resourced students succeed in 4-year institutions and the rest don’t. There are also viable alternatives to four-year degrees, but too few youth hear about these pathways. Many community colleges are leading the way, collaborating closely with local employers to tailor curricula to meet their job needs, to build the skills and opportunities of those students who cannot or do not want to go to four-year institutions or who need requisite coursework before they make that leap.

The bottom line is that we can’t keep duping vulnerable youth in ways that jeopardize their futures. We need to help young people and their families make careful decisions about higher education—or college debt could become this generation’s mortgage crisis as they pursue the American Dream.

It’s back to school. And one of the inescapable burdens of being an educator relates to this simple truth: We grow older, but our students are forever young. It’s a kind of Dorian Gray curse-in-reverse.

Yet, as new students file into our classrooms each year, we’re aware of a complementary truth: Just because our students are always young doesn’t mean they’re always the same. Recent years have brought a seismic shift in the kinds of students we face.

Writing this book with my co-author, Barbara Ray, has changed how I teach and relate to my students. Here are a few lessons that will be helpful for high school teachers and college professors:

• A slower path into adulthood is good. It pays off for young people to make careful, strategic choices and to build credentials and experiences that will carry them for the long haul. This advice proves effective in every realm of life, whether education, work, or relationships.
• The futures of many young people are fragile, often because they’ve forgone or failed in higher education or because they’ve leapt too quickly into family responsibilities.
• As any teacher can attest, over-involved parents can be real nuisances. In our society, however, the support of parents is crucial in determining whether young adults sink or swim. Of course, those outcomes also rest heavily on the prior contributions of teachers.
  For students whose parents aren’t involved or don’t have the know-how, a strong adult mentor can make all the difference. These mentors are often teachers.
• College still pays. But there are important considerations to keep in mind. Among other things, students need to (1) finish (there are serious crises with retention and graduation), (2) take out debt in line with their potential earnings (students shouldn’t take out $60K if they’re going to be teachers or social workers), and (3) pick institutions and majors that are well aligned with their personalities and learning styles.
• When it comes to college, the Toyota may be just as good as the Mercedes. The cheaper alternative can be the smarter option if it gets you where you need to go. Students who have the skills and capacities to do well at top-tier institutions will do equally well a rung or two down the institutional ladder. But the gap shouldn’t be too big either.
• The “college for all” mantra dupes many students, who need frank advice about their prospects and a clear map for how to get there—or someplace else productive. This mantra equates outcomes other than college with failure.
• Volunteering and civic involvement can help young people build networks and learn about leadership and collaboration firsthand.
• Nurture boys and young men, who are at great risk for high school and college drop out, unemployment, and being disconnected from healthy relationships.
• Some choices in life aren’t reversible. Despite what we hear, our society is not always one of second chances. The decisions young people make and the actions they take are terribly consequential for their futures.

It’s important to remember that the world we’re training our students for is dramatically different from the one we knew. One of the most dangerous things we can do is give advice based on a world that no longer exists. Not Quite Adults is not an apology for today’s young people. On the contrary, it is a big wake up call for all of us.

Why do so many Americans think that kids are going down the drain, despite good evidence that they’re not?

That’s a question that Laura Sessions Stepp, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, posed to me in a playful phone conversation last week.

Laura had written a column for CNN (“The Kids Are All Right“) in which she’d cited some new evidence that teen behavior has improved on many measures. In three days, her column sparked almost 1,000 on-line comments, many from people who just didn’t believe it and ranted about how bad kids are.

Laura’s column focused on teens. But she’d recently read Not Quite Adults and was impressed by the evidence that led us to some hopeful messages about 20-somethings alongside some signals of crisis.

Were we encountering the same kinds of reactions from the public?

Absolutely, especially on line. There’s nothing like anonymity to breed courage.

In the case of young adults, much of the heat seems to come from middle-Boomers and those born before them.

So, why do older generations seem to have it out for younger ones?

We’ve battled with a few culprits, some of which were expected:

THAT TIMELESS THEME IN HUMAN HISTORY, in which older generations wag our fingers at youth and believe that they’re doing it all wrong (read: different).

FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE CHANGE: We hold fast to the problematic assumption that the world today works exactly as it did when we were young adults. And when it comes to evaluating the progress of young adults today, we’re still trapped in the middle of the last century.

SELECTIVE MEMORY: We have a convenient tendency to misremember our own paths—and ourselves—as being better than they, and we, actually were. And as we look back on our lives, we have an inherent need to tell a story that is far more logical and linear than it actually was. We impose order on what might have been chaos.

ATTRIBUTING PROBLEMS TO CHARACTER: We have a peculiar way of explaining the “problems” we see in other people as being the result of their character rather than their circumstances. And yet:

EXCEPT FOR MY KID AND ME: As parents, we have also have a strange habit of taking credit for our kids’ successes and externalizing blame for our kids’ failures. But when it comes to the difficulties of other parents and of other people’s kids, that’s another story. That’s about those families and those kids.

A FEW ANECDOTES MAKE A TREND: While we’re busy making these judgments, we’re also quick to generalize to a whole generation the problems we see in a few young people.

Our VALUES AND POLITICS can also prevent us from seeing clearly.

But some of the culprits have been deeper and more complicated:

RELATIVE DEPRIVATION: As Barbara has also observed (see earlier blog), the oldest generations among us today knew serious economic hardship early in their lives and eventually came to know extraordinary affluence. Younger generations, instead, knew affluence earlier in their lives and are now coming to know hardship. That’s a completely different mindset and experience.

It’s hard for older generations to acknowledge that any difficulties that young people might experience today could come close to approximating what they knew. And yet many of the young people we have encountered feel duped and gypped. They’ve been told all their lives that they could do and be anything they wanted, and the rug has been pulled out from under them. Their early years seem like One Big Setup for a life they’ll never have.

THE ILLUSION OF NEAT TIDY PACKAGES: We somehow expect young people to have their lives in neat tidy packages. And yet the rest of us who are far beyond young know that adult life is anything but neat and tidy.

Also, every period of life is being rewritten—what it means to be “middle age” or “old” are also up for grabs, if we even allow ourselves to believe that we become old! Why do we expect young people to have it all figured out? The rulebook for life has been shredded for everyone.

THE ILLUSION OF INDEPENDENCE: We assume that young people should be striving for complete independence from others. And yet we fail to acknowledge that our existence at every age depends on our relationships with other people. Our social ties determine much of our possibilities—who we are and who we become, the opportunities we get or are denied.

A SLOWER COURSE INTO ADULTHOOD IS A SLACKER COURSE, which it’s not. (See earlier blog entry.)

Of course, a little dose of ENVY probably lurks there too—in watching young people search for meaning, pursue degrees, explore relationships, nurture friendships, and strive for better work-life balance. Wouldn’t we all like a little more of that?

Whatever the source of these generational tensions, Barbara and I are trying to use them to open some much-needed conversation about young people in the United States. Like Laura (see follow-up column, “Teens Doing Better: Why Don’t Adults Believe It?“), we’re taking these tensions as a sign that people care. After all, this isn’t just a story about young people. It’s ultimately a story about all of us.

Failure to change leaves us uniquely prepared for a world that no longer exists.

One of my colleagues shared that insightful quote in a recent faculty meeting.

It’s not only a great mantra for faculty in a university being dramatically reorganized.

It’s a great mantra for many of life’s most challenging moments.

And it’s especially pertinent to parents who are trying to launch their youth into adulthood.

Consider “Allyn of Hawaii.”

Allyn had this to say in response to a U.S. News & World Report story, “Why Gen Y Might Be Too Frugal,” which featured Not Quite Adults.

I am a baby boomer who has two GenY children, and I think they, and their generation, are great. I remember growing up in the 70′s and they were pretty scary. But they were not as bad as now. Today’s kids have a right to be a little tentative and uncertain. But I am proud about how resilient and mature my kids have turned out. They are much more aware of the world and society than I was at their age.

I have told my kids that I do not have a clue as to how to navigate the world that is evolving, but I will help them in anyway I can. (Many of the up-and-coming professions of today did not even exist back in the 70′s. How can I tell them what they should do?) I only wish that I had made more social contacts and such over the years that could have made their way a little easier.

GenY is going to turn out fine, but we have got to give them the time and space to reinvent and reengineer themselves.

Allyn’s perspective is enlightened and refreshing.

Why? Because it starts from the assumption that the lives of young people look different because there’s something unique about the world today—rather than that there’s something inherently flawed about their character.

In so many of the conversations we’ve had about Not Quite Adults, especially with older boomers, it’s the other way around.

That’s understandable. It seems a natural impulse—and timeless theme in human history—for older generations to look down on youth, shake their fingers, and truly believe that what was true for us should be true for them. But the world has done an about face in the last half century. The quick-start lock-step life is dead.

I don’t know why we expect young people to have their lives in neat tidy packages when those of us who are no longer young know that adult life is anything but neat and tidy. The name of the game is about being nimble in the face of uncertainty and resilient in the face of hardship.

Failure to change leaves young people uniquely prepared for a world that no longer exists.

We must advise youth in ways that are sensitive to the realities of the world today. If we don’t, we’re not likely to help them and, in fact, we may hurt them. That’s why, for example, the old school of Hard Knocks Parenting—18 and you’re on your own, without a net—is a dangerous proposition today.

Way to go, Allyn.

Blake (see prior post) has no clue, really, about the fast track. He should talk to “Josh.”

Josh called in during a radio show discussion about Not Quite Adults.

Man, you so hit it, he said. I’m living proof of the problems of going too fast. I wish I’d heard this show 4 years ago.

Josh said his parents took what we called the “hard knocks” approach: 18 and you’re out; don’t expect anything from us from now on. (Another caller’s mother actually made him sign a formal “Declaration of Independence” at 18, saying the same thing.)

That meant no possibility of higher education for a kid like him. He began to work and form a family. What else do you do?

At 22, Josh has a wife and two little ones at home.

He’s now unemployed. For the life of him, he said, he can’t find a job that pays more than $8 an hour.

He feels shame that he’s had to turn to government support to get them through.

He never imagined this for his life.

As he looks back, he’s frustrated that this quick-start path is the one he was sent down.

If only he’d been allowed to stay at home.

He watched some of his friends stay with their parents so that they could afford to go to school. They now have good jobs and don’t yet have major family responsibilities.

Their lives couldn’t be more different, he said.

The scary thing? It all happened in just a few years. And, like so many things in life, there’s no reset button.

At recent public talks about Not Quite Adults, young people, parents, and educators have lined up to say how much their own experiences fit our research findings, and how comforting it is to have new insights into how and why the course of becoming an adult has changed so dramatically.

And along comes “Blake.”

He’s different, he insisted. A slow path? You’ve got to be kidding me.

Blake is currently a college sophomore. He hopes to go straight to law school when he’s finished with his bachelor’s degree.

Blake was absolutely shocked to learn that he could have been on anything but a very fast track.

From the time he was little, he’s been pushed to achieve in school. He’s been heavily scheduled with extracurricular activities of all sorts.

His parents are paying for his undergraduate degree. He works a handful of hours a week during the academic year to have a little cash to burn, and he works as much as possible during the summer to tuck away some cash for the school year.

A “real” full-time job? Years off, once law school is done and he’s had crucial internships.

Romance? Sure, some dating. But nothing serious with everything else on his plate. That might take him off course.

Marriage and kids? Of course. But they’re so distant on the horizon you can’t even see them if you squint. First things first.

Ambitious and driven, he somehow believed he was on the fast track.

In a way, he’s right.

He’s been fast-tracked for a slow path to adulthood.

As it turns out, he’s the epitome of what we’re talking about.

Check out Barbara’s blog for three great posts from the past week!

Throwing Down the Gauntlet on “College for All”

“Making Room for Younger Workers, Or Else” and

“Be the Change”

Last week brought some great coverage in USA Today, the Toronto Star, and the Boston Globe, among others.

Not Quite Adults is starting to prompt conversation about young people in our country, which was exactly our hope.

But it’s clear that the conversation is not an easy one. It’s quickly driven by politics, values, and emotions.

We want to clear something up.

When people hear us say that the evidence shows that a slower course is good today, and that a fast one is risky, “slower” somehow gets interpreted as “slacker.”

That’s the opposite of what we’re saying. A SLOWER COURSE IS NOT THE SAME AS A SLACKER COURSE.

A slower course is good if it allows young people time to make more strategic and careful choices, and to build credentials, skills, and experiences that will ensure stronger and more stable futures. The evidence shouts.

And that’s especially true in today’s economy.

The twenties are crucial years for making investments in one’s future. It’s not a moment to stand still. What happens in the 20s is terribly consequential for the rest of adult life.

We’re also not saying that young people shouldn’t assume responsibilities for themselves or others; they must.

But we should be far more worried about young people who jump quickly into marriage or parenting before they’re ready, who leave home without adequate resources, and who bypass higher education—these are all extremely risky ventures today. If you think there aren’t some serious alarms going off, check out a few of the items in our True and False Quiz.

Doing these things right matters much more to the well being of individuals and our nation than doing them quickly.

That’s something we should all care about, no matter where we stand on the political spectrum.

I tuned in to listen to Rick’s interview on the Bob Smith Show today with Rochester’s NPR station, and it struck me that nearly every interview we do, at some point, the host asks, “Isn’t this slower transition a return to life before WWII?” It’s so heartening to see those kinds of questions, because we know that the book is at least making people think. Writers love an engaged audience!

The answer to that question is a decided “yes.” We are in many respects returning to family living arrangements prior to the boom-boom years following WWII. Prior to the war, families often lived together in mutigenerational households, and young people didn’t leave home at age 18 or 19. In fact, in the late 1930s, about 70% of 20-year-old white men were still living at home. Back then, the economy was much different than it is now, of course. In fact, it was even worse than it is now. It was the Great Depression after all. Unemployment was high and there was no unemployment insurance. Families struggled immensely. Young people lived at home and contributed what they could to the household.

But with the war came jobs, and within a few short years after the war was over, the economy was shifting from making ammunition to making cars and toasters (my mother fondly remembers getting their first toaster after the war–she and my dad had been on a waiting list for months). The postwar economy would, as we all know, be a boon to our living standards, our educational standing (thanks GI Bill), and our position in the world. The “new normal” was mom, dad, and two kids living in the newly built ranch house on the outskirts of the city–a suburban dream. This move also meant an end to multigenerational living.

But while today’s trends of young people moving back home reflect an era past, there is one critical difference. Young adults of the postwar generation grew up amid Depression-era hardship and came to affluence and a comfortable standing of living only later in life. They were used to struggle. Today’s young adults, in contrast, grew up amid affluence and are suddenly faced with a tightly constrained budget. That’s an entirely different mindset–and a different set of adjustments, for both mom and dad and their young adult children.

It’s also, of course, an entirely different economy as well, but that’s another story…