By Blake Sunshine*
I do not feel like an adult. I support myself, have a job and live 818 miles away from my Mom and Dad, but I still feel like a child most every day. And I know I’m not the only one. Millennials everywhere are having a hard time growing up. I know a handful of Millennials who have no clue what they want to do with their lives, and I know even more Millennials who are doing something amazing with their lives and still don’t really know what they want to do.
But Millennials have great educations and are smart, so why is growing up so hard for Millennials?
1. We still want to be astronauts- We don’t really all want to be astronauts, but we still do want to believe that we can do whatever it is we want to do with our lives. Millennials do not want to settle, and if you aren’t a grown up then you don’t have to settle. Which is why it’s hard for Millennials to grow up and try to discover what they really want to do with their lives.
2. Our parents don’t want to force us- I hate to blame our parents entirely for why we aren’t growing up, but they definitely aren’t helping us either. A lot of Millennial parents (not all!) are used to hovering over their children, and they only want them to be happy. And if that means not settling for a job that they don’t want, then many Millennials parents are happy to support their children for as long as they can. But this is a terrible thing, because we need the push from our parents to force us to grow up.
3. Growing up actually is hard- Maybe this sounds like an excuse, but growing up really is hard for Millennials. It’s a huge transition where everything changes and your life becomes totally different. Can you really blame Millennials for not really wanted to grow up?
Tell me what you think! Who’s fault is it that Millennials are having a hard time growing up? Are the Millennials you know having a hard time too?
*Blake Sunshine is a blogger at The Perennial Millennial. She also works in media relations and social media for an engineering company in Austin, TX.
I think the reason why we have a hard time “growing up” as it is defined by other generations is that there are so many things we want to do – volunteer abroad, work for a non-profit organization, etc. It is “growing up” but in a way that is not recognized by previous generations. We have different definitions of success, of happiness and of “being adults”. Will we one day settle down, have a stable job and a family? Yes, most definitely. But we want to spend more time exploring the world, doing some of the things we truly love and find out what exactly we want. Some of us are lucky to know what they want to be “when they grow up” since freshman year in college. But that is not the case for others. The thought to spend your entire life doing the same or almost the same things every day is scary, especially if you don’t know if you like it. Everything changes so rapidly and provides so many opportunities that we should explore these opportunities. Maybe one of them will be what we want to do for the rest of our lives.