2023-08-18
29 分钟This is in conversation from Apple News.
I'm Shemitah Basu.
Today for our Think Again series, reconnecting with your sense of self in parenthood.
I read this article a couple of months back about millennials struggling to make their way through adulthood, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.
It was by Jessica Gross, who writes about parenting and all things affecting the American family today for the New York Times.
And it wasn't a knock on Millennials.
It was a smart analysis of all the bigger societal changes that have made everything from buying a house to raising a family fundamentally different than it was for past generations.
Jessica says there was one statistic in particular that made her want to write that piece.
The silent generation, who are in their 80s and 90s now.
When they were at 40, around 70% of them lived with a spouse and a child in a household.
And the comparable percentage for millennials is 30%.
That's a huge shift over not a very long period of time.
That insight, for her, unlocked a new way of thinking about the challenges of of modern parenthood.
And I think a lot of people were sold this idea that if you just follow the right steps, you will have the stereotypical American dream.
And it's not to say that that's not still possible.
It just doesn't look like what it used to look like.
The milestones are moving, goalposts shifting, and that makes the personal transition into parenthood, as well as our shared vision of what parenting should look like, even more unclear.
It's like we're working with an outdated roadmap.
I never want to look at these massive changes as all bad or all good.
They're just changes.