Twentysomething: Why Do Young Adults Seem Stuck?

by Samantha Henig, Robin Marantz Henig

A mother-daughter writing team reports on what's really up with kids today

Science writer Robin Marantz Henig and her daughter, journalist Samantha Henig, offer a smart, comprehensive look at what it's really like to be twentysomething—and to what extent it’s different for Millennials than it was for their Baby Boomer parents. The Henigs combine the behavioral science literature for insights into how young people make choices about schooling, career, marriage, and childbearing; how they relate to parents, friends, and lovers; and how technology both speeds everything up
and slows everything down. Packed with often-surprising discoveries, Twentysomething is a two-generation conversation that will become the definitive book on being young in our time.

"The fullest guide through this territory . . . A densely researched report on the state of middleclass young people today, drawn from several data sources and fi­ltered through a comparative lens."
—­ The New Yorker

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Psychology, Self Help, Adult, Audiobook, Cultural

304 pages, Paperback

First published November 8, 2012

Reviews

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I'm not crazy. That's pretty much what was going through my head the entire time I was reading this book. I am a twentysomething that after working very hard for four years has recently graduated college. However, much like many of the twentysomething's questioned for this book, I have no clue where I'm going to end up five years from now (or let's be honest, even one). The first three chapters were very relevant to me--I kind of skimmed through the "Baby Carriage" chapter. There were sentences in here that literally could have been taken out of my own diary.

Reading through this made me feel both comforted and anxious. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who feels stuck, depressed, like my college degree has no real value, and who is in more debt than I ever thought I'd be at the age of 23. However, while I was reading it dawned on me that I'm going to be turning 24 in a few months...which is almost 25...which is basically 30! (well, not really but this is what anxiety will do to a normally rational person's thought process) I realize this is exactly the sort of worrying this mother-daughter duo is bringing to light in this book.

The only complaint I would have is that the author's stick up for the "emerging adolescents" a little too much (which yes, this is kind of the whole point of the book, I know). I do agree with much of what they had to say but I also know far too many people in their 20's that are literally not even interested in growing up. They have no interest in even looking for a job let alone actually working and think they are entitled to whatever they want. They don't seem to account for the people who are just downright lazy and have no work ethic whatsoever.

Overall, this is the perfect book for any twentysomething out of college and parents of twentysomethings to read. It details psychological concepts and recounts recent studies done and their findings. Very, very interesting!

[Courtney Stoker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but I was disappointed by it for two reasons. The first, more reasonable, is that the book was really concerned with middle and upper middle class twentysomethings. The introduction admits this, but it made the book very unrelateable for me, and considering the employment rate and poverty rate for twentysomethings, not relateable for a huge chunk of us. It felt a little off for the book to talk about boomerang Millenials or delayed adulthood based on marriage, steady jobs, and having babies without talking about how so many twentysomethings are poor and un(der)employed.

The second reason is less reasonable. I wanted this book to make me feel better about the utter mess my twenties are. But it didn't, partially because it didn't deal with class issues. The particulars of upper middle class Millenials are just not relevant to my life, and while the book tries to have an optimistic message, it felt like a message that didn't have anything to do with me.

I wish there was a book that smartly dealt with issues of class as they relate to Millenials. I would read the shit out of that.

[Chad Olson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trying to make an interesting magazine article a book. I didn't there was enough original or engaging content.

[Rowland · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a 20 year old white middle class male college student, this book offered me little to no new information on twentysomethings. However, I guess it was my fault that I even picked up the book expecting to learn something new. If you're not a white middle/upper class person this book is probably not interesting to you either... Unless you like to read two rich white ladies discuss articles they've researched about their class of people. The only interesting part of the book beside the writing dynamic between the two authors, mother and daughter, was the comparison between old and new generations at the end of each chapter (though still only about a certain people). For the low-star reviews below referring this to as one too long of an article, you hit the nail on the head. Thank you, Amen.

[Anne-marie Borbely-bartis · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a late-forties supervisor of twenty somethings, this book helped enormously. From the opening page the language spoke directly to my own "what is the MATTER with this generation?!" And helped me through some pretty strong feelings of frustration. I recommend it to anyone who finds the generational chasm wider than ever.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good exploration of all the thoughts that are going on in a twentysomething’s head. I liked how they incorporated both personal anecdotes and psychological-sociological research and evidence. It’s helpful to know others are grappling with the same paralyzing decisions that twentysomethings are forced to make and commit to. And it seems we are all just trying to figure what works for our unique lives, even when we have reached “adulthood”.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book Twenty Something, asks "why do Millennial's seem to be so stuck?" It gave a look at various reasons young adults were not moving forward with the expectations of their parents and the Middle Class idea of the American dream. Each chapter attempted to tackle a specific area of the twenty somethings adult life such as, career choices, friendship and marriage. The chapters were divided into two sections of research and anecdotes, the first being the ways that this generation and their problems are unique, and the latter being devoted to the ways in which things are "the same as it ever was," according to the Talking Heads song.

I found the book easy to read and enjoyable. It was CO-written by a Mother and her daughter in an attempt to serve both the Millennial's and their parents with hopes of mutual understanding. It was a quick read, a bit heavy on the data and redundant at times, but I am happy for the information and it is easier to make sense of my generation and what befalls us.

[Monta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paņemot šo grāmatu rokās, mani apvija cerība, ka izlasot šo visu gūšu risinājumu savām problēmām. Diez gan augsts standarts grāmatai ar 300 lapaspusēm, un arī muļķīga iedoma no manas puses, jo tā, protams, netika piepildīta.

Bet arī neskatoties uz šo nereālo prasību no konkrētās grāmatas, tikai izlasot nosaukumu un aprakstu - es tāpat no tās gaidīju vairāk.
Varbūt pie vainas tas, ka grāmata nu jau ir 7 gadus veca, vai tas, ka autoru skatījums bija tikai no ASV problēmu skatu punkta, un mums Latvijā ir dažas citas nianses, kas būtu jāņem vērā.

Kopumā tā bija noderīga lasāmviela, no kuras es guvu priekšstatu par apstākļiem, par kuriem savā dzīvē nebiju aizdomājusies, bet tomēr nedaudz pietrūka.. Pietrūka degsmes šai grāmatai.

[Casie · Rating 3 out of 5]

About five years ago, I started reading books on raising teenagers. And for the past year I've been reading books about colleges. This is a part of my parental research, although it ended up giving me great insight into the lives of my students. I loved particularly listening to the parts that questioned the value of my career (as I was driving to work). This reaffirmed my belief that higher education is not merely job training.

I enjoyed the dual perspectives of the mother and twentysomething daughter. And I'll agree with a fellow reviewer that one of the best resources is http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/the-on....

[Kirby Ingram · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is great and not just for 20somethings but maybe 30somethings as well. Very insightful and helpful to know I'm not the only one struggling with decisions about myself, love, career, children and etc. This book also helps with understanding the pressures that the older generation puts on us young adults. I highly recommend this book to anyone who feels a little "unadult like" on a regular basis.

[Jack Goodstein · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am probably not the best audience for this book, and I found it difficult slogging through it. Most interesting when it is anecdotal. My edition has a different sub title.

[lindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

GPOY hahaha LOL no seriously I am reading this on the subway with the dust jacket off for obvious reasons.

[Jay Miraldi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is basically a look into the adult lives of the Millennial generation and the way that the culture we live in is impacting us (both positively and negatively) to try and get to the root of the reason that many members of our generation, now in our 20s, just feel generally stuck, almost in limbo. I like that the book was written in tandem with both mother (a baby boomer) and daughter (a millennial) offering differing, multi-generational perspectives on each theme explored in the text. The book is full of interesting statistics and thought-provoking insights into the factors that influence the defining aspects of our lives. I learned a lot about myself over the course of listening to this book. In particular, I found it very eye-opening to actually sit down and formulate my own answers to the questionnaire presented in the appendix. Writing out my honest answers allowed me to seriously think about and explore my own fears and anxieties surrounding the different aspects of my life. Listening to the testimonials from other's like me made me realize that I am far from the only one experiencing those pressures and fears. In truth, I feel much less alone after this book :P

[Alex Sun · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is about similarities and contrasts between the Baby Boomers and Millennials. It was fun to see that it is not just our generation (myself being a Millennial) that generally feels self-entitled to choices and more time before settling down to true adulthood. The book reminds me of “Excellent Sheep”- the group it draws survey and anecdotes from is also mostly ivy-league educated, upper-middle class kids who usually have some buffers to failures in early adulthood: The safety net is there, but a sense of true purpose could be lacking.

Overall, the book could be shortened to half the length and still achieves its aim. Problems common to emerging adulthood are presented, but no real solution is revealed. I walk away from the book, feeling ever more pessimistic about the society (big student debt, a false sense of security for women with delaying birth because of IVF).

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely skews toward the more affluent crowd. Lots of references to the challenges following tinge at Cornell, and such. I got some good information, but just couldn't get past the silver spoons.

[DJohnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read! Packed full of relevant information. Best part was the unique writing style of both Robin and Sam, which provided a great contrast between Boomer and Millennial perspectives

[Tran Dien · Rating 2 out of 5]

Một cuốn sách khá là chung chung và thiếu chiều sâu.

[Pop Korn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is interesting because is about the people in their twenties

[Lindsay · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Maybe this would have been more interesting if I had read it when it came out, but it seems repetitious and boring now.

[E.H. Nolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept behind this book is really cool. Robin Marantz Henig belongs to the baby boomer generation, and her daughter Samantha is a millennial, aka a Twentysomething. Together, they’ve written an interesting, nonjudgmental discussion about “kids these days”.

I am a twentysomething, and my mom is a baby boomer, and we both really enjoyed reading this book. We happen to have a very open stream of communication anyway, but I can imagine those who aren’t as close to their parent or child would get an extra benefit from this book. People who aren’t used to discussing both sides of the argument for or against twentysomethings will be inspired and provoked; I can’t even imagine how many parent/child discussions this book sparked when previously both parties involved believed they had nothing to talk about.

This really is a fantastic book, for millennials and those who have parented millennials. For people in their thirties and forties, probably not so much, unless they happen to be dating someone younger and want to understand that generation better. For parents, Robin takes a gentle tone. She knows firsthand the journey, expectations, and disappointments of raising a twentysomething, and she doesn’t blame the parent for the child’s outcome. For children, Samantha tells it like it is. She explains how social media and technology has shaped us beyond belief, and why we look at sex, love, and marriage differently than the previous generation.

Although it’s not a very long book, it’ll probably take you a while to get through it, since you’ll close the book after every chapter and engage in a lengthy discussion with everyone you can find about what you just read. I highly recommend it, for although it doesn’t actually fix anything, it can unite parents and children in a new way.

http://hottoastyrag.weebly.com/twenty...

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, that was an unusually long magazine article I just read! - Oh, that's right, I guess it's a book, based on the hardcover. OK, in truth this was not any lighter than standard popular nonfiction fare these days, it was just that very little of it was really gripping, and the reality is that's because I'm a boring adult (and not actually confused about being one--even if a manager's reference to me as "a woman in my office" made me sort of double-take, and think, hey, yeah, cool, wouldn't have automatically thought of myself that way!

Now, that kind of anecdotal snippet is what you can find lots of in here. The chapters are even structured to better support snippets of thoughts, sorting the arguments into either 'today's twenty something's really do represent an alarming new development' or 'hello, eternally constant human nature!' Then at the end of each chapter they pick a 'winner.' Problem was I disagreed with who won almost every chapter, undercutting my trust in the authors. And anyway, since when can a complex philosophical point be 'awarded' to one side or another after 15 pages of thought? It cheapens the brooding navel-gazing the authors are trying to facilitate.

[Eli Rubin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Light and frothy, the book was essentially an extended magazine article comparing the ways of mother and daughter's similar maturation processes in different time periods. It was heartening for me, as a millennial, to read magazine excerpts from similar economic rough times in the 1980s and draw quite taut parallels between then and now.

Aside from the exceedingly rare prescient observation, many of the big issues discussed served mainly to get the wheels in my own mind turning about the maturation process of those of us in our 20s or "second adolescence."

The two parts I enjoyed most:

1) the citation of Chris Guillebeau and James Altucher's alterative college experiences (alternative grad school found at http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/the-on...)

2) The daughter's observation that her friends sleeping around to "find themselves" and "learn more about what they want" were those farthest removed from entering a committed, adult relationship. Pretty obvious on the face of it, but somehow I had always been distracted by the couched language implying more than a sexual romp.

[Sarah T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like a 3.5 rating.

This book was an enjoyable read authored by a mother/daughter pair. Some have described this book as, essentially, a long magazine article. *shrug* I thought it was well researched but not too heavy-handed.

I was born in 1982 so that makes me part of the earlist of Gen-Y-ers, and I've NEVER liked being compared to "that generation" of spoiled brats, etc. This book did give me some comfort though, because things (decisons, struggles, expectations, etc.) really aren't all that different for contemporary twenty-somethings than they were for young baby-boomers. It would have been interesting/useful to have more data on the lower-class and minorities, but the authors did warn the readet at the onset of the book that their research wasn't as exhaustive ad it could have been in those regards.

Though I will admit to feeling a twinge of a quarter-life on the horizon, I think learning what I did from this book will help keep that crisis from becoming nuclear, lol.

[Adriana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mandatory note: I got my copy thru Goodread’s First Reads.
A mother-daughter writing team explores what it means to be in your twenties in the 2010s and how the changing times and new perspectives are making it seem like young adults are stuck.
The writing style is very OpEd with mother and daughter interjecting their comments and opinions in between the data they’d collected.
The topics are varied and apt for the theme (family, work, living situations, friends) and all are treated with the same deep, well researched perspective. Dividing each chapter into “Now is new” and “Same as it ever was” subcategories helps keep thing flowing between the comparisons without making it confusing, though the “winner” tally at the end of each chapter was a bit superfluous in my opinion.
As a twenty-something that feels a bit stuck at times, it was good to have someone give me facts and figures to keep me from freaking out about it. It does get a bit too “scientific” at a couple of points but that just made it seem very well researched, so it can be forgiven.

[Giulia Scifoni · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very nice dialogue, full of insights and statistics on different aspects of life in general (love, money, work, health, etc) with a focus on that generation of young adults (25-35 yo) and how they deal with such changes in their lives.
I found the first part of the book a bit boring, too much studies and numbers and papers and less "real life" or examples...but probably it's because the chapters I was mostly interested in where all towards the end.
Anyway, a pleasureable reading for everyone, perhaps expecially for the oldest parents wondering about their sons and daughters!
For me, as young adult, it's been quite interesting to put my life in comparison with others' and with a few official studies on the subject!

[Christianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I skimmed this book, so it might not be fair to rate it. But it was well organized and summarized so skimming was made easier. I like books that remind me that many things have not changed when it comes to comparing generations. It reminds me not to grumble about "the kids." Yes the Internet has distracted them and offered them more choices, school is so very expensive, and they are having babies later, but for the most part the types of decisions and pressures millennials face are the same as ever. They really aren't more self-absorbed than Gen Xers or baby boomers, and despite whatever Facebook says, they have the same number of real friends as us older folks.

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a survey of surveys type book, easy to read and written mostly by the mother Robin, and commented on by her 20-something daughter Samantha.

It convincingly lays out arguments highlighting how today's young adults really do have it different from other generations: college is much more expensive, how young people decide / balance things (career path, doing something "cool", changing professions) and how people make decisions (way more complicated than you think.)

Its not an answer book, but it offers great points to consider, or to help a young person consider their future. I'm thinking that Lena Dunham character on "The Girls" would benefit.

[Gloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would get five stars if it looked at my cohort more broadly, not just upper class (white), East Coast, college-educated twentysomethings. As I am one of the aforementioned ones, this book rang true and was reassuring that I'm not alone and my experiences are pretty normal. The authors do address that they're not going to cover everyone, but I would like to have seen a larger data set and information on non-urban dwelling people my age. It's a casual, interesting read that ultimately serves to reassure my generation that we're going to be okay.

[Scott "Bjorn" Cummings · Rating 2 out of 5]

IT was the classic twenty somethings book that was heaving on research. that was a nice change of pace from others books like quarter life crises that just had a bunch of stories of people in their twenties. But I felt like I didnt learn anything new until I have more some life expierances in my twenties. If you feel you that are having a quarter life crises just read this and it will remind you that you are not alone.

[Kyle Nicholas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably the only acceptable thing I found about this book was the premise that Generation Me is lazy, entitled, self-adoring, and totally unremarkable is because it was brought up by the Baby Boomer generation: I am totally on board with that! However, the authors' insistence that a big part of "growing up" involves eventually popping out babies is absolutely rubbish. Thanks for contributing to the problems of this world.