To think current young adults are heading for a tough mid life crisis?

[clairemcnam]

Most generations since we have moved in the west beyond bare survival, have had a significant group of young people questioning the point of focusing on a career, buying more stuff and living an ordinary consumerist life. But this generation seems incredibly conformist. Amongst young adults the emphasis seems to be on agitating around being able to buy a house, rather than questioning capitalism.

I suspect when a lot of current young adults hit mid life, they are going to be hit very hard as they begin to question their life and why they strived so hard to be consumers.
AIBU?

A lot of young adults seem to be very focussed on climate change, and actively seeking to do what they can to mitigate it, as well as agitating against it, to my mind?

Or, they’re the first generation to plan their (and children’s) future rather than just assuming it would just ‘happen’ like every other generation.

Also, communism is hardly and alternative is it?

Not sure that buying a house is more consumerist than renting and lining landlords pockets. Surely buying a house is quite capitalist and striving for some independence.

Most young adults don't see buying a house as something you can take for granted and some may never be in a position to move out of their parents homes.

I disagree. I find them far less focused on climbing the career ladder than previous generations. If anything, they are more environmentally aware and less likely to have a house to be tied to and have to stick to climbing up the greasy pole to be able to afford the mortgage repayments. I'd say it's more this generation who should be wondering why they spent so much time working for nothing?

I'd say it's preferable to conform and then have a mid life crisis, resting safely on your financial, social and career equity. Rather than the other way round - fart about for a few years being "alternative" and end up well behind your peers earnings and home ownership wise, never able to make up the lost ground. Speaking from slightly bitter experience.

Also be realistic - the people who can influence the system are the ones in positions of power and influence. No one cares what the intern thinks!

Well as much as I’d like to dismantle capitalism, whatever that may entail, in the meantime I’d like to provide some security for my daughter so that we’re not at the mercy of a landlords whims. Which means buying a house. An undertaking which is significantly harder today than it was for the previous generation.

I totally agree with you OP, they question very little other than what they were taught to question in school, which as somebody mentioned is usually climate change, and also identity and race issues. Additionally, they all have it so drummed into them that mental health is the monster under everybody's bed that will get them eventually that they can't help but think of themselves in terms of anxiety, depression. They're taught that mental health problems are the norm, so it's what they fall back on. It's a very messed up conformist generation but as ever with these things, it's not exactly they're fault.

Also the fact that the issues younger people today care about- and I agree with the previous posters that climate change, race, identity and mental health are all up there- are not what the older generation feel we should care about, seems fairly nonconformist to me?

(I’d add homelessness and supporting refugees as issues I’ve seen young people really working hard for too)

It is an incredibly conformist generation. A friend works in a university and has for years and he has commented how this generation of students turn up when they are supposed to, and do what they are told to do. There have always been some students like that, but also many students who did question things and were challenging.
I also in my workplace work with a lot of colleagues who are young adults. It is myself and an older colleague who question anything. The younger ones just go along with things.

riotlady I don't care what young people care about. I just wish they were more questioning in general. Being conformist is not the route to a happy life or a decent society.

this generation of students turn up when they are supposed to, and do what they are told to do

Well they did pay a lot more money for it....

The problem with those issues that young people care about - climate, race, identity, mental health - is that they're all micro issues to some extent. It's not about challenging the system per se, it's about budging stuff about within it. Incidentally it's also why none of them can deal with a brexiteer without screaming racist. They're ill-equipped to deal with views that challenge their state-sponsored conformism.

I should add, i'm not defending littering or racism etc :) It's a wider point.

@clairemcnam but taking action is the result of questioning, and I see young people taking action all the time. That’s why so many of them came out for Corbyn, because they were questioning the status quo in politics. They are questioning what gender means. They are questioning the structures in society that uphold racism.

What you seem to specifically want them to question is home ownership and careers, and unfortunately we’re all a bit too busy trying to survive to abandon capitalism all together.

this generation of students turn up when they are supposed to, and do what they are told to do

Probably because it’s costing them a fuckload of money.

I am curious about what exactly the older generation has done to “challenge the system”. Because from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t seem to have worked?

I fought against everything as an '80s teen. I kicked against anything and any idea put in front of me. We all believed we were able to do anything we wanted any time we chose. And then if we DID end up conforming it would only be because we'd chosen to

I've ended up as boring as can be and doing ok financially. But then my generation had the luxury of a still having a good chance to make a go of things whenever we finally got around to facing real life. The kids these days have to start to think about saving for a mortgage while they're still in secondary school! It's a bleak environment for them and i guess they're being more realistic than we were because they're a bit crushed by responsibility.

@riotlady, that's the biggest load of misguided twaddle i've ever read. They only question gender and racism because they've been taught to. And those two things don't equal the status quo, by a long shot. The very last thing they're doing is questioning structures. The only thing they question is the surface layer of identity, leaving the structure nicely in tact below it. It's a diversion tactic that seems to have worked very well on them.

I am 37. We have lots of younger adults ar work.

I don't recognise what you are saying about them as a group. At all.

No they are not questioning the status quo. They want a change of Government, a different party. That is conformist and mainstream to want someone else to win a general election.
I am not saying that is not important, but it is very far from questioning the system.
And no this generation are not focusing on basic survival, they are focusing on advancing under capitalism. It is about 4 - 5 generations since a large section of the population were focused simply on being able to eat and having some kind of roof over your head. That is basic survival. So in the 20s depression you did have kids dying of malnutrition.

Laiste The 80s were a time when many communities were devastated and unemployment was high. Yes we had an economic boom in the 90s. One will come again. Boom and bust happens fairly regularly.

I teach Uni and I find my students absolute conformists, and every year less challenging and nicer!
They mostly live with their parents who they get along well with and they dont step outside any kind of taboo.
I'm not sure what it means or what it will all add up to but they are adorable and I love helping them to achieve their (admittedly conservative) goals.
We have some great discussions about the state of the world but I'm not sure they are ready to surround a government building with petrol bombs in the event of marshall law

The problem with those issues that young people care about - climate, race, identity, mental health - is that they're all micro issues to some extent.

Micro issues?!

Genuinely struggling to see what could be a more fundamental and all-encompassing issue than the fact that we’re 30 years away from irreversible environmental catastrophe.

For all the non-conformist agitation that must have been happening in older generations (judging by your comments) you still seem to have led us down a path where we’re in the same patriarchal capitalist society we’ve always been in, only now it’s on the brink of being too late to save the planet. Has it occurred to you that young people are protesting climate change instead of ‘challenging the system’ because older generations haven’t left us the luxury of making any other choice?

And what’s more, I think you would be hard pressed to try and make the argument that protests for radical climate change, Black Lives Matter, Me Too etc aren’t in fact extraordinary ‘challenges to the system’.

@clairemcnam I’m still waiting to hear what exactly you and your peers did that was so revolutionary?

Really?
That's not my (albeit limited) experience at all. DD finished uni last year and has spent the last year pottering about Europe.
Like her friends her goals all seem centered around travelling and creating things (music/art/stand up). No plans to settle down to work and definitely no plans to consider buying a home (ever).
If she could choose a career it would be tattooist.
I think there is a simmering resentment to the way they have been treated by the government and therefore the older generation who voted them in. They wont have the opportunities that we had with our free education, cheap housing, jobs for life and decent pensions.
Perhaps they will introduce compulsory euthanasia when they are in charge and get rid of the lot of us.