To think the encouragement to delay real life is a big cause in the explosion of mental health issues in under 35's ?

[rudolphrainbownose]

Okay, so there is a well documented mental health crisis amongst young people , particularly university students, needing mental health support.

Is it just me or is the current culture of delaying "real adulthood" ( staying at school longer, young marriage/ pregnancy actively discouraged and frowned upon, uni unofficially taking the school leaving age to 23 for middle class young people, staying living at their parents well into their late 20's/ early 30's....)

To me it seems discouraging starting real adult life is fuelling this.

1. Young women are told not to expect "security" in relationships, they are almost told to expect being ghosted by a series of men "not wanting to put a label on it," and going on a series of disastrous online dates is better than settling down young. Look how much marriage amongst under 25's is frowned upon on Mumsnet.

But I don't see many aspects of the dating scene today, ("friends with benefits" being cool, sex often expected without commitment before or afterwards on the first couple of dates, having to actually spell out you don't want the guy you are dating online to continue dating others online, being ghosted and blocked for no reason, being particularly healthy for the mental health of young people). Yet this is sold to them as more empowering than settling down into a steady relationship at a relatively young age....

2. I'll expect to be flamed for this, but the active discouragement of having children in your 20's , probably robs a lot of women of a focus, ( because having your own family is often a nice focus), than drifting around without a purpose gives them. This also leads to probably more people experiencing the panic of miscarriage and infertility , ( risks increasing with age), into their 30's.

3. Active encouragement into University without thinking often leads to a horrendously mentally unhealthy lifestyle.

For those with a passion for the subject, or doing a vocational course that leads to a career, of course university should be supported.

But that is not the case for your average student. Your average student goes to uni because, broadly speaking, it's what their college or sixth form expects of anyone vaguely academic. They pick a subject with no fixed career that they are at best, vaguely interested in, ( managed to scrape a B in business studies A Level, hated it the least, so I'll do it at uni to delay working for three years).

They head to uni to study a subject they are not particularly interested in, ith no idea what it will lead to afterwards. Most, have at most, six hours a week contact time, ( often less post covid). They sleep in late, browse the internet and get smashed a few times a week, ( the majority of students I know do not work in term time). Rinse and repeat. And they wonder why living this not very appealing lifestyle leaves students at poor risk of mental health ? And many are encouraged to take on a masters in a subject they are not interested in, with no direct career, to delay entering the real world for another year. They live in a bubble with people of the same age and inexperience as them. Compare that to a 19 year old office juniour being up and about, learning about the world of work, going for after work drinks with colleagues of a variety of ages ?

And the housing crisis means they are still likely to be living at home, ( especially if they are single), until 30. Often treated like overgrown teenagers, still in the habit of explaining to their parents where they are going of an evening. My friend , ( male), was explaining to me that at 28 he was working himself up to staying the night at his new girlfriends as he was so embarrassed to explain where he was to his parents, ( because if he told them he wouldn't be home for dinner as he was staying at his girlfriend's , they'd realise he was having sex).

In short, is delaying marriage, babies, work , moving out and leaving education actually causing everyone to be directionless and unhappy ?

I'm on the fence, i do think we infantilise our teens (case and point someone calling a 17yo a 'child' on another thread) by this enforcing of keeping them in education until 18 now, i think it means they're less mature, less able to cope with 'life' when at the end of college we just kind of expect them to launch into being able to hold down a job, and an adult committed relationship, own a home...etc without any kind of buffer between 'child' and 'adult'

But my MH issues (i'm 42) were caused by undiagnosed ADHD, and getting into a relationship with an abusive older man at 20.

It wasn't until i left him at 36 that my life really began, and i had the time to spend on myself to solve my issues. I'm happy, and mentally healthy now.

YABU. People go to university at the same age they always did . So the current university students experiencing mental health problems haven't 'delayed real life' any more than any previous generations did. Your point makes no sense. As for the idea that getting on and having children gives people (well, women obvs) a purpose and makes them less likely to have mh problems - are you joking?

University is not for everyone and many young adults would benefit from being treated as adults.
but….
I totally disagree re young women and dating - I don’t think anyone thinks playing the field and OLD is preferable to a nice stable boyfriend situation.
But where are all these potential boyfriends?
I certainly don’t see crowds of 20 something young men desperate to settle down, have children and commit to raising them equally with their wife/partner and getting pregnant in an unstable or even toxic relationship isn’t in anybody’s best interest.

I teach post graduates in a vocational masters and those I encounter with mh problems are almost the exact opposite of what you suggest. They are weighed down by expectations to get the prefect career, home, family, life. None of them are floating around carefree pulling pints in Australia for a year or backpacking in Thailand or goa like my generation (x). They are stressed out of their mind trying to secure a “real life”.

@rudolphrainbownose 1) Young women are told not to expect "security" in relationships, they are almost told to expect being ghosted by a series of men "not wanting to put a label on it," and going on a series of disastrous online dates is better than settling down young. Look how much marriage amongst under 25's is frowned upon on Mumsnet.

You say going in dates rather than settling down young as if it is piss easy to find the person you want to settle down with successfully. What do you think the string of dates is for? It's generally precisely to find the person you settle down with. Unless of course you are suggesting settling with the first man who they date?

2) I'll expect to be flamed for this, but the active discouragement of having children in your 20's , probably robs a lot of women of a focus, ( because having your own family is often a nice focus), than drifting around without a purpose gives them. This also leads to probably more people experiencing the panic of miscarriage and infertility , ( risks increasing with age), into their 30's.
If you can find a way to change the entire economic landscape into one where two incomes are not required and where people could buy a home without shaving away for years the. By all means, crack on.

3) Active encouragement into University without thinking often leads to a horrendously mentally unhealthy lifestyle
Again, if you can create a society where employers will hire people straight from school into jobs with good career progression prospects then you go ahead and do this. Until then, young people will continue to go to university as a means of securing some hope of a job that pays more than minimum wage .

@Oblomov22 interested by your point that ‘I wouldn't have let ds2 choose a Uni course with so little contact hours.’

how would you have stopped him? Surely he had to do his own uni application? Or would you have pulled any financial support if he chose that course? And what if he’d taken it anyway?

I think its more to do with the fact that no one seems to explain that MH problems exist in everyone to some degree. Everyone has anxiety to some degree - some people just can't seem to find the stopper on the bottle to help them to function... probably because we have made it easier for people to not have to function and therefore they stop trying. If your choice was stay in because your anxiety was acting up to go out to work because otherwise you don't eat then it would be much simpler.

Silly women getting an education instead of having kids 🤣

If anything I think it’s social media that’s the biggest problem.

Absolutely this. I clearly lived without any focus whatsoever till I had my child at the advanced age of 39, and just bumbled around acquiring four degrees, travelling, establishing myself professionally.

OP, you don’t seem to think individuals have any agency, and you have some very reactionary ideas about women trading sex for commitment. I am 51 and I had sex with men virtually immediately when I was single (including now-DH), because I preferred it — no point falling for someone and discovering you were completely incompatible in bed.

You also have some odd ideas about what constitutes ‘real life’.

I don’t disagree about children staying at home after their teens being usually a disastrous idea, but I think that’s a strange side effect of everyone’s obsession with buying property and rent being ‘wasted money’. I think that a bit of living in a manky house share isn’t a bad thing if it enables independence.

And I think social media is a contributory factor to poor MH, certainly. And Covid. My undergraduates are still visibly impacted.

I don't blame students for going to university, when so many employers require degrees even for low paid work

My parents' generation lived at home until they moved out to get married (albeit due to respectability rather than lack of funds), so that's not such a new idea

I think "friends with benefits", sex on first dates etc is not good for mental health. And I wonder if it causes fertility problems for some people, which causes difficulty later on

I think many young people are rightly concerned that soaring house prices mean that accommodation is unaffordable. In the past, house prices increased because more women working meant that couples could afford to pay more. And then incrrased further because low interest rates made mortgage payments more affordable, so buyers could afford to pay more. And now, interest rates go up, and it's all going to pot

I wonder if we will see more multi generational living, families squeezing into smaller accommodation and / or people having smaller families

“I think "friends with benefits", sex on first dates etc is not good for mental health. And I wonder if it causes fertility problems for some people, which causes difficulty later on”

Why would sex on a first date cause fertility problems? Am I missing something?

Add in all the babying of grown ass adults. Oh but he/she’s only 22 and?? That’s a grown ass adult.

Over babied and then left not knowing wtf real life really is. I remember my own husband didn’t know what a council tax bill was smh.

I agree with a lot of what you say.

A friend of mine did everything she could to ensure her children were never hurt or upset about anything. If another child said or did anything to upset her children she would have it out with the other parents. It left them totally unable to cope with anything negative as adults and now in their 30s still keep running back to mummy to sort it out for them

A family member of mine posted on Facebook that her anxiety was off the scale and her mental health was the worst it had ever been. The reason? She had her driving test! Which she passed first time as it happens.

I'm not a parent myself but understand it can be extremely hard to see your child upset or hurt. But surely children must be allowed to fail and be shown how to deal with it. In the big side world out there shit happens and we all need to be taught and given the tools to cope with it.

At least three generations of mental health conditions in my family (on both sides) but it just wasn’t talked about in the same way.

My mental health has got significantly worse since having children simply because of economics and agency over my life being much reduced for a number of different reasons. A lot of that would
be made a lot easier if there was still a safety net of any sort in social care and if cost of living wasn’t so high. And relative to most millennials, my monetary situation is excellent, so if I’m struggling goodness knows how hard it is for some people.

I love being a mum and a number of my friends have kids and also enjoy it, some had kids young, some late, having children has significantly disadvantaged all of them in terms of extra stress, and most of them in terms of career prospects. Those who had kids young this was much worse. So basically, I think you’re talking nonsense.

There could be an argument that anxiety about the state of the world is a reasonably rational response at the moment.

@Countrydiary Yes, we have a lot of MH problems on my Dad’s side of the family. People have had children from their 20’s to their 40’s and it doesn’t seem to make much difference, tbh. Other factors, such as unhappy relationships, financial problems may have influenced the tendency, but ultimately, some people suffer from depression or are bipolar (like my Dad) and they will be, regardless of their life choices. 🤷