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 ?

Happy for previous posters whose mental health was improved by having kids, but I’m sure I’m not alone in having mine TRASHED by having them! My eldest’s additional needs (combined with my DH’s death in his 30s) crush me every day.

I love them of course, but having kids does not guarantee joy and fulfilment - drudgery and despair are also very possible.

I’m grateful every day for my job, the career I built up in my 20s (having got a non-vocational degree in a subject I really loved at an excellent university).

I became a mum at 29 having put it off for travelling, getting a good job and buying a house first, but now I wish I’d of had children younger. I remember having it drummed into us at school to not have kids young, I feel like I wasted years waiting

The maybe they want kids was one suggestion

not sure you are the poster I originally responded to but just providing a few suggestions to the apparently baffling scenario as to why someone may not be bothered settling down at 20 but may find they do by mid to late 20s

I’m in my early 50s and my 20s were the time when I lived abroad, learned a language, travelled, trained for the job I had by then realised I wanted to do. They were a great time and by the time I was ready to settle down, have kids I had so much life experience.

What was different then was the lack of debt (full student grant, free university) and the fact I didn’t have to rush into home ownership - houses were still affordable. I didn’t have to earn so much, so I could take more risks. Our parents, who were young in the 60s, encouraged us to go and have experiences they hadn’t.

It’s my impression that people in their 20s, and early 30s today have had a completely different experience. Lots of student debt, feeling the need to work much sooner, while jobs, even previously well- paid ones, are not well paid any more, and are more precarious.
It’s not surprising if they are depressed. I think I would be!

Now I worry for when my kids finish education. I hope they’ll have the opportunities I did - and I’ll encourage them to take them. It’s not looking great. But I definitely won’t encourage them to have babies young unless they want to. They probably won’t be able to afford to though.

I think this is really well written and I’d like to see this more widely discussed. Have seen both DSC go through this and a couple of family. I’m glad DS (17) has an apprenticeship. Mainly because he wouldn’t cope with higher ed so the choice has been removed tbh. I went to uni (a Russell group, got a 2:1 ) but my anxiety was sky high in my twenties as I had no idea who I was. DS is already saving for a deposit and two of his fellow employees have bought their first home in their early twenties just by putting their minds to it - both started as apprentices. I don’t believe the ‘can’t afford a house’ thing. My young neighbour has bought her first house age 28 by saving very hard and not throwing cash at clothes holidays and alcohol. She’s a chef in a large chain that’s all! And this is the Cotswolds - very high house prices. Anything is possible if you want it enough . Younger people just can’t buy a home ‘easily’ and confuse that with impossibility because everything else is done for them. including thinking ! which creates very low self esteem.

Suicide rates are highest in 45+ men. In 2020 there was a statistically significant drop in the rate of suicides in the 20-40 year old age range for men

So no actually all that introspection is not actually harmful. In fact the younger generation being more willing to talk about and work through their issues means that their suicide rates are falling and older people could actually learn from them

I find your post really interesting and can appreciate your view point.

but from my own experience with my own life, I was “grown up” from a fairly young age: lived with partner at 17, worked from 17, bought first home at 23… I was very independent and able to call places on my parents behalf from my mid teens… but I still had really bad MH issues which reoccur From time to time

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

Huh?

A lot of this is true. Plus the pressure of constant social media and 24 hour news cycles that are almost exclusively negative in content. Then there's a pandemic and the tanking of the economy post-Brexit.

I also think that people are just a bit more open about their mental health issues. I knew a lot of people who had mental health issues looking back but they were the ones that used to get heavily drunk at the golf club and then drink and drive, or the women that completely wrapped themselves up in their homes and children to hide their anxiety. Or the parents that took their frustrations out on their children with slapping them to bring them into line.

An ageing population also causes massive issues with people having to look after parents when they are approaching retirement themselves. Plus the extra pressures on social care and the NHS which means that they are stretched much more thinly.

It’s not about being strong it’s the socially “normal” thing to do isn’t it that’s point of the post people settling down later

my response was to someone saying - why settle down at all if they didn’t want it at 20 what’s so different 5-7 years later

Yeah I get what you are saying. There's so much focos on the photo op moments of life rather than just, well life.

I think all this pish about living your best life, having me time isn't something earlier generations fretted about.
I also think we've built up perfection in everything. At least in the 80s and 90s 'career women' as they were seen in that era were happy to accept microwaving dinner and chucking the kids in a bin bag for Halloween.
Now you need professional level make up, to be great at baking and doing all the other stuff. It's too much.

I am a big believer in making university easier to access later in life once you've lived a bit of it and have a passion to study again. I did well at uni but can distinctly remember that by the end of the second year I'd had enough. I did a short post grad after a few years working and I felt totally differently about it. It's a long treadmill of all the same type of pressure.

You realise after a few years that it was a bit of a doss but mentally it felt a slog at the time.

Yes kids are molly coddled these days and pander to their kids instead of teaching them to be resilient. I remember once having to ring a company or organisation. Can't remember what exactly but I asked my mum to do it cos I was scared and didn't know what to say but she said no and made me do it. I thought she was being mean but I now realise she was teaching me a valuable life lesson. Years ago you'd have a political debate and some might be Tory some might be Labour. You'd have you'd debate and then forget about it and be friends again. Now people fall out with each other over their political views. That just one example but I think in becoming more tolerant a society we've become more intolerant. Woe betide that you might actually get on with someone who has a different opinion to you. These days everyone is too easily offended and overly sensitive.People need to toughen up a bit.

People I know who married in their 20s are mostly divorced and some now quite messed up. I think if you want an interesting life, settling down and kids in your 20s would be depressing as hell!

The problem is that we can’t really have a society where it’s the norm for everyone to go to university, travel the world with a huge carbon footprint, spend a decade socialising and ladder climbing, before suddenly pinging back to raise children in a ‘traditional community’ that has ‘family values and a good work-life balance’.

For a start, it’s moving away at 18 and not returning until late 30s that means ‘traditional communities’ have disintegrated - grandparents aren’t young enough to help out anymore, few people are still in touch with their mates from childhood/school, and basically the place has moved on without them. Secondly it’s this ‘must go to uni, must get a career’ thing that means bringing up kids is to stressful and now more akin to growing a prize winning vegetable than bringing up a human being - you have to ‘do all the right things’ to make sure they ‘have every advantage’. And that means moving to a house you don’t really like ‘because it’s in the right catchment’, having a stressful packed timetable to ‘make sure they’re fulfilling their potential with extra curriculars’. And so on.

I find it hilarious that people do nothing at all to stand by their ‘community’ for a good 20 years then come back expecting it to rally round them when they have small children and bemoaning the ‘lack of support’.

Its like when retirees move to the countryside and expect to instantly be embraced by all the locals as if they’d lived there forever, when they’ve done nothing to invest in the place or help anyone else out, they just want to take advantage of what other people have created.

By all means jet off round the world for years and build a career but don’t then suddenly pop out a few kids and bemoan the ‘lack of support’ and ‘materialistic society’.

I agree that the pressure to continue studying is probably unhealthy for a fair portion of students. Prescribed learning over 2 decades is a grind and I’m not sure pressurised environments enable the learning process. It also saddles you with a huge debt coupled with the risk that it doesn’t give you a straight path to a decent job.

Alongside this mental health crisis, there’s also been a huge rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes. These two factors alone must be having a big impact on the wellbeing of young people?

I'm not sure. I do agree generally that the delaying of adulthood is a massive problem.

But there are a lot of other issues not covered in your analysis.

DS2 and I have discussed the pathologising of normal but negative emotions: anxiety, stress, unhappiness, loneliness. These are all now 'issues' instead of 'life' and treated as though they need therapy and a lot of attention rather than just coped with. So maybe some of the rise in MH problems can be attributed to patholgising what previous generations just coped with.

Then there's the opposite issue, which is that previous generations didn't pathologise when there really were mH issues. I had severe depression, dropped out of uni, was almost catatonic, unable to wash or speak. My mum just said I was being a self indulgent nuisance (and she was a nice mother). I never saw a doctor. I eventually got better enough to get a part time job and go to college part time and a year later I went back to uni well enough to finish my degree. I wouldn't inflict that on anyone. I went for decades thinking help wasn't available. I suspect lots and lots of people of my generation had serious MH crises that were just ignored, belittled or dismissed. So there's not necessarily a rise in MH problems, but a rise in awareness about them.

A lot of women of previous generations who were married with babies in their twenties were desperately unhappy and felt trapped and unfulfilled. They longed for further education, travel, a career, a lover other than their first boyfriend-turned-husband. They were just as unhappy but in a different way. And I do think it;s interesting that my generation and those prior to mine were raised by parents who hit you as a matter of course, left very young children unattended for hours etc. They were young parents, immature themselves. The recent rise in gentler responsible parenting has co-incided with people having children later in life, when they were emotionally less selfish and more mature.

I agree with some of what you've said, OP.

So many teens and young adults, who on the surface have pretty much everything they want, are routinely self-harming and suffering poor mental health.
I think it can partly be explained by a shift (sometime in the mid/late 90s?) to the child being the absolute centre of the family. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but the pendulum swung too far in my opinion. Many parents are involved in the minutiae of their kids' lives in a way that previous generations just weren't. Risks can't be taken and independence doesn't develop.

The 'Dream big, reach for the stars, you can do anything want if you work hard' message hasn't helped either. Kids are disappointed when they reach the late teen years and reality hits, and it's hitting harder for teens now than it has before as pretty much everything is out of reach. This combined with constant exposure to the wonderful lives of the Instagram crowd has created a perfect storm of unrealistic expectations.

I work with young people and think about this a lot! I also have teens/young adults of my own and hindsight is a wonderful thing. 😔

I listened to Paul Bloom recently, a Canadian psychotherapist and author.

He quoted from a survey (will try to find it) in which respondents were asked :
A) What gave them purpose
B) What made them happy

Interestingly, having children scored high for purpose but low for happiness.

I do think the not moving out of home for decades is tragic. No amount of saving would've made that worth doing for me- having my own life and space was too important.

Settling down fairly young isn’t a good choice for everyone though-my parents married in their early 30’s in 1970, because they’d thoroughly enjoyed the Swinging Sixties! They’d worked, travelled and had several relationships before they were ready to settle down.

They were expected to be independent from a young age, which is perhaps a major difference to today. No question that they had to make their own way ( of course, housing was much cheaper).

I think having some goals and direction is what makes people happy, Everyone’s goals are different, but I agree with PP’s that being pushed towards university with no career goals in sight isn’t the best (I was one of those students). Young adults need some practical advice and guidance-it’s fine if they completely change their minds, but having a direction has been really helpful to my DD(17) as she’s been applying to unis.

I would've felt like I was a real saddo if I stayed living at home with mum. I thought people like that were pathetic. (And I like my mum )

DS2 and I have discussed the pathologising of normal but negative emotions: anxiety, stress, unhappiness, loneliness. These are all now 'issues' instead of 'life' and treated as though they need therapy and a lot of attention rather than just coped with.

I think that goes hand in hand with social media, influencers, the idea of living your best life, being the best version of yourself etc. We can’t always live our best life, we can’t always be the best version of ourselves (whatever that means). Sometimes life is hard, we have difficulties in life, sometimes we’re mired in the treadmill of work and relationships are a challenge etc etc.

If you’ve been told that resilience means getting on with things, with a smile on your face, looking fabulous with a great job and nice home it’s a shock to the system to find it often doesn’t work out that way.

Maybe because people don’t want the same things or have the same outlook for their entire life? It’s pretty normal that someone could have a wild 20s then want a quieter life with a partner and possibly kids in their 30s. Im sure there is a peer pressure element for people whose social group is all doing it but the idea of people’s life goals changing over time really isn’t implausible.

While I agree somewhat with the idea that going to university isn’t for everyone and there should be more support for alternative routes into work, I don’t agree with anything else you’ve said OP. For a start, sex isn’t something women give to men under duress. Obviously coercion exists and I’m not disputing there are a hell of a lot of men who treat women badly, but women are perfectly capable of having sex and enjoying it on their own terms, yes, even casually. To insinuate everything about sex and dating is done for men, by men and on men’s terms just removes any agency from women and is frankly misogynist. Pushing women into marrying young, having kids and giving up their career potential in their 20s would leave them at the mercy of men even more than you seem to think modern dating does.

Then there’s the simple fact not everyone wants kids or is even heterosexual. Having your 20s as a time of experimentation and flux is absolutely necessary imo. While not all of my 20s was happy, I don’t regret the experiences I’ve had at all. They made me who I am today and I’m sure as shit glad I’m not married to anyone I dated in that time! I didn’t want kids then and I don’t now, in fact if anything I’d have done more travelling. The main issue facing young people today is a lack of choice and freedom because of shitty economic conditions, a ridiculously inflated housing market and the financial fallout of Brexit and covid.

No. HTH.

Compare that to a 19 year old office junior being up and about, learning about the world of work, going for after work drinks with colleagues of a variety of ages ?

This bit reads like you are watching episodes of Madmen and thinking that is how office life is. It's a fantasy that doesn't exist in the current day.