I think the real issue here is that the baby boomers and later generations enjoy infantilizing their children. First they needed to protect their 10 year olds from nonexistent child predators, wifi and inorganic food. Then they needed to protect their 16 year olds from depraved newfangled sex ("rainbow parties", etc), completely unlike the sex they had during the 60's/70's. Now that their kids are grown up, they need a new reason to remain involved and treat them as infants.
Well, as long as we're shooting from the hip, I think there's a different reason behind delayed marriage and childbearing. Being constantly flooded with information allows people to form a better picture of where they fit in the world, and be generally more self aware of what they want out of life. That means that people can't live life on instinctual autopilot like they used to. Why spend some of the best years for taking a risk (not just startups, but things like taking a year off to backpack, etc.) doing the most staid and conservative thing a person can do--settle down and start a family?
I could easily be wrong, but I seriously doubt that being coddled as kids has any bearing on the current state of adulthood. That's the kind of thing people have been saying forever.
I think you're wrong about being constantly flooded with information. If anything, it's having the opposite effect. I can do anything? Well, er, um, I don't know what to do.
I'd cite the famous study that showed more choice equals less action with the jams in the supermarket if I could be bothered to look it up.
I know it was much easier for me to make life choices once I had ruled out a massive amount of things.
I also don't see backpacking as drawing out childhood - if anything, the opposite. Well travelled people used to adverse circumstance and problem solving make better adults. It's the ones who never leave home, never make any choices, never do anything that are the eternal kids.
Well, as long as we're shooting from the hip, I think there's a different reason behind delayed marriage and childbearing. Being constantly flooded with information allows people to form a better picture of where they fit in the world, and be generally more self aware of what they want out of life. That means that people can't live life on instinctual autopilot like they used to. Why spend some of the best years for taking a risk (not just startups, but things like taking a year off to backpack, etc.) doing the most staid and conservative thing a person can do--settle down and start a family?
I could easily be wrong, but I seriously doubt that being coddled as kids has any bearing on the current state of adulthood. That's the kind of thing people have been saying forever.