Family Structures and Bonds

After reading the Furstenberg article, I immediately thought of one of the New York Times Magazine’s most popular articles from the year, “What is it About 20-Somethings?” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&adxnnlx=1282676491-3hvq0XR8G6jRKOF07o4s+w). The article explores the question of “why it is taking so long for 20-somethings to grow up” through considerations from developmental psychology to legal definitions of “adult”. When it came out the article was sent to me by a good number of my parent’s friends who still ask at every meeting if I “know what I want to do with myself”, as well as posted on numerous friend’s facebook walls and blogs as a sort of badge of honor- a way of saying, yes, I am one of these people that society does not appreciate. However, very few of my friends who are from the baby boomer generation have stayed at one job their entire life, or even remained in one field. While reading the articles from this week, I couldn’t help but wonder: is changing careers, partners, and many other parts of our life the norm? Even in the life course article the writers acknowledge that marriages are not static, so should we embrace values of stability in all areas of our life so sincerely? Certainly there are advantages reported on for stability, but as with many phenomena discussed in the readings and in class, I wonder how much of the anxiety and negative circumstances produced come from the discrepancy between societal expectations and reality.

Questions
1. What circumstances could affect the acceptance of children moving back home? ie. location, family socioeconomic status, job market competition. Will an increase in young adults returning home change societal values, and is there a difference between children moving home and children being supported by their parents but living elsewhere?

2. If minority groups tend to have closer family and intergenerational ties, will the life course change as drastically?

3. What different challenges do single fathers face than single mothers?