Emerging Adulthood, Article Writing Example

In the article “Generation in Flux,” the author explores the opinions and viewpoints of Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, author of “Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road From the Late Teens Through the Twenties.” Arnett’s basic premise is that individuals between the ages of eighteen and thirty are currently experiencing what he calls a flux or a new phase in life in which these individuals explore and experiment with different ways to live and work in order to achieve the so-called “American Dream” in contrast to how their parents achieved it as conformists or in some instances as “Baby Boomer” radicals, holdovers from the Hippie Movement of the late 1960’s.

Interestingly, Arnett provides a quote that goes “What’s the matter with them?”

(a reference to the in-flux/adrift 20 somethings). “Why don’t they grow up?” This is almost exactly what the parents of the Hippie non-conformists asked themselves more than forty years ago when their children refused to “grow up” and instead followed their own pathways as non-conformists. Arnett also declares that this “generation in flux” are “doing all these different things; they’re not settled” and that because of their need to explore life’s possible opportunities, they are attempting to do certain things that they may not be able to do as older adults, such as climb a mountain or live a hedonistic lifestyle. These individuals are also trying to be much more creative than their parents and are opting to live as artists or musicians in contrast to having “normal” jobs.

In my opinion, Arnett’s “flux” argument can also be applied to older individuals, a sort to return to the old adage of the “mid-life crisis” in which a person over the age of fifty decides to seek out new avenues and ways to live outside of what is normally expected of them. After all, these individuals for the most part are members of the “Baby

Boomer” generation and are often revolutionaries or non-conformists. Therefore, the differences between Arnett’s “generation in flux” and the older “Baby Boomer” generation are few and far between, for both are attempting to expand their personal horizons and to fit in somewhere that makes them comfortable and happy.