Why Our 20s Feel So Uncertain More Than Ever‬

Abby Souverain
Sep 2, 2018 · 9 min read

How the socioeconomic climate of today has changed the face of our generation


‪The popular saying “20’s are for living” has passed through anyone’s ears who has sought out comfort of where they are and where they’re going.‬ Your teenage years are for trail and error, and then you really start blooming into your 20’s…not your 30’s though; by then you should have found a career, a place to live, and someone to hold on to forever. So do everything that’s important now before it’s too late!

‪What exactly does the phrase “20’s are for living” mean anyway?

Then comes in that creeping underlying sense of urgency. This occurrence is so common, social media parody accounts dedicated to overwhelmed college students and depressed nihilistic young adults have garnered millions of followers of a likeminded generation, releasing just for a moment the scrutiny of societal expectations.

‪If there’s so many of us who all feel the same, what does it means to be apart of this Generation? Simply, a category to define how technology has affected an age group on a mainstream level. ‬

‪Baby boomers is the generation of post WWII, where factory assembly lines created salary for blue collar workers, television programming gave a new form of expression to the masses, and the invention of credit cards and creating “credit” sought new opportunity for building wealth.‬

‪Generation x, dubbed as the “latch-key” generation, where family dynamics began to shift focus on entrepreneurial growth (mom and pop stores, street vendors, and door salesmen) due to the economic recession of the 70’s; two parent households began working more, and children began to be supervised less. Divorce rates began to rise, crack cocaine was introduced to inner cities, the music industry revived through television (MTV), video games and arcades became a booming industry, all aiding to how people began comfortably expressing themselves as “I” instead of “We”. ‬

‪Millenials, the first to be exposed to the rapid advancement of home accessible technology; at-home consoles and home computers, the birth of the internet and converting landline phones to cell phones. Texting emails and online chats connected us nationwide to “we” instead of “I” again. After 9/11, tech industries that helped push an online presence for everyday users aided to an increased surveillance state, forever changing how we communicate with each other and express ourselves to the outside world.

‪This ushered in the age of social media and the smart phone. We are intertwined more than ever to information, whether it is useful to us or not. Video livestream as well as platforms such as Youtube have given us the stepping stones to what we know as virtual realities. On one hand, our forms of self expression has turned into brands, and the mass entrepreneurial culture that was born from Generation x has kicked into overdrive with the help of social outlets. We have home-grown public figures and home-grown news sources that big corporations and celebrities now look to for visionary advice. At the touch of a screen, we can now find communities of people who share the same interests, cultural upbringings, gender, race, and age as us. This generation has fully emulated what it means to be self-served.

But this also leads to the other side of what it means to be enthralled by virtual realities; shorter attention spans with greater work load, influx of 24 hour news and entertainment coverage we no longer want to tune into, stronger emotional attachment to work environment, deepened polarization of sociopolitical groups, increased reporting of low self esteem anxiety and suicidal tendencies in children, delayed social intimacy yet stronger yearning for social change, and although it is the least violent generation of adults there is increased desensitization to acts of mass violence such as the growing threat of public shootings. Although millennials and generation z is at the forefront of innovation, it is also two generations of repped late bloomers.

“Generation; a category to define how technology has affected an age group on a mainstream level”

‪Each Generation has it’s own unique image of what it means to be in your 20’s. Factors such as the class we are born into greatly affects how and when we will be able to accomplish these guidelines of what our “20’s living” should look like. How does Generations relate this? Well, we can take a look at what economic and social changes Millienials and Generation z inherited through our predecessors.‬


Class by definition is not what we are use to interpreting it as. Because of the rapid changes of our economy within the last 3 decades, the deepened separation of “lower class” and “upper class” has been stronger than ever. In essence, the post-WWII creation of “middle class” was by the faith of what stable income gave to nuclear families. They were given priority for cheap subsidized loans to buy homes with a backyard, they were able to keep their 2 to 3 children in school longer, and be able to save income for luxury items such as tv’s, cars, and yearly vacation trips.

Let’s compare this to the life of “Emma”, who represents the average American citizen now. ‪In 2015, Emma was 38 years old and single, with an average salary of less than $57,000 a year. Emma would only be able to live within her means in 30 out of the 270 major cities in the country, unlike 52% of other Americans aged 18–44 who have children. The cities Emma would likely have to choose from? Overpopulated, poor upkeep of local government services, underfunded public education, weak regulation for quality food and water sources, and increased police presence and surveillance. ‬

‪Emma does not own a home but rather pays rent, does not own a car, and has less than $1,000 saved in a bank account while her peers have no money saved at all, and is one medical emergency away from homelessness.

So how is this still considered middle class in today’s day and age?‬

“Class by definition is not what we are use to interpreting it as”

Millennials who are able to generate large amounts of new money not inherited from their parents (through social media platforms, tech industries, and a still lagging behind banking industry), are still majority living above their means and voting against their better interests due to perceived membership of the middle class.

The 20th century put forth a more specific sociological term, upper middle class. Because in reality, the difference between class is social; who has both generational wealth and pedigree and who doesn’t (which is largely affected by race). More than ever DNA lineage providers such as ancestry and 123andme are gaining popularity among middle class families who are curious to how much historical documentation is account for of their past generations. Although it has been proven than ancestry DNA test are not actual accurate, but rather predictions of statistical matches compared to others who share similar traits, people want to know about their past and who they could possibly be related to; the knowledge of one’s family lineage (and possible notoriety) is now used as another hallmark of social upward mobility

It takes more than home ownership or a car to be considered middle class now. Upper middle class young adults, who are majority white, are still following the strongly traditional guidelines of “living in your 20’s”; education, career, marriage, then children. Why? To maintain generational wealth in a changing economy. A changing economy that no longer maintains a government that promotes social safety nets in the age of late capitalist ideals; families rather have to create these safety nets for themselves.

And the upper middle class is acutely aware of this trend. Through record-breaking segregated populations of white and black children in schools, health care and food and water quality being able to be predicted by zip code, access to voting polls and government agency buildings based on zip code, increased reporting of homeless LGBTQ teens and young adults, higher tax cuts for corporations and top earners; upper middle class families have been able to keep alive traditional modes of accumulating wealth to benefit the lives of their children entering their 20’s who they expect to also continue a nuclear family lineage. Even upper middle class individuals in their 20’s 30’s and 40’s who are single or divorced have shown to have a voting trend of overwhelmingly conservative background with only some progressive ideals on an interpersonal level. Even though this is the most influential demographic of our generation, it is not the majority of 20 something year olds in America.

‪Recent studies have shown Millenials are majority dissatisfied with their economic state, have not been able to build wealth at the same rate as previous generations, are the lowest homeowner Generation to date even though it is the largest generation so far of college degree holders, has inherited the most competitive job market with an over saturation of health and STEM positions, and is increasing in mental health crisis and unhealthy relationships to alcohol and prescription drug use. ‬

And what does it look like when peers of different socioeconomic backgrounds who all graduate high school together do not achieve the traditional guidelines within the limited time frame of their 20’s?

An individual who had to move away from home at 18 or did not have stable housing would spend more time working than in school, or not even continue to go to school at all. Although public transportation has increased in popularity, individuals who do not have access to cars ultimately still have higher financial and career seeking burden compared to their peers who are able to afford unpaid internships and study abroad opportunities. Individuals who have families that they need to support financially such as sick or homeless elders well after childhood will have delayed financial stability. Individuals who do not have some form of generational wealth to inherit from their families such as a house, a college fund, or life insurance will begin to see just how difficult it is to build credit in a country with virtually terrible credit; a financial system that has been reworked, loopholed, and exploited many times over by banks within the past 18 years alone.‬

Wealth in this country more than ever is staying in the top 1% of earners; and even though the economy is “growing” salaries for the majority of citizens has not kept up with inflation since the 1980s, which at its conception our economic system was intended to do. ‬


Many Millennials still wish to have families and homes by their own terms, but simply can not afford to anymore; the value of self survival has become logically of more importance. The American Dream of what it means to make it has changed to an unknown for a generation who now prefers to live in lofts, experience casual relationships, and use public transportation. The majority of Millennials do not know what social class they belong to either, because most do not realize the majority of themselves and their peers who are accumulating debt by the trillions will statistically never mobilize to upper middle class in their lifetime.

So do we truly have room to transition into the adults we want to be, or does the world that came before us already hold the cards? ‬For Generation Z, does “Z” symbolize the beginning of an end?‬ ‪For a young adult coming into the workforce, it seems extremely competitive yet hazier by the second.

But as somber as this sounds, it’s an opportunity for real change. Dated moral codes and social expectations of yesterday can finally have a closed chapter. Since the recession of 2008, young adult’s relationship to money, self-value, and our elders has greatly transformed. In terms of astrology, the slow moving planet Pluto has been in transit with the cardinal sign of Capricorn since the year 2008. The last time this transit took place was during the American Revolution. Astrologer Isabelle Ghaneh expands on the symbolic importance of a generational transit such as this;

“When Pluto makes his way into Capricorn, he will be transforming many of the areas of life Capricorn deals with. One of the most important issues that will be dealt with during Pluto’s journey through the sign of Capricorn, the winter sign, will be the subject of aging. Material resources, money, the way we deal with power, our desire for status, and our response to security issues will also be paramount in our conscious and unconscious thoughts.”

-The Llewellyn Journal, 2018

The uncertainty that we feel as the leaders of Generation Z is more common than we think. We’ve heard it many times before, but to see exactly why this phenomenon is more common in such a climate of poor mental health and financial insecurity will be our tools to a better future, not an obsolete one. We can no longer look to public figures, monetary status, and fabricated social hierarchies as comfortable barriers and leaders of thought to subside ourselves to. In an overly-productive, overly-competitive, and over-estimated natural world, nothing we do is a wasted effort, no matter how late of a bloomer we feel to be. Only the consistent effort of self-reflection will save us from the mistakes and limitations our elders have set in place for us.

A speeding car within the fog of night on a long dark road with only our dimmed headlights to give us warning to what is ahead…we owe a story to tell and a new sunrise to the next generation.

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