This question pops up everywhere, underlying concerns about “failure to launch” and “boomerang kids.” Two new sitcoms feature grown children moving back in with their parents — “$#*! My Dad Says,” starring William Shatner as a divorced curmudgeon whose 20-something son can’t make it on his own as a blogger, and “Big Lake,” in which a financial whiz kid loses his Wall Street job and moves back home to rural Pennsylvania. A cover of The New Yorker last spring picked up on the zeitgeist: a young man hangs up his new Ph.D. in his boyhood bedroom, the cardboard box at his feet signaling his plans to move back home now that he’s officially overqualified for a job. In the doorway stand his parents, their expressions a mix of resignation, worry, annoyance and perplexity: how exactly did this happen?
这个问题似乎是一夜之间冒了出来，其中还夹杂了对“恋家”和“啃老”现象的隐忧。最近上映的两部情景喜剧——《俺老爸说了》（$#*! My Dad Says）和《大湖》（Big Lake）——都是针对成年子女返家与父母同住这一社会现象展开故事情节的，在前者中，威廉·夏特纳（William Shatner）饰演了一位性格乖戾的父亲，他二十多岁的儿子想成为一位博客作家却郁郁不得志；而在《大湖》中，一位金融奇才在丢了华尔街的工作以后，就返回宾夕法尼亚的乡下老家与父母住在一起。《纽约客》去年春季的一期杂志封面也颇具时代特征：一位年轻的男子将自己刚拿到的博士学历证书挂在自己孩提时代卧室的墙上，脚下是一方纸箱，暗示他对工作期望太高，以至于萌生出搬回家的念头来。门口站着的是他眉头紧锁的父母，无奈，担忧，愤怒却又困惑的表情似乎是在发问：为什么会变成这样？
It’s happening all over, in all sorts of families, not just young people moving back home but also young people taking longer to reach adulthood overall. It’s a development that predates the current economic doldrums, and no one knows yet what the impact will be — on the prospects of the young men and women; on the parents on whom so many of them depend; on society, built on the expectation of an orderly progression in which kids finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and eventually retire to live on pensions supported by the next crop of kids who finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and on and on. The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain untethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life.
事实上，这种情形正在全世界各式各样的家庭中上演，年轻人不光是搬回家，他们成长为完整的成年人需要花费的时间也更长。这种趋势在时间上要早于当前的经济低迷期，没有人知道这会对年轻人的未来，对他们赖以仰仗的父母，对社会将产生怎样的冲击。对有序进步的期望是传统社会存在的根基，孩子完成学业，长大成人，成家立业，最后光荣退休，依靠养老金生活，然后是下一代，依次循环，生生不息。但现在，传统周期似乎正在逐渐偏离正常轨道，年轻人已不愿再保持稳定的恋爱关系或建立永久性的家庭，他们有的人因为缺乏更好的工作机会而选择继续深造；有的人因为逃避责任而四处旅行；还有些人为无薪酬的实习机会或临时性的教师（Teach for America）工作争得头破血流，总之，他们不想开始一种成人式的生活。
The 20s are a black box, and there is a lot of churning in there. One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married. And marriage occurs later than ever. The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation.
现如今，二十来岁的年轻人就像是一方黑箱，内心波涛汹涌，外表却波澜不惊。在这些人中间，有三分之一的人每年都会换一个新住处；有五分之二的人回家和父母同住过；他们平均起来换过七份工作，工作变动频繁；还有三分之二的人尝试过婚前同居。他们的婚姻要比上一代人来得晚。以婴儿潮时代出生的人为例，他们在上世纪七十年代早期结婚时的平均年龄为21（女性）和23岁（男性）；而2009年，平均年龄攀升至26岁（女性）和28岁（男性），一代人多一点的时间就拉开了五年的差距。
We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.
我们正处于一个激烈动荡的年代，社会学家将其称之为“成年期的变动时刻表”。传统上，社会学家将“成年过渡期”分为五个标志性阶段：完成学业，离开父母，经济独立，步入婚姻，生儿育女。上世纪六十年代，77%的女性和65%的男性是在30岁之前完成了所有的五个阶段；而据美国人口普查局（United States Census Bureau）的统计数据显示，进入二十一世纪以后，只有不到一半的女性和三分之一的男性在30岁以前成功经历上述五个阶段。一份加拿大的研究报告显示，以2001年一位颇具代表性的30岁年轻人为例，他（她）所经历的若干个阶段如果放到上世纪七十年代，25岁就已经完成了。
The whole idea of milestones, of course, is something of an anachronism; it implies a lockstep march toward adulthood that is rare these days. Kids don’t shuffle along in unison on the road to maturity. They slouch toward adulthood at an uneven, highly individual pace. Some never achieve all five milestones, including those who are single or childless by choice, or unable to marry even if they wanted to because they’re gay. Others reach the milestones completely out of order, advancing professionally before committing to a monogamous relationship, having children young and marrying later, leaving school to go to work and returning to school long after becoming financially secure.
以当下的情形看来，完整的阶段划分法似乎有些不合潮流；在迈向成年期的过程中，这种因循守旧式的一致步调也已经不常见了。孩子们不再是肩并着肩同步迈入成熟期，他们以一种不规则高度个人化的步调懒洋洋的走向成年。有些人甚至连一个阶段也未完成，例如选择单身或丁克，或者因为是同性恋，想结婚却无法如愿。还有些人虽然圆满的经历了五个阶段，但却顺序颠倒，生儿育女以后再结婚，辍学工作，待经济独立以后再重返校园。
Even if some traditional milestones are never reached, one thing is clear: Getting to what we would generally call adulthood is happening later than ever. But why? That’s the subject of lively debate among policy makers and academics. To some, what we’re seeing is a transient epiphenomenon, the byproduct of cultural and economic forces. To others, the longer road to adulthood signifies something deep, durable and maybe better-suited to our neurological hard-wiring. What we’re seeing, they insist, is the dawning of a new life stage — a stage that all of us need to adjust to.
即便某些传统意义上的人生阶段缺失，但很明显，这一代年轻人进入我们通常所谓的成年期要比前几辈人晚。原因何在呢？这是决策者们和学者们经常争论不休的一个课题。对于某些年轻人来说，我们所看到的这种社会现象是一种过渡期的偶发症状，它是文化和经济两股力量作用下的副产物；而另外一些人迈向成年期的漫长道路则预示着人类人格的固化发生了某种深刻、持久且更适合的变化。他们坚持认为我们所见的是一个新生命阶段的开始——我们所有人都需要调整以适应这个阶段。
JEFFREY JENSEN ARNETT, a psychology professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., is leading the movement to view the 20s as a distinct life stage, which he calls “emerging adulthood.” He says what is happening now is analogous to what happened a century ago, when social and economic changes helped create adolescence — a stage we take for granted but one that had to be recognized by psychologists, accepted by society and accommodated by institutions that served the young. Similar changes at the turn of the 21st century have laid the groundwork for another new stage, Arnett says, between the age of 18 and the late 20s. Among the cultural changes he points to that have led to “emerging adulthood” are the need for more education to survive in an information-based economy; fewer entry-level jobs even after all that schooling; young people feeling less rush to marry because of the general acceptance of premarital sex, cohabitation and birth control; and young women feeling less rush to have babies given their wide range of career options and their access to assisted reproductive technology if they delay pregnancy beyond their most fertile years.
杰弗里·延森·阿奈特，马萨诸塞伍斯特克拉克大学（Clark University）的一位心理学教授，他正在领导一场运动，旨在号召世人将20多岁视为一个独特的人生阶段，这个阶段被他称之为“成人初显期（emerging adulthood）”。阿奈特认为，现在的情形和一个世纪以前发生的情况颇为相似，当时社会和经济的变革促使了青春期概念的诞生——虽然大众认为青春期的存在时理所当然的，但它必须先得到心理学家的认可，再被社会接受，最后由一些服务于青少年的机构对此概念作出响应。阿奈特表示，和之前一样，世纪之交的一系列变革为另一种新阶段的出现奠定了基础，这个阶段被定位在18岁至20多岁之间。在文化变迁中，导致“成人初显期”出现的因素有若干条，首先，为了在信息化的经济体中生存，年轻人需要接受更多的教育；其次，即便完成了所有的在校学业踏入社会以后，适合年轻人的初级职位也不多；再者，因为对婚前性行为、同居和节育措施持普遍包容态度，年轻人并不急于进入婚姻殿堂；第四，出于对职业选择宽泛性的考虑，年轻女性并不急于生儿育女，错过最佳怀孕期以后，她们还可以借助辅助生殖技术再为人母。
Just as adolescence has its particular psychological profile, Arnett says, so does emerging adulthood: identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between and a rather poetic characteristic he calls “a sense of possibilities.” A few of these, especially identity exploration, are part of adolescence too, but they take on new depth and urgency in the 20s. The stakes are higher when people are approaching the age when options tend to close off and lifelong commitments must be made. Arnett calls it “the age 30 deadline.”
阿奈特表示，青春期有它特殊的心理学属性，成人初显期亦是如此，身份探究、不稳定性、自我聚焦、中间感受以及被阿奈特称之为“可能性感知”的相当诗意化的个性特征，都是属于这一时期的心理学属性。其中的若干特征尤其是身份探究也是青春期的一部分，但在20多岁的年轻人身上，它们表现出了前所未有的深度和紧迫感。人们在接近这一年龄段时，选择的余地已经不多，一些终身的承诺也要定下，他们已经赌不起了。阿奈特将这段时期称之为“奔三截止期限（the age 30 deadline）”。
The issue of whether emerging adulthood is a new stage is being debated most forcefully among scholars, in particular psychologists and sociologists. But its resolution has broader implications. Just look at what happened for teenagers. It took some effort, a century ago, for psychologists to make the case that adolescence was a new developmental stage. Once that happened, social institutions were forced to adapt: education, health care, social services and the law all changed to address the particular needs of 12- to 18-year-olds. An understanding of the developmental profile of adolescence led, for instance, to the creation of junior high schools in the early 1900s, separating seventh and eighth graders from the younger children in what used to be called primary school. And it led to the recognition that teenagers between 14 and 18, even though they were legally minors, were mature enough to make their own choice of legal guardian in the event of their parents’ deaths. If emerging adulthood is an analogous stage, analogous changes are in the wings.
关于成人初显期是否是一个新的人生阶段在学者之间引发了激烈的争论，尤其是心理学家和社会学家之间。但不管怎么样，对这个阶段的深入剖析已经产生了更为广泛的应用。一个世纪以前，为了以事实证明青春期是的确存在的新发展阶段，心理学家们颇费了一番功夫，不过最终该理论被得以证实以后，社会制度被迫作出了相应的调整：为了满足12至18岁青少年的特殊需求，相应的教育、保健、社会服务和法律都进行了变更。举例来说，由于深入了解了青春期的发育特征，导致了二十世纪早期初中教育的出现，即将七年级和八年级从原来的小学教育中分离了出来；另外，人们逐渐意识到虽然14至18岁的青少年在法律上被归为未成年人，但他们的心智已经足够成熟，这意味着如果父母去世，他们可以自己选择监护人。相比青春期，如果成人初显期是一个可类比的发展阶段，那么类似的改变也必将在未雨绸缪之中。
But what would it look like to extend some of the special status of adolescents to young people in their 20s? Our uncertainty about this question is reflected in our scattershot approach to markers of adulthood. People can vote at 18, but in some states they don’t age out of foster care until 21. They can join the military at 18, but they can’t drink until 21. They can drive at 16, but they can’t rent a car until 25 without some hefty surcharges. If they are full-time students, the Internal Revenue Service considers them dependents until 24; those without health insurance will soon be able to stay on their parents’ plans even if they’re not in school until age 26, or up to 30 in some states. Parents have no access to their child’s college records if the child is over 18, but parents’ income is taken into account when the child applies for financial aid up to age 24. We seem unable to agree when someone is old enough to take on adult responsibilities. But we’re pretty sure it’s not simply a matter of age.
但是，如果将青少年的一些特殊身份外延至20多岁的年轻人身上会产生什么样的后果呢？关于这个问题我们有太多的不确定性，因此，我们才发明了那么多漫无目的的方式用来标记成年期。18岁的年轻人拥有投票权，但在某些州只有到了21岁才能脱离监护；18岁可以服役，但21岁才能喝酒；16岁就可以驾车，但要想租车且不用缴纳高额附加费得到25岁；全职学生得到24岁才能被国内收入署（Internal Revenue Service）列为可靠征收对象；没有健康保险的离校年轻人可以挂靠在父母亲的保险名下，但前提是必须年满26岁，在某些州甚至要到30岁。子女们的年龄若超过18岁，父母将无权获知他们的大学成绩单，如果子女在24岁以前申请经济补助，需要考虑父母的收入情况。由此看来，在多大年纪才足以承担成年人的责任这一问题上，我们还无法达成一致。但我们比较确信的是，这不仅仅只是年龄的问题。
If society decides to protect these young people or treat them differently from fully grown adults, how can we do this without becoming all the things that grown children resist — controlling, moralizing, paternalistic? Young people spend their lives lumped into age-related clusters — that’s the basis of K-12 schooling — but as they move through their 20s, they diverge. Some 25-year-olds are married homeowners with good jobs and a couple of kids; others are still living with their parents and working at transient jobs, or not working at all. Does that mean we extend some of the protections and special status of adolescence to all people in their 20s? To some of them? Which ones? Decisions like this matter, because failing to protect and support vulnerable young people can lead them down the wrong path at a critical moment, the one that can determine all subsequent paths. But overprotecting and oversupporting them can sometimes make matters worse, turning the “changing timetable of adulthood” into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
如果社会决心去保护这些年轻人，或者将他们同完全成熟的成年人区分开来以区别对待，那么我们应该如何行事才能避免遭遇这些大孩子们的全面对抗呢？也许在他们眼中，我们就是控制、说教和封建家长制的代名词。他们在不同阶段的年龄群体中度过了青少年时期，这段时间构成了小学教育和中学教育的基础，但进入20来岁以后，这些年轻人开始出现分化。以25岁为例，在这个年龄段，有些人已经成婚，有家有业，甚至已经生儿育女；还有些人依然与父母同住，工作不稳定或者没工作。这种局面的出现是不是意味着我们将保护手段和给予青春期的特殊待遇扩展到所有的二十多岁的年轻人身上了？如果真是这样的话，真正应该享受这些待遇的年轻人应该是哪些呢？没有尽到保护和支持责任可能会导致脆弱的年轻人在人生的关键时期误入歧途，一步走错，满盘皆输。但同时，我们也应该看到，溺爱和不加以区别的一味支持有时候会使局面变得更糟，致使“成年期的变动时刻表”变成了一出自我应验式的预言。
The more profound question behind the scholarly intrigue is the one that really captivates parents: whether the prolongation of this unsettled time of life is a good thing or a bad thing. With life spans stretching into the ninth decade, is it better for young people to experiment in their 20s before making choices they’ll have to live with for more than half a century? Or is adulthood now so malleable, with marriage and employment options constantly being reassessed, that young people would be better off just getting started on something, or else they’ll never catch up, consigned to remain always a few steps behind the early bloomers? Is emerging adulthood a rich and varied period for self-discovery, as Arnett says it is? Or is it just another term for self-indulgence?
学术研究兴趣的背后，还有一个更为深刻的问题：这种不稳定年龄段的延长到底是好事还是坏事？这个问题让父母们也感到十分迷惑。现代人的寿命已经延伸至90 岁，对年轻人来说，经历完20多岁以后再去作选择是不是会更好？因为这些选择的结果毕竟是要伴随他们大半个世纪之久；或者说现代青年成年期的可塑性太强，婚姻和职业选择都可以随时调整，以至于他们只要敢迈出第一步，境况就会好起来，而如果永远是原地踏步踏的话，以后几十年的人生就会一直落后于那些先成熟的同龄人？又或者正如阿奈特所说那样，成人初显期是一个丰富多变的时期，特别适合于自我发现？难道说成人初显期只是自我放纵的另一种称谓而已？
THE DISCOVERY OF adolescence is generally dated to 1904, with the publication of the massive study “Adolescence,” by G. Stanley Hall, a prominent psychologist and first president of the American Psychological Association. Hall attributed the new stage to social changes at the turn of the 20th century. Child-labor laws kept children under 16 out of the work force, and universal education laws kept them in secondary school, thus prolonging the period of dependence — a dependence that allowed them to address psychological tasks they might have ignored when they took on adult roles straight out of childhood. Hall, the first president of Clark University — the same place, interestingly enough, where Arnett now teaches — described adolescence as a time of “storm and stress,” filled with emotional upheaval, sorrow and rebelliousness. He cited the “curve of despondency” that “starts at 11, rises steadily and rapidly till 15 . . . then falls steadily till 23,” and described other characteristics of adolescence, including an increase in sensation seeking, greater susceptibility to media influences (which in 1904 mostly meant “flash literature” and “penny dreadfuls”) and overreliance on peer relationships. Hall’s book was flawed, but it marked the beginning of the scientific study of adolescence and helped lead to its eventual acceptance as a distinct stage with its own challenges, behaviors and biological profile.
青春期的发现通常要追溯至1904年，那一年杰出的心理学家兼美国心理学协会的第一任（American Psychological Association）会长斯坦利·霍尔（G. Stanley Hall）发表了一系列关于“青春期”的研究论文。霍尔将这种新发展阶段的出现归咎于二十世纪初的社会变迁。童工法律让16岁以下的未成年人不再成为劳动力，普及教育法又把他们送进了中等学校，因而他们的依赖时期得以延长——这种依赖使这些少年有精力去解决心理上背负的任务，换作以前，童年一结束就承担了成年人的角色，自然无暇顾及什么心理问题。霍尔是克拉克大学的第一任校长，有趣的是，阿奈特现在也在这所大学执教，霍尔将青春期描绘为“风暴和压力”的时期，充满了感情剧变、悲伤和叛逆，他认为“失望的曲线（curve of despondency）始于11岁，之后稳定快速的上升，直到15岁...然后又逐步下降，到23岁趋于停止”，霍尔还对青春期的其他特性进行了描述，这些特性包括更喜欢寻求刺激，更易于受到媒体的影响（1904年的媒体主要是指“简短的创意性写作（flash literature）”和“廉价恐怖小说（penny dreadfuls））以及对同龄人的友谊过度信赖。霍尔的书虽然存在缺陷，但却标志着对青春期进行科学研究的起点，青春期以其自我挑战、行为学和生物学上的特征形成了一个独特的发育阶段，大众最终也慢慢接受了这样的观点。
In the 1990s, Arnett began to suspect that something similar was taking place with young people in their late teens and early 20s. He was teaching human development and family studies at the University of Missouri, studying college-age students, both at the university and in the community around Columbia, Mo. He asked them questions about their lives and their expectations like, “Do you feel you have reached adulthood?”
时光飞逝，到了上世纪九十年代，在密苏里大学教授人类发展学与家庭研究的阿奈特开始怀疑，处于少年晚期和20岁前期的年轻人是不是也会经历和青春期相类似的心理历程呢？当时他正在以密苏里大学和哥伦比亚市周围社区里的在校大学生为研究对象进行研究，他会问他们一些生活和理想方面的问题，诸如“你觉得自己已经进入成年了吗？”这样的问题。
“I was in my early- to mid-30s myself, and I remember thinking, They’re not a thing like me,” Arnett told me when we met last spring in Worcester. “I realized that there was something special going on.” The young people he spoke to weren’t experiencing the upending physical changes that accompany adolescence, but as an age cohort they did seem to have a psychological makeup different from that of people just a little bit younger or a little bit older. This was not how most psychologists were thinking about development at the time, when the eight-stage model of the psychologist Erik Erikson was in vogue. Erikson, one of the first to focus on psychological development past childhood, divided adulthood into three stages — young (roughly ages 20 to 45), middle (about ages 45 to 65) and late (all the rest) — and defined them by the challenges that individuals in a particular stage encounter and must resolve before moving on to the next stage. In young adulthood, according to his model, the primary psychological challenge is “intimacy versus isolation,” by which Erikson meant deciding whether to commit to a lifelong intimate relationship and choosing the person to commit to.
“现在回想起来，虽然当时我才30岁多一点，但和他们已经完全不是一类人了，”去年春天在伍思特会面时阿奈特告诉我说。“我意识到在他们身上肯定有什么不同寻常的事情发生。”和他交谈过的那些年轻人并没有经历过什么颠倒的社会变化，但是他们所组成的这个年龄群体在心理特质上似乎与年轻一点或年长一点的群体都有所不同。其时正当心理学家埃里克·埃里克森（Erik Erikson）的八阶段发展模型盛行一时的时期，阿奈特的想法并不代表大多数心理学家们对发展问题的看法。埃里克森是第一位将注意力集中在童年以后心理发育的心理学家，他把成年期分为三个阶段——青年期（大约20岁至45岁），中年期（大约45岁至65岁）和老年期（余生）——并通过在进入下一阶段以前，各自在其特殊时期所遭遇和解决的心理问题来定义这些三个阶段。按照他的模型，在青年成年期，主要的心理问题是“亲近与孤立之争”，即处于这个时期的成年人要决定是否需要确立一段终生的亲密关系并选择一个承诺对象。
But Arnett said “young adulthood” was too broad a term to apply to a 25-year span that included both him and his college students. The 20s are something different from the 30s and 40s, he remembered thinking. And while he agreed that the struggle for intimacy was one task of this period, he said there were other critical tasks as well.
但阿奈特表示，所谓的“青年成年期”太过宽泛，无法适用于25岁的年龄跨度，这个阶段将他和大学生全都囊括在内。他当时认为，20多岁的年轻人和三四十岁的人应该有区别，同时他亦赞同为亲密而奋斗是这个时期的心理任务之一的说法，但他表示还有些关键任务没有被提及。
Arnett and I were discussing the evolution of his thinking over lunch at BABA Sushi, a quiet restaurant near his office where he goes so often he knows the sushi chefs by name. He is 53, very tall and wiry, with clipped steel-gray hair and ice-blue eyes, an intense, serious man. He describes himself as a late bloomer, a onetime emerging adult before anyone had given it a name. After graduating from Michigan State University in 1980, he spent two years playing guitar in bars and restaurants and experimented with girlfriends, drugs and general recklessness before going for his doctorate in developmental psychology at the University of Virginia. By 1986 he had his first academic job at Oglethorpe University, a small college in Atlanta. There he met his wife, Lene Jensen, the school’s smartest psych major, who stunned Arnett when she came to his office one day in 1989, shortly after she graduated, and asked him out on a date. Jensen earned a doctorate in psychology, too, and she also teaches at Clark. She and Arnett have 10-year-old twins, a boy and a girl.
在巴巴寿司店（BABA Sushi）吃午饭的过程中，我和阿奈特讨论了他思想的演化历程，这家寿司店离他的办公室很近，阿奈特经常来这里用餐，次数多了，他连寿司师傅的名字都叫得出来。阿奈特现年53岁，个子很高，嗓音尖细，头发略带点青灰色，眼睛呈现冰蓝色，他是个热情而又严肃的人。他说自己是个大器晚成的人，在成人初显期被正式命名以前，大器晚成是人们对这个时期的一般称谓。1980年从密歇根州立大学毕业后，阿奈特花了两年时间在酒吧和餐厅弹吉他，不停的换女朋友，嗑药，有点鲁莽，之后他在弗吉尼亚大学拿到了发展心理学的博士学位。1986年，他在亚特兰大的一所小学院奥格尔绍普大学（Oglethorpe University）找到了第一份正式工作。在那儿阿奈特和现在的妻子丽莲·延森相识并成婚。延森当时是学校心理学专业中最聪明的学生，在她毕业后不久，1989年的某一天她突然跑到阿奈特办公室，提出要和他约会，这个大胆的请求让阿奈特感到震惊不已。延森后来也拿到了心理学的博士学位，她现在也在克拉克大学执教，她和阿奈特生了一对龙凤胎，现在已经10岁了。
Arnett spent time at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago before moving to the University of Missouri in 1992, beginning his study of young men and women in the college town of Columbia, gradually broadening his sample to include New Orleans, Los Angeles and San Francisco. He deliberately included working-class young people as well as those who were well off, those who had never gone to college as well as those who were still in school, those who were supporting themselves as well as those whose bills were being paid by their parents. A little more than half of his sample was white, 18 percent African-American, 16 percent Asian-American and 14 percent Latino.
在1992年前往密苏里大学（University of Missouri）之前，阿内特分别在西北大学（Northwestern University）和芝加哥大学（the University of Chicago）开始对哥伦比亚大学城里的青年男女进行研究，并逐渐将新奥尔良、洛杉矶和旧金山地区的青年扩充到他的研究样本中去。他有意识地将出身工薪家庭的人和家境优越的人、没上过大学的人和继续深造的人、自力更生的人和啃老族这几组对立的群体囊括其中。他的研究对象中一半以上是白人，18%是非裔，16%是亚裔，14%有拉丁血统。
More than 300 interviews and 250 survey responses persuaded Arnett that he was onto something new. This was the era of the Gen X slacker, but Arnett felt that his findings applied beyond one generation. He wrote them up in 2000 in American Psychologist, the first time he laid out his theory of “emerging adulthood.” According to Google Scholar, which keeps track of such things, the article has been cited in professional books and journals roughly 1,700 times. This makes it, in the world of academia, practically viral. At the very least, the citations indicate that Arnett had come up with a useful term for describing a particular cohort; at best, that he offered a whole new way of thinking about them.
300多次访谈和250次调查的结果让阿内特确信他得出了某些新的认识。现在是六七十年代出生、逃避责任的X代的时代，但阿内特认为他的发现不仅适用于这一代人。2000年，他把他的研究成果发表在了《美国心理学家》（American Psychologist）上，当时他第一次提出了“成人初显期”(“emerging adulthood.”)理论。据专门收集学术资讯的谷歌学术搜索（Google Scholar）统计，这篇文章被专业性书籍和杂志引用了1700多次。这使得他的理论在学术界里流传甚广。至少，这些引用表明阿内特独创了一个可以用来指代这一特殊群体的实用术语；至多，他提供了一种思考这群年轻人的问题的新思路。
DURING THE PERIOD he calls emerging adulthood, Arnett says that young men and women are more self-focused than at any other time of life, less certain about the future and yet also more optimistic, no matter what their economic background. This is where the “sense of possibilities” comes in, he says; they have not yet tempered their idealistic visions of what awaits. “The dreary, dead-end jobs, the bitter divorces, the disappointing and disrespectful children . . . none of them imagine that this is what the future holds for them,” he wrote. Ask them if they agree with the statement “I am very sure that someday I will get to where I want to be in life,” and 96 percent of them will say yes. But despite elements that are exciting, even exhilarating, about being this age, there is a downside, too: dread, frustration, uncertainty, a sense of not quite understanding the rules of the game. More than positive or negative feelings, what Arnett heard most often was ambivalence — beginning with his finding that 60 percent of his subjects told him they felt like both grown-ups and not-quite-grown-ups.
阿内特说，处在被他称为“成人初显期”的时期的青年男女比在人生的其他阶段时更加关注自己，对未来感到迷惘，不过也相对要乐观些，无论其经济背景好坏都是如此。在他看来，这恰恰就是“对可能性的感知”（“sense of possibilities”）的作用；他们尚未改变自己对未来的理想主义预期。“枯燥乏味、没完没了的工作，痛苦的离婚，令人失望、无理取闹的孩子...他们认为这一切并不会在未来发生，”他在文中写道。如果你询问他们是否认同“我很肯定未来某天我能够获得自己想要的生活，”这一说法，他们中96%的人都会回答“当然”。但除却这个年纪让人兴奋甚至振奋的成分，它也有其弊端：恐惧、失意、不确定性，以及对“游戏规则”一知半解的感觉。除了积极和消极的体验，阿内特从青年人那里得到最多的反馈是摇摆不定——这得自他的研究发现，60%的研究对象觉得自己已经是个成人，但又并非完全如此。
Some scientists would argue that this ambivalence reflects what is going on in the brain, which is also both grown-up and not-quite-grown-up. Neuroscientists once thought the brain stops growing shortly after puberty, but now they know it keeps maturing well into the 20s. This new understanding comes largely from a longitudinal study of brain development sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, which started following nearly 5,000 children at ages 3 to 16 (the average age at enrollment was about 10). The scientists found the children’s brains were not fully mature until at least 25. “In retrospect I wouldn’t call it shocking, but it was at the time,” Jay Giedd, the director of the study, told me. “The only people who got this right were the car-rental companies.”
一些科学家也许会认为这种感觉反映的是他们现阶段的大脑状况，他们的大脑正处于成熟和未成熟的节骨眼上。神经科学研究者们一度认为人类的大脑在青春期之后不久就不再发育，但现在他们已认定大脑在20多岁时才达至成熟。这种看法很大程度上来源于美国全国精神病研究所（National Institute of Mental Health）发起的对大脑发育状况的纵向研究，对5000名儿童年龄介于3到16岁的儿童进行了跟踪测查（登记的平均年龄接近10岁）。通过研究，科学家们发现人的大脑至少到25岁时才能完全发育成熟。“现在想来，我不再觉得这个发现很惊人了，但当时确实如此，”该研究负责人杰伊?基厄德（Jay Giedd）对我说：“当时恐怕只有汽车租赁公司的人对此不感到意外吧。”
When the N.I.M.H. study began in 1991, Giedd said he and his colleagues expected to stop when the subjects turned 16. “We figured that by 16 their bodies were pretty big physically,” he said. But every time the children returned, their brains were found still to be changing. The scientists extended the end date of the study to age 18, then 20, then 22. The subjects’ brains were still changing even then. Tellingly, the most significant changes took place in the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum, the regions involved in emotional control and higher-order cognitive function.
当那项研究于1991年启动时，基厄德说他和同事们预期这项实验在被试年龄达到16岁之后就会结束。“我们估计16岁左右他们的身体就发育得差不多了。”但每次孩子们来接受测查时，他们的大脑发育情况还是在不断变化。科学家们将实验的终止时间推迟到18岁，然后是20岁，22岁。被试的大脑还是在变化。发生变化的部分集中在前额皮质、小脑以及与情感控制和高层次认知功能有关的脑区。
As the brain matures, one thing that happens is the pruning of the synapses. Synaptic pruning does not occur willy-nilly; it depends largely on how any one brain pathway is used. By cutting off unused pathways, the brain eventually settles into a structure that’s most efficient for the owner of that brain, creating well-worn grooves for the pathways that person uses most. Synaptic pruning intensifies after rapid brain-cell proliferation during childhood and again in the period that encompasses adolescence and the 20s. It is the mechanism of “use it or lose it”: the brains we have are shaped largely in response to the demands made of them.
随着大脑渐趋成熟，突触的剪除过程也随之发生。这个过程的进行并非毫无章法；主要是由各神经通路的使用情况决定的。通过剪除不使用的神经通路，大脑最终会形成对个体最为有效的构造，为个体最常用的通路形成固定的模式。剪除过程在儿童期脑细胞快速增值后和未成年至20多岁这一时期会加剧。这个过程的机制是“用进废退”：我们的大脑变化的趋势很大程度上取决于我们的需要。
We have come to accept the idea that environmental influences in the first three years of life have long-term consequences for cognition, emotional control, attention and the like. Is it time to place a similar emphasis, with hopes for a similar outcome, on enriching the cognitive environment of people in their 20s?
我们已经认识到人生最初3年中环境因素对其认知、情感、控制、注意力和其他方面都有重大的影响。那么我们该为这些20多岁的小年轻们提供一个更加丰富的认知环境，以期收到和那最初3年同样的效果么？
N.I.M.H. scientists also found a time lag between the growth of the limbic system, where emotions originate, and of the prefrontal cortex, which manages those emotions. The limbic system explodes during puberty, but the prefrontal cortex keeps maturing for another 10 years. Giedd said it is logical to suppose — and for now, neuroscientists have to make a lot of logical suppositions — that when the limbic system is fully active but the cortex is still being built, emotions might outweigh rationality. “The prefrontal part is the part that allows you to control your impulses, come up with a long-range strategy, answer the question ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ ” he told me. “That weighing of the future keeps changing into the 20s and 30s.”
N.I.M.H的科学家们还发现，在产生情感的边缘系统和调控情感的额前皮质的发育过程中存在一个时间差。边缘系统在青春期时就达到顶峰，而额前皮质则还会继续发育十年。基厄德说假设——眼下，神经科学研究者们提出的许多观点都是假设——当边缘系统已可发挥全部功用，而大脑皮质还在完善之中，人们对情感的重视可能会超过理性是符合逻辑的。“额前皮质能够让你控制自己的情感冲动，从长远考虑问题，对‘我的生命要如何度过？’这一问题给出自己的答案”他告诉我说。“20多岁和30多岁的人对未来的看法始终在不断改变。”
Among study subjects who enrolled as children, M.R.I. scans have been done so far only to age 25, so scientists have to make another logical supposition about what happens to the brain in the late 20s, the 30s and beyond. Is it possible that the brain just keeps changing and pruning, for years and years? “Guessing from the shape of the growth curves we have,” Giedd’s colleague Philip Shaw wrote in an e-mail message, “it does seem that much of the gray matter,” where synaptic pruning takes place, “seems to have completed its most dramatic structural change” by age 25. For white matter, where insulation that helps impulses travel faster continues to form, “it does look as if the curves are still going up, suggesting continued growth” after age 25, he wrote, though at a slower rate than before.
针对儿童时期即被征召来的被试，研究进行的核磁共振到他们25岁时就停止了，所以科学家们得对25岁之后乃至30岁后的大脑的状况做另一个假设。也许随着时间推移，大脑总是在不断改变、进行剪除过程么？“从我们目前掌握的生长曲线上看，”基厄德的同事菲利普?肖（Philip Shaw）在一封电子邮件中写道，“大部分灰质似乎”也就是剪除过程发生的部位，在25岁前“完成了根本性的构造改变过程”。而负责加快神经冲动传导的白质则还在不断变化着结构，虽然成长的速度较从前有所减缓，在25岁后“这一部分的曲线仍然在上扬，表明其发育还在继续”。
None of this is new, of course; the brains of young people have always been works in progress, even when we didn’t have sophisticated scanning machinery to chart it precisely. Why, then, is the youthful brain only now arising as an explanation for why people in their 20s are seeming a bit unfinished? Maybe there’s an analogy to be found in the hierarchy of needs, a theory put forth in the 1940s by the psychologist Abraham Maslow. According to Maslow, people can pursue more elevated goals only after their basic needs of food, shelter and sex have been met. What if the brain has its own hierarchy of needs? When people are forced to adopt adult responsibilities early, maybe they just do what they have to do, whether or not their brains are ready. Maybe it’s only now, when young people are allowed to forestall adult obligations without fear of public censure, that the rate of societal maturation can finally fall into better sync with the maturation of the brain.
这些结论中并没有什么新内容；年轻人的大脑始终处于不断完善的过程中，即便过去我们没有精密的扫描仪器来绘制精确的曲线图时得出的结论也是如此。这些年轻人的大脑尚在发育中是他们看来尚不成熟的原因么？也许这与需要层次理论——一项于20世纪40年代由心理学家亚伯拉罕?马斯洛（Abraham Maslow）提出的理论——类似。依据该理论，人们只有在对食物、安全及性的基本需求得到满足后，才能追求更高层次的需要。假如大脑也有其需要层次呢？无论他们的大脑发育充分与否，当人们早早地被动接受成人负担的责任，也许他们仅仅是不得已而为之。也许正像现在这样，年轻人们可以置公众的指责不顾逃避成人的义务，其社会成熟才能与大脑发育的成熟更好地同步。
Cultural expectations might also reinforce the delay. The “changing timetable for adulthood” has, in many ways, become internalized by 20-somethings and their parents alike. Today young people don’t expect to marry until their late 20s, don’t expect to start a family until their 30s, don’t expect to be on track for a rewarding career until much later than their parents were. So they make decisions about their futures that reflect this wider time horizon. Many of them would not be ready to take on the trappings of adulthood any earlier even if the opportunity arose; they haven’t braced themselves for it.
文化期望似乎对这种延迟也有一定助推作用。在许多方面，“不断变更的成人期”（“changing timetable for adulthood”）已内化在那些20多岁的小年轻们和他们的父母中了。现在的年轻人快30岁时才会想要结婚，30多岁时才想组建家庭，他们开始正儿八经地投入工作也比父母们要晚得多。所以他们对未来作出的选择都会映射出这样一个被放大的时间范围。即便时机成熟，他们中的许多人也不会早些进入成人的角色；因为他们尚未做好准备。
Nor do parents expect their children to grow up right away — and they might not even want them to. Parents might regret having themselves jumped into marriage or a career and hope for more considered choices for their children. Or they might want to hold on to a reassuring connection with their children as the kids leave home. If they were “helicopter parents” — a term that describes heavily invested parents who hover over their children, swooping down to take charge and solve problems at a moment’s notice — they might keep hovering and problem-solving long past the time when their children should be solving problems on their own. This might, in a strange way, be part of what keeps their grown children in the limbo between adolescence and adulthood. It can be hard sometimes to tease out to what extent a child doesn’t quite want to grow up and to what extent a parent doesn’t quite want to let go.
父母们也不希望自己的孩子快些长大——他们也许根本就不想让孩子长大。为人父母者也许对自己选择的婚姻或工作深感后悔，他们希望自己的孩子能够更审慎地做出选择。抑或他们会想要在孩子们离开家独自闯荡之后成为他们坚实的后盾。如果他们是“直升机父母”——这个词指的是那些总是花大量的时间和精力紧盯孩子不放，一旦发现孩子遇到问题，他们会第一时间赶到为孩子们善后、解决问题的父母——即便孩子们早就过了该独立自主的年纪，他们也许还是会一直跟在孩子后面为他们解决问题。这使得他们的孩子在青春期和成人期之间摇摆不定。有时想要区分孩子不想长大与父母不愿放手之间的尺度非常困难。
IT IS A BIG DEAL IN developmental psychology to declare the existence of a new stage of life, and Arnett has devoted the past 10 years to making his case. Shortly after his American Psychologist article appeared in 2000, he and Jennifer Lynn Tanner, a developmental psychologist at Rutgers University, convened the first conference of what they later called the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood. It was held in 2003 at Harvard with an attendance of 75; there have been three more since then, and last year’s conference, in Atlanta, had more than 270 attendees. In 2004 Arnett published a book, “Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road From the Late Teens Through the Twenties,” which is still in print and selling well. In 2006 he and Tanner published an edited volume, “Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st Century,” aimed at professionals and academics. Arnett’s college textbook, “Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach,” has been in print since 2000 and is now in its fourth edition. Next year he says he hopes to publish another book, this one for the parents of 20-somethings.
在发展心理学中，界定人生的新阶段非常重要，阿内特用过去10年的时间来完成他的这项工作。在他于2000年在《美国心理学家》杂志上发布论文后不久，他和罗格斯大学（Rutgers University）发展心理学家詹尼佛?琳?坦纳（Jennifer Lynn Tanner）一起召开了第一次会议，呼吁社会关注对成人初显期的研究。这次会议是2003年在哈佛举办的，与会者75人；这次会议后又举行了3次会议，去年在亚特兰大举行的第四次会议与会者达270多人。2004年，阿内特出版了《成人初显期：十八九岁到二十多岁的崎岖路途》（“Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road From the Late Teens Through the Twenties,”）一书，现在仍在发行，销量很好。2006年，他和坦纳出版了他们编著专业学术文集《成长中的孩子们：在21世纪成人》“Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st Century”。阿内特写的大学教课书《青春期与成人初显期：一种文化现象的探讨》（“Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach”）于2000年发行，现在已印刷到第四版了。他说他明年打算再出一本书，一本有关时下这些20多岁的小年轻们的父母的书。
If all Arnett’s talk about emerging adulthood sounds vaguely familiar . . . well, it should. Forty years ago, an article appeared in The American Scholar that declared “a new stage of life” for the period between adolescence and young adulthood. This was 1970, when the oldest members of the baby boom generation — the parents of today’s 20-somethings — were 24. Young people of the day “can’t seem to ‘settle down,’ ” wrote the Yale psychologist Kenneth Keniston. He called the new stage of life “youth.”
如果阿内特有关成人初显期的所有观点听起来有些耳熟......嗯，这就对了。四十年前，《美国学者》（The American Scholar）上刊登了一篇文章，宣称在未成年与成年早期之间存在一个“新的人生阶段”。这篇文章问世时是1970年，当时正是婴儿潮中年纪最大的人——也就是今天的20几岁小年轻们的父母亲——24岁的时候。当时的年轻人们“似乎无法‘安定下来’，”耶鲁大学心理学家肯尼斯?凯尼斯顿（Kenneth Keniston）如是写道。他称这个新阶段为“青年期”（youth）。
Keniston’s description of “youth” presages Arnett’s description of “emerging adulthood” a generation later. In the late ’60s, Keniston wrote that there was “a growing minority of post-adolescents [who] have not settled the questions whose answers once defined adulthood: questions of relationship to the existing society, questions of vocation, questions of social role and lifestyle.” Whereas once, such aimlessness was seen only in the “unusually creative or unusually disturbed,” he wrote, it was becoming more common and more ordinary in the baby boomers of 1970. Among the salient characteristics of “youth,” Keniston wrote, were “pervasive ambivalence toward self and society,” “the feeling of absolute freedom, of living in a world of pure possibilities” and “the enormous value placed upon change, transformation and movement” — all characteristics that Arnett now ascribes to “emerging adults.”
凯尼斯顿对“青年期”的阐释为几十年后阿内特提出“成人初显期”打下了基础。上世纪60年代末期，凯尼斯顿的文章中写道有“一小部分过了青春期的人并未解决一个成人所要面对的问题：与现实社会间的关系问题，与职业有关的问题，与社会角色和生活方式有关的问题。”然而这样的漫无目的一度只在那些“极富创造力或极度不安的人”身上出现，而现在，这在20世纪70年代婴儿潮中出生的人身上越来越普遍了。处在“青年期”的个体的显著特征，凯尼斯顿写道，是“时时刻刻对自我和社会态度摇摆不定，”“想要绝对的自由，想要生活在一个拥有无限可能的世界里”以及“对改变、变化和潮流分外看重”——这些特质现在都被阿内特归于“成人初显期”的范畴之中。
Arnett readily acknowledges his debt to Keniston; he mentions him in almost everything he has written about emerging adulthood. But he considers the ’60s a unique moment, when young people were rebellious and alienated in a way they’ve never been before or since. And Keniston’s views never quite took off, Arnett says, because “youth” wasn’t a very good name for it. He has called the label “ambiguous and confusing,” not nearly as catchy as his own “emerging adulthood.”
阿内特坦承凯尼斯顿的研究对他的帮助巨大；他在他写的几乎所有关于成人初显期的东西里都提到了他。但他认为上世纪60年代非常特别，彼时的年轻人的叛逆和孤独与之前和之后都不相同。凯尼斯顿的观点并未获得什么认可，阿内特说，因为“青年期”一词并不贴切。他认为“青年期”这个称呼“含混不清，容易误导人，”并不像他提出的“成人初显期”那么好记。
For whatever reason Keniston’s terminology faded away, it’s revealing to read his old article and hear echoes of what’s going on with kids today. He was describing the parents of today’s young people when they themselves were young — and amazingly, they weren’t all that different from their own children now. Keniston’s article seems a lovely demonstration of the eternal cycle of life, the perennial conflict between the generations, the gradual resolution of those conflicts. It’s reassuring, actually, to think of it as recursive, to imagine that there must always be a cohort of 20-somethings who take their time settling down, just as there must always be a cohort of 50-somethings who worry about it.
无论埃尼斯顿定义的“青年期”是因何淡出人们视线的，看看他当年的文章、听听现在孩子们身上发生的事，你会觉得很有启发性。他的文章中描述的正是现在的年轻人们的父母年轻的时候——惊人的是，父母和子女们处在同一年龄段时，他们的差别并不大。凯尼斯顿的文章成了父母与子女两代人之将持续不断的摩擦、以及争端的逐步解决这一人生永恒循环的美妙例证。将这看作一种循环，想象总有一群20多岁的年轻人迟迟无法安定下来，也总有一群50多岁的人始终为他们牵肠挂肚，这多么让人心暖啊。
KENISTON CALLED IT youth, Arnett calls it emerging adulthood; whatever it’s called, the delayed transition has been observed for years. But it can be in fullest flower only when the young person has some other, nontraditional means of support — which would seem to make the delay something of a luxury item. That’s the impression you get reading Arnett’s case histories in his books and articles, or the essays in “20 Something Manifesto,” an anthology edited by a Los Angeles writer named Christine Hassler. “It’s somewhat terrifying,” writes a 25-year-old named Jennifer, “to think about all the things I’m supposed to be doing in order to ‘get somewhere’ successful: ‘Follow your passions, live your dreams, take risks, network with the right people, find mentors, be financially responsible, volunteer, work, think about or go to grad school, fall in love and maintain personal well-being, mental health and nutrition.’ When is there time to just be and enjoy?” Adds a 24-year-old from Virginia: “There is pressure to make decisions that will form the foundation for the rest of your life in your 20s. It’s almost as if having a range of limited options would be easier.”
肯尼史东称之为青春期，阿尔奈特称之为成人初显期。无论称之为什么，这种过渡期的延迟早已备受关注。但是这种延迟只有年轻人在拥有了一些其他非传统形式上的支持时才会凸显，也使得这种延迟变得奢侈。当你在阅读阿尔奈特书籍和文章中的历史案例，或者阅读洛杉矶作家克里斯汀·哈斯勒的文集《二十条宣言》（20 something manifesto）的时候，会留有这样的印象。25岁的詹妮弗写道：“一想到为了成功需要做的这些事情，我内心就会感到恐惧，我知道我需要保持激情，点燃梦想，勇于挑战，与正确的人建立社交网络，找到良师益友，经济上负起责任，积极，工作，思考是否需要读研，恋爱并保持身体健康，精神健康和食物营养。可这样一来，我哪里还有时间做自己和享受生活呢？” 24岁的弗吉尼亚补充道：“我们在做决定的时候很有压力，因为20岁时候的决定会影响到人一生的轨迹。似乎如果选择更局限一些，我们也更轻松一些。”
While the complaints of these young people are heartfelt, they are also the complaints of the privileged. Julie, a 23-year-old New Yorker and contributor to “20 Something Manifesto,” is apparently aware of this. She was coddled her whole life, treated to French horn lessons and summer camp, told she could do anything. “It is a double-edged sword,” she writes, “because on the one hand I am so blessed with my experiences and endless options, but on the other hand, I still feel like a child. I feel like my job isn’t real because I am not where my parents were at my age. Walking home, in the shoes my father bought me, I still feel I have yet to grow up.”
这些年轻人的抱怨是由衷的，他们同时也在抱怨那些拥有特权的人。23岁的纽约客朱莉，同时也是《二十条宣言》的投稿人很显然对这些很熟悉。一直在溺爱中长大的她，被送去学习演奏法国号，参加夏令营，随心所欲。她写到：“其实这是一把双刃剑，一方面我很幸运能拥有如此非凡的经历以及无尽的选择，另一方面我却始终觉得自己还是个孩子。我感觉自己的工作不真实，因为我做的事情跟父母在我这一年龄的时候做的事情完全不一样。穿着爸爸给买的鞋回家的时候让我觉得自己还没有长大一样。
Despite these impressions, Arnett insists that emerging adulthood is not limited to young persons of privilege and that it is not simply a period of self-indulgence. He takes pains in “Emerging Adulthood” to describe some case histories of young men and women from hard-luck backgrounds who use the self-focus and identity exploration of their 20s to transform their lives.
除了这些印象，阿尔奈特还坚持认为，成人初显期不仅限于那些拥有特权的年轻人，也不仅仅是一个自我放纵的时期。他耐心地在《成人初显期》（Emerging Adulthood）中写下了一些出身背景不是很好的年轻人在他们20岁的时候是怎么样用自己的执着和自我探索改变命运的历史案例。
One of these is the case history of Nicole, a 25-year-old African-American who grew up in a housing project in Oakland, Calif. At age 6, Nicole, the eldest, was forced to take control of the household after her mother’s mental collapse. By 8, she was sweeping stores and baby-sitting for money to help keep her three siblings fed and housed. “I made a couple bucks and helped my mother out, helped my family out,” she told Arnett. She managed to graduate from high school, but with low grades, and got a job as a receptionist at a dermatology clinic. She moved into her own apartment, took night classes at community college and started to excel. “I needed to experience living out of my mother’s home in order to study,” she said.
其中之一就是关于25岁的非裔美国人尼科尔的历史案例。她在加利福尼亚的奥克兰长大。她的母亲精神崩溃之后，6岁的尼科尔作为家中的长女被迫承担起了家庭的重担。8岁的时候就要替人打扫商铺照看孩子来赚钱养活自己的三个同胞。她告诉阿尔奈特：“我赚了些钱让我的妈妈摆脱困境，也拯救了整个家庭。他成功地从高中毕业，但是分数很低。然后在皮肤病诊所得到一份接待员的工作。之后她搬进了自己的公寓，参加了社区大学的夜间课程并且提高很快。她说：“为了学习我需要搬出我妈妈的房子。”
In his book, Arnett presents Nicole as a symbol of all the young people from impoverished backgrounds for whom “emerging adulthood represents an opportunity — maybe a last opportunity — to turn one’s life around.” This is the stage where someone like Nicole can escape an abusive or dysfunctional family and finally pursue her own dreams. Nicole’s dreams are powerful — one course away from an associate degree, she plans to go on for a bachelor’s and then a Ph.D. in psychology — but she has not really left her family behind; few people do. She is still supporting her mother and siblings, which is why she works full time even though her progress through school would be quicker if she found a part-time job. Is it only a grim pessimist like me who sees how many roadblocks there will be on the way to achieving those dreams and who wonders what kind of freewheeling emerging adulthood she is supposed to be having?
在阿尔奈特的书中，他把尼科尔看作是那些出身贫寒的年轻人的代表，同时成人初显期也为他们提供了一个机会，很有可能是唯一改变他们命运的机会，同时也是一个舞台，为像尼科尔一样的年轻人提供机会，摆脱他们的暴力或机能不全的家庭从而追求自己的梦想。尼科尔的梦想十分远大，除了要拿到大专学历，她还要拿到学士学位甚至拿到心理学博士学位，但是她并没有真正的离开她的家庭。也很少人会这样做。她仍然支持着她的妈妈和她的弟弟妹妹们，这也是她为什么要做全职工作，尽管如果做兼职的话她会更快的毕业。是不是只有像我这样严酷的悲观主义者才会看到她在通向梦想之路的艰难？才会惊讶她是拥
联系客服
