Do we ever grow up? We do not grow, perhaps; we learn (perhaps). We struggle, and it is this that makes us what we are. The image of standard adulthood is nevertheless normalized after World War II, after the postwar boom. This is a symptom of Fordism, set roles, Levittown, or Elizabeth in Adelaide or any new suburbs in Australia or anywhere else in the suburban world—malls rule. Fordism is then frozen as a successful normative regime; but the world keeps moving. The notion of telos or transition is arguably normalized earlier, but it is less transition than movement which is fundamental. The norm of adulthood therefore corresponds to high modernity, or in theory to modernization theory. The problem now is not that society is postmodern, but rather that it is truly modern, i.e. innerly and always mobile. Here it is the presently dominant generation—us— which is transitional. Our children are ahead of us. Our children are therefore more modern than us, who are fixed to solid modern claims. They are therefore more challenged than us by the necessity and difficulty of choice. For them, the challenge is even harder—the image of society and subject without limits, including self limits, the simultaneous sense that I can and should be everything and yet that all this is elusive.
In all this, this book is neatly and powerfully sociological; the point is not that our children are lost, it is that if we were now in our twenties, we would respond to this world in the same ways as them. The process of change, contrary to public and scholarly misconception, is therefore both historical and sociological, rather than generational. The new “generation” is a carrier, as much as a leader (or follower). Nevertheless, the image of the biography, path, Lebenslauf pervades even in a postvocational society. Sociologically speaking, we are plainly not only after Weber, but also after Habermas.
The power and precision of insight involved in all this is incredible, as abundantly manifest not least in the case studies developed and so well interpreted here. In fact, the book gets better as it proceeds. Adulthood is now reconsidered as personhood, and we step to recognition. The maturity and balance here is remarkable, calm, reflective, but poignant. Then we turn to youth (and implicitly to beauty, to narcissism). The analysis of paths of youth and class are brilliant. Enter the teen, the rebel, the counterculture. Now the judgement becomes wise, “be young until you die,” youth as the ideology for life. This affects all of us, aging hippies no less than others.
As with Shakespeare, or Goffman, we are all players, but we are also planners. The discussion of problems of planning here is acute; the project of planning is implicitly radicalized, but we do still plan, even if we allow things to fall into place, accidentally as Heller would say, only later taking on coherence (or not; or necessity). Anyway, whatever Blatterer's interviewees say, they seem to cope; they might cope better than us. We face the two lifeworlds—theirs and ours are more connected than before; we also need to learn from them. The contemporary sense of crisis might really be ours, not theirs.
This is the core of Harry Blatterer's great achievement: to work the critical traditions which precede us against the energy, enthusiasm, and openness of these new adults who also need to negotiate the difference between their constraints and their dreams. The wonders of everyday life still precede us.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted to those from whom I have sought assistance and advice over the years. Maria Markus has been the principal guide during my own intellectual coming of age. It was a privilege and a pleasure to be her student, and she continues to be a source of inspiration in matters of scholarship as well as everyday life. Mira Crouch never let me doubt her belief in this project; she provided invaluable insights and assistance on the way. My thanks go to Clive Kessler, Jocelyn Pixley, and Michael Pusey, for their advice, support, and mentorship. Monika Ciolek's editorial assistance on an early draft was priceless, as were Norbert Ebert and Ben Mudaliar's critiques and thoughtful contributions. I am indebted to Peter Beilharz, Axel Honneth, and Kevin McDonald for their productive comments on a version of the manuscript. I thank Berghahn Books for their assistance and an anonymous reviewer for timely advice. Although I can do but scant justice to the richness of their accounts, my gratitude goes to the respondents for so freely and generously opening windows into their lives.
The love my parents and siblings show to one another and to me so unambiguously, sincerely, uncompromised by geographical distance, is the source of my perseverance. And finally: as I am approaching another threshold, which like few others is entrenched in the social imagination as a transition to adulthood, my affectionate thanks go to Aileen Woo.
INTRODUCTION
Exploring Adulthood
Working nine to five, dinner parties, jury duty, and voting; marriages, mortgages, and children; the family sedan, adultery, and divorce; investment portfolios, nest eggs, life insurance, writing a will—these are things we do, strive for or object to, hold dear, or consider commonplace. None of these words are associated with childhood or adolescence; all of them connote in one way or another the responsibilities, commitments, and autonomy of adulthood. And just as these words describe ordinary possessions, practices, and relationships, so adulthood too has something less than remarkable about it. In fact, for most people today who consider themselves grown up, adulthood is no mystery. For them, it is the middle period of life that follows adolescence. Consequently, the need to inquire into its meaning does not arise. Yet, for an increasing number of others things are less clear-cut. As soon as they reflect and ask themselves whether or not they are actually grown up, they begin to doubt and question their adulthood. These may include 29-year-olds who “still” live with their parents; 35-year-olds in tertiary education; those in their mid thirties and beyond who are not prepared to commit to a partner, let alone a family. Add to this that in today's society statements such as “kids grow up too soon these days,” or “young people just won't grow up,” live side by side.
The meaning of adulthood is further unsettled by the fact that modern societies do not provide definite answers as to when it begins. This is so with respect to officialdom as well as everyday life. Even a cursory glance at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)—Australia's equivalent of Britain's National Statistics and the U.S. Census—confirms that there is no official agreement as to what age marks the beginning of adulthood. Definitions and delimitations vary according to specific areas of analysis and their relevant publications. Thus the ABS differentiates between “young people (15–24),” “population 25–64,” and “older persons (65+),” while at the same time referring to those under 35 as “young people” and labeling “adult” all those 15 and over (ABS 2001a; 2003; 2004a). Similarly, the U.S. Census Bureau may refer to “adult population 18+” (USCB 2004a) just as well as to “adults age 15 and over” (J. Hess 2001).
In everyday life too we may wonder what marks the beginning of adulthood. Is it the twenty-first birthday in Anglophone societies, or perhaps reaching the age of majority at 18, 19, or 21? Is it a process of development rather than crossing one threshold or another? Perhaps self-perception is the key? Or perhaps it is marriage, parenthood, work, independent living? Taken together, these uncertainties are signs that adulthood is becoming less ordinary, that it is losing its taken-for-granted status, and that as a result the meaning of adulthood is becoming increasingly ambiguous and contingent. This contingency and ambiguity invite us to explore the social realities and experiences they suffuse.
We judge our adulthood as well as that of others in reference to institutions and practices, mentalities, worldviews, and sensibilities that are quasi outside of ourselves. These “social facts,” as Emile Durkheim (1966) called them, exist prior to and beyond our lives, and yet it is we who reproduce and transform them through our actions. As lay participants in everyday life we evaluate, mostly by reflex, individuals' attainment or nonattainment