Emerging Adulthood - A new phase of life after adolescence that includes identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between, and seemingly unending possibilities.
Narrative - a form of communication that arranges human actions and events into organized wholes in a way that bestows meaning on the actions and events by specifying their cause-and-effect relations to the whole.
In short: My Life Story/Plan in a nutshell.
So! Here is my narrative, as I have it planned thus far:
Graduate college and grad school. Get a job in (hopefully) an adoption agency. Get married. Live with my husband for a few years before having children. Possibly adopt one child. Raise our children until they are out of the house and in college themselves. Continue to work until I'm ready and our finances are ready for me to retire. Travel the world with my husband, check things off our bucket lists, and visit grandchildren all the time. The end.
I certainly think that today's culture and the culture in which I grew up had a huge impact on the shaping of my narrative. I always knew growing up that I would go to college. I always knew that I would get married and have kids. I always knew that I was going to be a working wife and mom. Now, if I'd lived 60 years ago, my narrative would be much different. I probably would have gotten married right out of high school, and would have had kids pretty soon after. I would have had neither a job nor an education. My lot in life would have been to bear children and to raise them. However, since I was born in the 90s, I was raised to believe that I wouldn't have a satisfying life unless I got a good, complete college education and a professional job afterwards. I think this also has to do with my parents' backgrounds. My mother was the first in her family to go to college. My father was the first in his family to graduate from college. My father became an educator (he is now a high school principal), and my mother became a social worker, working with children in a children's home, then in hospice, before she became a lecturer at Baylor. My parents highly value education, and I never really thought I would do anything else.
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, in his book Emerging Adulthood, describes several important changing factors in the narrative of an emerging adult's life, including the relationship with parents, college, marriage, and religion.
My relationship with my parents has changed a lot since I came to college. In high school, and before, my parents were pretty protective of me. I wasn't allowed to stay home alone until I was 15; I had to text one of them and check in everywhere I went; I couldn't have my best guy friends over if my parents weren't there, even though my best guy friends are gay and everyone knew it. Now, however, my parents usually say something like, "Well, you're 18 and an adult, so I won't tell you that you can't do something, " (the implied statement usually being, "...but I really want to..."). Before I came to college, my mom was my best friend. I told her almost everything. I admired her and put her up on a pedestal and thought she could do no wrong. Now, however, our relationship is a little strained. Granted, this probably has something to do with the fact that she just lost both of her parents in the past 8 months. However, I also think that this is just life transition, and my mom may be having a difficult time seeing me as her adult daughter. My relationship with my dad was strained in high school. He was my high school principal, and it was always difficult for him to turn off his "Principal" button and turn on his "Daddy" button. However, he seems to have had a much easier time transitioning to seeing me as an adult, an intellectual equal. Also, I'm expanding my views and opinions on issues, not just taking my mom's side on everything. I think this has helped mine and my dad's relationship a lot. I think many other emerging adults could relate to my story, based on Arnett's research in his book.
College is the perfect place for an emerging adult to explore their identity and actualize on their possibilities, to try many things, fail at some, and succeed at others. Self-disclosure: I was terrified to come to college. I grew up in a very small town, where my graduating class was a whopping 55 people. You think there's a Baylor bubble? You should try out the Crawford bubble for a little while. I thought I would never make any friends and I would just do nothing but homework until I graduated with my laptop permanently glued to my hands. Now, this may be because most of the friends I'd had in high school I'd known since I was 5. Most of us went to Kindergarten together. That said, I thought that that was the only way to make friends - go to school with them for 13 years. Obviously, my fears were irrational and unfounded, and proved to be untrue. I have a wonderful support system here of friends, colleagues, and my boyfriend. College for me has also been challenging to my views I acquired under a liberal mother living in conservative Crawford. I've been challenged to see the other side of things, to look at an issue as a whole before formulating my opinion about it, and to argue well, not just say, "...well, still."
As a girl, I've been planning my wedding since I was 4 years old. My best friend and I played "wedding" at each others' houses with our Barbies. Now that I'm 19 and in a serious relationship, I've had to figure out what I want in a life partner, if I can see myself with this person for the rest of my life, etc. I'm at my leisure to do all this because, as an emerging adult, I have ample time to decide these things before I'm "expected" to get married. I have ample time to find the "ONE."
Religion is also a big factor in the emerging adult's narrative. This is something I think is really important, because as emerging adults, we are no longer living under our parents' wings and expectations. We have the privilege to discover and shape what we believe in. For instance, I grew up going to a Baptist church in Crawford with my parents until I was 16. Long story short, church politics became too much for my mom and me, and we left and went to a different Baptist church in Woodway. My father soon followed. Now, while this particular church was very good for me at that time, it is entirely too big for me now to be able to find my niche in the church. I wanted something smaller after I came to college. My boyfriend, who grew up Episcopalian, sampled different churches in the area, and have settled on DaySpring. This church is a Baptist church, which I appreciate, but it is also very liturgical and contemplative, which Seth and I both appreciate. It seems to be the perfect fit for us, which we wouldn't have found if we'd still been living under the wings of our parents. My parents gave me a wonderful spiritual foundation, but they understood after I came to college that it was now time for me to shape it my own way.
Overall, I enjoyed Arnett's book, and I think his ideas on emerging adulthood are very well thought out. I also have enjoyed our class discussions on these topics, as well. I think each of these factors of the emerging adult's narrative have made me into a better, more well-rounded person, and I appreciate Arnett's articulation of this stage of life.
No comments:
Post a Comment