A Longer Odyssey
These are the six “common life phases” according to New York Times columnist David Brooks in The Odyssey Years (October 9):
childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age
Once upon the 1960s, the phases were four:
childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age
This “odyssey” age is, true to its classical roots in the title of Homer’s epic about the 10-year-old journey home of the hero Odysseus after the Trojan War,
the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood.
During this decade, 20-somethings go to school and take breaks from school. They live with friends and they live at home. They fall in and out of love. They try one career and then try another.
Their parents grow increasingly anxious. These parents understand that there’s bound to be a transition phase between student life and adult life. But when they look at their own grown children, they see the transition stretching five years, seven and beyond. The parents don’t even detect a clear sense of direction in their children’s lives. They look at them and see the things that are being delayed.
They see that people in this age bracket are delaying marriage. They’re delaying having children. They’re delaying permanent employment. People who were born before 1964 tend to define adulthood by certain accomplishments — moving away from home, becoming financially independent, getting married and starting a family.
College is no longer automatically followed by marriage, jobs, house, kids, stationwagon/minivan. College is the prelude to this “odyssey phase that (as Brooks writes) begins with “Friends” and ends with “Knocked Up,” and is one for whom “knitting circles” and “Teach for America” are key social institutions, while churches and political parties are passé; are récherché.
I’ve been thinking about how Charlie—who is very most likely not going to college—-can be seen as moving through those “common life phrases” at a very slow rate, due to where his cognitive, communicative and social skills are. Or he could be seen as moving at a rather accelerated rate in which some of the responsibilities of adulthood—getting a job and keeping it—will be asked of Charlie as he finishes his high school education. Perhaps those “common” life phases are not so common for everyone. It is not so much that Charlie will delay doing things (marriage, starting a family), as that his own developmental delays make doing any of these more than less than likely, not that I know how Charlie would like to lead his life.
Maybe a better way to think of the trajectory of Charlie’s life is that it is just one long odyssey, one meandering journey towards home, with a different kind of independence and different expectations out of life. And I plan to stick around for the ride.
3 opinions for A Longer Odyssey
amy
Oct 11, 2007 at 9:25 am
:) reading Brooks? Tsk. No wonder he sees Wanderdecades. He always has wanted things to fit neatly into boxes with standard sizes from quality shirtmakers. Children who comport themselves this way in school. Women who happily turn themselves over to mother-and-wifehood. The Pater who pats his vest pocket and watches the familias.
He’s also being a little dramatic, I think. Youngish people here go to church and take political parties as seriously as they take the Peace Corps and MSF and TFA. Some marry young (to me frighteningly young) and get to makin’ babies. Some settle down and make babies without the formalities. Every May, here, there’s a sea of frothy sorority brides, all of whom have landed jobs in marketing or what have you, and are planning to work for a while, then stay home with the kids. America != New York.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Oct 11, 2007 at 9:43 am
Well, of course, and then there’s that foreign hinterland, New Jersey (where we’re very fortunate to be living).
neelam paul kujur
Nov 13, 2007 at 4:15 am
What has been under the wraps now has found a name to describe the exact nature and the characteristic,under the odyssey tribe.
Even Charlie claims during a partner search ,” he look’s younger and feel young than his age “,perhaps what Charlie want to say is…he is trapped in an Odyssey phase and he wants someone to compliment that feelings .
Thanks for this beautiful post kristina !
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: