ellaminnowpea

The Fallback Plan - Leigh Stein We live in a time where it's become harder and harder for twentysomethings to feel like they've made it to adulthood. More than half of us move back home after college--often for five years or more. The unemployment rate among us is disheartening and unsettling, causing many to wonder how they'll ever pay for the college education they've always been told they'll need to get a job when the best they can do is an assistant manager at American Eagle.

It hasn't always been like this. I recently re-watched an early episode of Full House, one where the family celebrates Danny's 30th birthday. By the time he was 30, Danny Tanner had three children and a running start on a successful career and that was considered very much normal. By contrast, the characters on shows like Friends and How I Met Your Mother don't marry and start reproducing until well into their thirties. Sure, some of that is a byproduct of the show's thematic elements but it's also a reflection of a cultural shift, the quarterlife crisis.

I can wholeheartedly relate to these sentiments. I was just 10 when Friends debuted, so I couldn't always genuinely relate to it, but I've been rewatching the show with a passion lately, amazed at how spot-on it is when it comes to the frustrations of young adulthood. I mean, I didn't get my first "career" job until I was 28 and I'm one of the lucky ones. Since graduating college, I've had several starts and stops, in both my personal and professional life and I'm only just now -- in the last four or five months -- beginning to feel like I'm settling.

Anyway, there's been an influx in the amount of "disenchanted twentysomething" media out there and I sometimes find myself wanting to gobble it up before I'm (frighteningly) too old.