Later Adulthood

This video progresses gradually from young adulthood to a little later adulthood. At 21, most young people are more focused on their professional life than their personal life. Weeks before graduation, Justin is working on a plan to transition from college to the working world. He believes that a having a family at this point will tie him down. For a many people, this may be true. The 20s are a time to establish oneself and create groundwork for a career that can help support a family later on. However, not everyone has a choice or a timetable as to when to get an education, set a career and have a family. Such is the case with Mayling, who was abandoned by her father at a young age. Growing up in a crowded apartment in Harlem, she did not

She’s come along further professionally compared to her personal life. She hasn’t found the person she would want to marry and therefore does not have kids. She feels envious of people who have a happy marriage and also enjoying their children. She loves babies but she only has a little bit more time to have children, the biological clock is ticking. This is interesting because it seems like she had her timetable in order as per societal norms except for marriage. It’s not as if she couldn’t have been married; she just didn’t find the right person. This puts into perspective the standards we hold for others and ourselves in terms of compatibility and at what cost. For Christine it was at the cost of loneliness and no

Going through all this schooling is a social standard to train the emerging work force. The text says, “Achieving vocational identity is more difficult than ever. Children tend to want work that fewer than one in a million of them will ever obtain— rock star, sports hero, U.S. president—and adults often encourage such fantasies” (Berger 547). I personally believe that a person goes through the motions to figuring out what they want to contribute to society. With that, passion and the drive to be a lifelong learner are crucial. There may be no particular formula to be successful, but from my experience I think a person can be whatever he/she strives, but words alone are not sufficient. Actions, plans, unwavering focus is the fuel to express a passion. When a person follows a passion, it also encourages happiness. Society rewards mastery, regardless of the field, so might as well excel in where your heart is. Although finding this passion for something is probably the hard part, so majority of people follow a path suggested by others. The text says that high school counselors are of little to no help due to lack of expertise and time. Young adulthood is a highly confusing and stressful time period because “Today’s job market has made development of vocational identity particularly difficult for emerging adults. A life-span perspective suggests that young