David Brooks, a 42-year-old with a master’s degree in business administration from Wharton, became fascinated with K’Nex, a toy aimed at 6-year-olds.He first spotted the toy at the age of 36 while perusing the local toy store in search of a hobby “other than watching television.”
Mr. Brooks became so enthralled by K’Nex — plastic connectors that can be used to build a variety of structures — that he hired a manager to oversee his dog-walking company, rented office space in Los Angeles and devoted almost a year to his new hobby.
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He is far from being alone in his K’Nex habit. The Internet features many Web sites by adult aficionados of the plastic playthings. Having built most of the K’Nex models on the market, Mr. Brooks says his latest toys are computers and real estate.
“Life as a K’Nex developer doesn’t pay as well,” he says. But, he is quick to add, when it comes to toys, “I would be just as open to something new for ages 10 and up.”
Such passion for child’s play highlights what social critics say is a growing phenomenon — adults who refuse to grow up in a youth-obsessed culture.
Two years ago, the Concise Oxford Dictionary recognized this trend with a dictionary listing — “adultescent: a middle-aged person whose clothes, interests and activities are typically associated with youth culture.”
While some American 19-year-olds are leading infantry squads in Iraq, a steadily increasing legion of 20-somethings are passing their days on Nintendo’s PlayStation, watching “Teletubbies,” playing with toys or reading “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”
This trend is reconfiguring the concept of adulthood, says Tom W. Smith, director of general social survey at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. He cited a recent poll that revealed that the average American believes adulthood begins at age 26.
In recent decades, Americans have extended their school years — more than 40 percent of high school graduates now go on to college — while increasingly postponing such traditional milestones of maturity as marriage and parenthood. As these transitions have been delayed, Mr. Smith said, so has the perception of when adulthood begins.
In 1960 the average 25-year-old U.S. woman, according to Census Bureau statistics, was a married mother of two nearing her fifth wedding anniversary. Today, most 25-year-old women are single and childless.
“We are experiencing a continued sexually charged adolescence,” says Allan Carlson, president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society in Rockford, Ill. He sees the trend of delaying or avoiding marriage as revealing a refusal to grow up.
“Marriage generates a sense of social sobriety,” Mr. Carlson says.
Danielle Crittenden agrees. The author of “What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us” calls marriage and parenthood “acts of life that make you grow up, acts that make you into a man or a woman.”
In a society that fears the commitments and responsibilities of adulthood, Ms. Crittenden says, “when we do take on marriage and commitment, we’re not prepared for the sacrifices.”
Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent at Canterbury in England, sees a “lack of aspiration for independence” among young people today.
Many students now arrive at college with “mum and pops” in tow to help them move into the dorms, Mr. Furedi says. And when students encounter difficulties with classes or professors, parents are often called in to assess and solve the problems, he says.
Such an extended dependence on parents reflects a “fear of adulthood” in the culture at large, Mr. Furedi says. Adulthood has become “something that you want to distance yourself from. Adulthood is no longer seen as having positive attributes,” he says.
Scholars cite several factors in the trend toward extended adolescence. For starters, Mr. Carlson says, government policy — including tax policy — discourages marriage.
Ideas and social movements that began in the 1960s also have discouraged young people from adult roles and responsibilities. “Radical feminism, the New Left, the sexual revolution and the population control movement all blended together and had a common interest in seeing marriage and childbearing diminish as part of American life,” Mr. Carlson says.
Mr. Furedi sees a number of influences behind the declining image of adulthood, including warnings to children against talking to strangers — a signal that adults cannot be trusted, he says.
The trend has been developing over the past 150 to 200 years, he says. Citing such childhood prodigies as Mozart and Beethoven, he observes that previous generations expected young people to make significant contributions to their societies and cultures.
Business has caught on to and capitalized on the increasing market for adolescent culture, Mr. Furedi says. Young women now buy lingerie with the “Hello Kitty” logo. Video games and toys are marketed to grownups, and brokers race children’s scooters down Wall Street.
“The media both reflects and incites pop culture all the time,” says Mr. Furedi, citing TV shows and movies that portray adults as simplistic and naive while depicting youngsters as thoughtful and profound.
And as “Uptown Girls” makes its debut in theaters today — with Brittany Murphy starring as a wealthy young woman who learns wisdom from the child she baby-sits — pop culture not only entertains, but also sends negative messages about adulthood.
“When you treat adult stupidity as normalcy, you transmit a message to children about the world they live in,” Mr. Furedi says.
NBC’s popular, Emmy award-winning comedy “Friends” is typical of such messages, Mr. Carlson says, as it celebrates young adults who reject responsibility and make no useful contributions to society.
The friendships of “Friends” also are essentially childish, he says: “The problem is that these relationships are fragile and tentative and could end at any moment. They are not the stuff of responsible adult life.”
Will the trend continue until a majority of adults are overgrown babies?
The cultural pendulum could very well swing the other way, says Ms. Crittenden, at least in regard to marriage and family issues. Young people who have grown up in a fragmented society are looking for more traditional and stable lives, she says, citing the recent trend of career women leaving the work force to become full-time mothers.
Mr. Carlson is less hopeful, saying the “adultescent” lifestyle produces people who are more self-centered and less likely to understand duty, sacrifice and commitment.
Mr. Furedi agrees. “Commitment has acquired a sense of impossibility, and there is a real reluctance to take a risk in relationships,” he says.
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