The Great Milestone Pileup

"Clare M. Mehta, an Emmanuel College psychology professor, was livid. She was on a committee for hearing graduate students defend their dissertations, and she had planned meticulously to accommodate their next Zoom. She had a two-month-old daughter, no child care, a working husband, and just enough time between his meetings to attend her own. Then, the day of, another professor dashed off a casual note: Could they start the meeting 15 minutes early?"

"When Mehta appeared on camera bouncing her newborn in her lap, that professor started laughing sympathetically. She'd just read Mehta's 2020 paper on the life phase from age 30 to 45, which described it as a hurricane of major changes and responsibilities. Career advances, marriage, parenthood, homeownership, care for aging parents-for many people these days, the paper had argued, all of those milestones fall in a short and furious chunk of time. And here Mehta was, embodying that point."

"Now, at 45, she has interviewed many, many people in this stage, which she named "established adulthood." She believes that life for the youngish-especially for women-is getting only more hectic. The average man is parenting (a little) more than he used to, and the average woman is working outside the home (a lot) more than she used to. And compared with eras past, people today tend to be older when they begin hitting the classic landmarks of adulthood"

The life phase from roughly 30 to 45 is characterized by an intense clustering of major changes and responsibilities. Career advances, marriage, parenthood, homeownership, and care for aging parents often occur within a short, furious time span. Many people in this stage juggle newborns and professional obligations without adequate childcare or schedule flexibility. Men are parenting somewhat more than before while women are working outside the home substantially more. Psychologists have paid less attention to this young-middle-age cohort, and this period is becoming increasingly hectic as classic adulthood landmarks occur at older ages.

Read at The Atlantic