“Baby boomers have long been considered the generation that did not want to grow up, perpetual adolescents even as they become eligible for Social Security. Now a growing body of research shows that the real Peter Pans are not the boomers, but the generations that have followed. For many, by choice of circumstance, independence no longer begins at 21.”

Patricia Cohen’s New York Times article, “Long Road to Adulthood is Growing Even Longer” really stuck with me after reading it. I guess what made it stuck in my mind repeatedly was how she explained the teenagers of yester year are becoming unbelievably dependent on their parents than ever before in comparison to the baby boomers where they were literally pushed out of the nest and had to figure out what life really meant as an adult. There was no such thing as holding your mom’s hand to help you through the process of buying a house or even finding a really good paying job.

Nowadays, teenagers and young adults are graveling to continue living with their parents’ until they reach the age of 40 or even beyond to be considered officially “real adults.” As Cohen explained in her article, I feel like society today is slowly forgetting the definition of what it means to be an adult as well as forgetting the values they were raised with from their parents when they were growing up. I witness this similar type of behavior from the middle schoolers at my school day to day where if something doesn’t go their way, they always run to their mom and dad in order for them to remedy the situation, then for them to sit down and understand why they can’t be doing what they have been doing in class with the teacher.

It is a real problem that educators face on a daily basis is the behavior and the attitudes young adults or teenagers bring into the classrooms and it is sometimes difficult to reason with them in a proper manner because of their overly protective parents who act more as a friend than a disciplinarian. I am afraid what the future Peter Pans will be like in schools especially now if we are competing against parents who don’t necessarily have a strong belief in their child’s independence development and keep coming to their defense whenever they misbehave or fail to do an assignment.