November 30, 2012

Quick Reads: “Twentysomething” by Robin Marantz Henig and Samantha Henig

Twentysomething: Why Do Young Adults Seem Stuck?

By Robin Marantz Henig and Samantha Henig

HUDSON STREET PRESS

In one of the New York Times Magazine‘s most-shared articles of 2010, science writer Robin Marantz Henig examined the research on “emerging adulthood”—the notion that young adults are taking longer and longer to grow up. In this follow-up she collaborates with her 27-year-old daughter, Samantha (the Times Mag‘s online editor), to explore the myriad social factors—the student-loan crisis, the social-media revolution, the mainstreaming of fertility services—that make this slow-maturation process unique to millennials. The obvious critique, which the Henigs acknowledge but can’t quite dispel, is that this falls into the category of a nice problem to have. Extended adolescence, after all, tends to be limited to those who can afford it.

This review originally appeared in our November/December issue of Mother Jones.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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