TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/071690/0716140.000

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                                                                                LIVING, Page 56

COVER STORY

Proceeding With Caution


The twentysomething generation is balking at work, marriage and
baby-boomer values. Why are today's young adults so skeptical?

By DAVID M. GROSS and SOPHFRONIA SCOTT -- With reporting by Dan
Cray/Los Angeles, Tom Curry/Atlanta and William
McWhirter/Chicago


    They have trouble making decisions. They would rather hike
in the Himalayas than climb a corporate ladder. They have few
heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own. They crave
entertainment, but their attention span is as short as one zap
of a TV dial. They hate yuppies, hippies and druggies. They
postpone marriage because they dread divorce. They sneer at
Range Rovers, Rolexes and red suspenders. What they hold dear
are family life, local activism, national parks, penny loafers
and mountain bikes. They possess only a hazy sense of their own
identity but a monumental preoccupation with all the problems
the preceding generation will leave for them to fix.

    This is the twentysomething generation, those 48 million
young Americans ages 18 through 29 who fall between the famous
baby boomers and the boomlet of children the baby boomers are
producing. Since today's young adults were born during a period
when the U.S. birthrate decreased to half the level of its
postwar peak, in the wake of the great baby boom, they are
sometimes called the baby busters. By whatever name, so far
they are an unsung generation, hardly recognized as a social
force or even noticed much at all. "I envision ourselves as a
lurking generation, waiting in the shadows, quietly figuring
out our plan," says Rebecca Winke, 19, of Madison, Wis. "Maybe
that's why nobody notices us."

    But here they come: freshly minted grownups. And anyone who
expected they would echo the boomers who came before, bringing
more of the same attitude, should brace for a surprise. This
crowd is profoundly different from -- even contrary to -- the
group that came of age in the 1960s and that celebrates itself
each week on The Wonder Years and thirtysomething. By and
large, the 18-to-29 group scornfully rejects the habits and
values of the baby boomers, viewing that group as
self-centered, fickle and impractical.

    While the baby boomers had a placid childhood in the 1950s,
which helped inspire them to start their revolution, today's
twentysomething generation grew up in a time of drugs, divorce
and economic strain. They virtually reared themselves. TV
provided the surrogate parenting, and Ronald Reagan starred as
the real-life Mister Rogers, dispensing reassurance during
their troubled adolescence. Reagan's message: problems can be
shelved until later. A prime characteristic of today's young
adults is their desire to avoid risk, pain and rapid change.
They feel paralyzed by the social problems they see as their
inheritance: racial strife, homelessness, AIDS, fractured
families and federal deficits. "It is almost our role to be
passive," says Peter Smith, 23, a newspaper reporter in
Ventura, Calif. "College was a time of mass apathy, with
pockets of change. Many global events seem out of our control."

    The twentysomething generation has been neglected because
it exists in the shadow of the baby boomers, usually defined
as the 72 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964. Members
of the tail end of the boom generation, now ages 26 through 29,
often feel alienated from the larger group, like kid brothers
and sisters who disdain the paths their siblings chose. The
boomer group is so huge that it tends to define every era it
passes through, forcing society to accommodate its moods and
dimensions. Even relatively small bunches of boomers made
waves, most notably the 4 million or so young urban
professionals of the mid-1980s. By contrast, when today's
18-to-29-year-old group was born, the baby boom was fading into
the so-called baby bust, with its precipitous decline in the
U.S. birthrate. The relatively small baby-bust group is poorly
understood by everyone from scholars to marketers. But as the
twentysomething adults begin their prime working years, they
have suddenly become far more intriguing. Reason: America needs
them. Today's young adults are so scarce that their numbers
could result in severe labor shortages in the coming decade.

    Twentysomething adults feel the opposing tugs of making
money and doing good works, but they refuse to get caught up
in the passion of either one. They reject 70-hour workweeks as
yuppie lunacy, just as they shirk from starting another social
revolution. Today's young adults want to stay in their own
backyard and do their work in modest ways. "We're not trying
to change things. We're trying to fix things," says Anne
McCord, 21, of Portland, Ore. "We are the generation that is
going to renovate America. We are going to be its carpenters and
janitors."

    This is a back-to-basics bunch that wishes life could be
simpler. "We expect less, we want less, but we want less to be
better," says Devin Schaumburg, 20, of Knoxville. "If we're
just trying to pick up the pieces, put it all back together,
is there a label for that?" That's a laudable notion, but don't
hold your breath till they find their answer. "They are finally
out there, saying `Pay attention to us,' but I've never heard
them think of a single thing that defines them," says Martha
Farnsworth Riche, national editor of American Demographics
magazine.

    What worries parents, teachers and employers is that the
latest crop of adults wants to postpone growing up. At a time
when they should be graduating, entering the work force and
starting families of their own, the twentysomething crowd is
balking at those rites of passage. A prime reason is their
recognition that the American Dream is much tougher to achieve
after years of housing-price inflation and stagnant wages.
Householders under the age of 25 were the only group during the
1980s to suffer a drop in income, a decline of 10%. One result:
fully 75% of young males 18 to 24 years old are still living
at home, the largest proportion since the Great Depression.

    In a TIME/CNN poll of 18- to 29-year-olds, 65% of those
surveyed agreed it will be harder for their group to live as
comfortably as previous generations. While the majority of
today's young adults think they have a strong chance of finding
a well-paying and interesting job, 69% believe they will have
more difficulty buying a house, and 52% say they will have less
leisure time than their predecessors. Asked to describe their
generation, 53% said the group is worried about the future.

    Until they come out of their shells, the
twentysomething/baby-bust generation will be a frustrating
enigma. Riche calls them the New Petulants because "they can
often end up sounding like whiners." Their anxious indecision
creates a kind of ominous fog around them. Yet those who take
a more sanguine view see in today's young adults a
sophistication, tolerance and candor that could help repair the
excesses of rampant individualism. Here is a guide for
understanding the puzzling twenty something crowd:


    FAMILY: THE TIES DIDN'T BIND

    "Ronald Reagan was around longer than some of my friends'
fathers," says Rachel Stevens, 21, a graduate of the University
of Michigan. An estimated 40% of people in their 20s are
children of divorce. Even more were latchkey kids, the first
to experience the downside of the two-income family. This may
explain why the only solid commitment they are willing to make
is to their own children -- someday. The group wants to spend
more time with their kids, not because they think they can
handle the balance of work and child rearing any better than
their parents but because they see themselves as having been
neglected. "My generation will be the family generation," says
Mara Brock, 20, of Kansas City. "I don't want my kids to go
through what my parents put me through."

    That ordeal was loneliness. "This generation came from a
culture that really didn't prize having kids anyway," says
Chicago sociologist Paul Hirsch. "Their parents just wanted to
go and play out their roles -- they assumed the kids were going
to grow up all right." Absent parents forced a dependence on
secondary relationships with teachers and friends. Flashy toys
and new clothes were supposed to make up for this lack but
instead sowed the seeds for a later abhorrence of the yuppie
brand of materialism. "Quality time" didn't cut it for them
either. In a survey to gauge the baby busters' mood and tastes,
Chicago's Leo Burnett ad agency discovered that the group had
a surprising amount of anger and resentment about their absentee
parents. "The flashback was instantaneous and so hot you could
feel it," recalls Josh McQueen, Burnett's research director.
"They were telling us passionately that quality time was
exactly what was not in their lives."

    At this point, members of the twenty something generation
just want to avoid perpetuating the mistakes of their own
upbringing. Today's potential parents look beyond their own
mothers and fathers when searching for child-rearing role
models. Says Kip Banks, 24, a graduate student in public policy
at the University of Michigan: "When I raise my children, my
approach will be my grandparents', much more serious and
conservative. I would never give my children the freedoms I
had."


    MARRIAGE: WHAT'S THE RUSH?

    The generation is afraid of relationships in general, and
they are the ultimate skeptics when it comes to marriage. Some
young adults maintain they will wait to get married, in the
hope that time will bring a more compatible mate and the
maturity to avoid a divorce. But few of them have any real
blueprint for how a successful relationship should function.
"We never saw commitment at work," says Robert Higgins, 26, a
graduate student in music at Ohio's University of Akron.

    As a result, twentysomething people are staying single
longer and often living together before marrying. Studying the
20-to-24 age group in 1988, the U.S. Census Bureau found that
77% of men and 61% of women had never married, up sharply from
55% and 36%, respectively, in 1970. Among those 25 to 29, the
unmarrieds included 43% of men and 29% of women in 1988, vs.
19% and 10% in 1970. The sheer disposability of marriage breeds
skepticism. Kasey Geoghegan, 20, a student at the University
of Denver and a child of divorced parents, believes nuptial
vows have lost their credibility. Says she: "When people get
married, ideally it's permanent, but once problems set in, they
don't bother to work things out."


    DATING: DON'T STAND SO CLOSE

    Finding a date on a Saturday night, let alone a mate, is a
challenge for a generation that has elevated casual commitment
to an art form. Despite their nostalgia for family values, few
in their 20s are eager to revive a 1950s mentality about
pairing off. Rick Bruno, 22, who will enter Yale Medical School
in the fall, would rather think of himself as a free agent.
Says he: "Not getting hurt is a big priority with me." Others
are concerned that the generation is too detached to form
caring relationships. "People are afraid to like each other,"
says Leslie Boorstein, 21, a photographer from Great Neck,
N.Y.

    For those who try to make meaningful connections -- often
through video dating services, party lines and personals ads
-- the risks  of modern love are greater than ever. AIDS casts
a pall over a generation that fully expected to reap the
benefits of the sexual revolution. Responsibility is the
watchword. Only on college campuses do remnants of libertinism
linger. That worries public-health officials, who are
witnessing an explosion of sexually transmitted diseases,
particularly genital warts. "There is a high degree of students
who believe oral contraception protects them from the AIDS
virus. It doesn't," says Wally Brewer, coordinator of a study
of HIV infection on U.S. campuses. "Obviously it's a big
educational challenge."


    CAREERS: NOT JUST YET, THANKS

    Because they are fewer in number, today's young adults have
the power to wreak havoc in the workplace. Companies are
discovering that to win the best talent, they must cater to a
young work force that is considered overly sensitive at best
and lazy at worst. During the next several years, employers
will have to double their recruiting efforts. According to
American Demographics, the pool of entry-level workers 16 to
24 will shrink about 500,000 a year through 1995, to 21
million. These youngsters are starting to use their bargaining
power to get more of what they feel is coming to them. They
want flexibility, access to decision making and a return to the
sacredness of work-free weekends. "I want a work environment
concerned about my personal growth," says Jennifer Peters, 22,
one of the youngest candidates ever to be admitted to the State
Bar of California. "I don't want to go to work and feel I'll
be burned out two or three years down the road."

    Most of all, young people want constant feedback from
supervisors. In contrast with the baby boomers, who disdained
evaluations as somehow undemocratic, people in their 20s crave
grades, performance evaluations and reviews. They want a
quantification of their achievement. After all, these were the
children who prepped diligently for college-aptitude exams and
learned how to master Rubik's Cube and Space Invaders. They are
consummate game players and grade grubbers. "Unlike yuppies,
younger people are not driven from within, they need
reinforcement," says Penny Erikson, 40, a senior vice president
at the Young & Rubicam ad agency, which has hired many recent
college graduates. "They prefer short-term tasks with
observable results."

    Money is still important as an indicator of career
performance, but crass materialism is on the wane. Marian
Salzman, 31, an editor at large for the collegiate magazine CV,
believes the shift away from the big-salary, big-city role
model of the early '80s is an accommodation to the reality of
a depressed Wall Street and slack economy. Many boomers
expected to have made millions by the time they reached 30.
"But for today's graduates, the easy roads to fast money have
dried up," says Salzman.

    Climbing the corporate ladder is trickier than ever at a
time of widespread corporate restructuring. When recruiters
talk about long-term job security, young adults know better.
Says Victoria Ball, 41, director of Career Planning Services
at Brown University: "Even IBM, which always said it would
never lay off -- well, now they're doing it too." Between 1987
and the end of this year, Big Blue will have shed about 23,000
workers through voluntary incentive programs.

    Most of all, young workers want job gratification. Teaching,
long disdained as an underpaid and underappreciated profession,
is a hot prospect. Enrollment in U.S. teaching programs
increased 61% from 1985 to 1989. And more graduates are
expressing interest in public-service careers. "The glory days
of Wall Street represented an extreme," says Janet Abrams, 29,
a Senate aide who regularly interviews young people looking for
jobs on Capitol Hill. "Now I'm hearing about kids going to the
National Park Service."

    Welcome to the era of hedged bets and lowered expectations.
Young people increasingly claim they are willing to leave
careers in middle gear, without making that final climb to the
top. The leitmotiv of the new age: second place seems just
fine. But young adults are flighty if they find their workplace
harsh or inflexible. "The difference between now and then was
that we had a higher threshold for unhappiness," says editor
Salzman. "I always expected that a job would be 80% misery and
20% glory, but this generation refuses to pay its dues."


    EDUCATION: NO DEGREE, NO DOLLARS

    Smart and savvy, the twenty something group is the
best-educated generation in U.S. history. A record 59% of 1988
high school graduates enrolled in college, compared with 49%
in the previous decade. The lesson they have taken to heart:
education is a means to an end, the ticket to a cherished
middle-class life-style. "The saddest thing of all is that they
don't have the quest to understand things, to understand
themselves," says Alexander Astin, whose UCLA-based Higher
Education Research Institute has been measuring changing
attitudes among college freshman for 24 years.

    Yet, a fact of life in the 1990s economy is that a college
degree is mostly about survival. A person under 30 with a
college degree will earn four times as much money as someone
without it. In 1973 the difference was only twice as great.
With the loss of well-paying factory jobs, there are fewer
chances for less-educated young people to reach the middle
class. Many dropouts quickly learn this and decide to return
to school. But that decision costs money and sends many
twentysomethings back to the nest. Others are flocking to the
armed services. Private First Class Dorin Vanderjack, 20, of
Redding, Calif., left his catering job at a Holiday Inn to join
the Army. After two years of racking up credits at the local
community college, he was ready for a four-year school and
found the Army's offer of $22,800 in tuition assistance too
tempting to turn down. "There's no possible way I could save
that," he says. "This forced me to grow up."


    WANDERLUST: LET'S GET LOST

    While the recruiters are trying to woo young workers, a
generation is out planning its escape from the 9-to-5 routine.
Travel is always an easy way out, one that comes cloaked in a
mantle of respectability: cultural enrichment. In the TIME/CNN
poll, 60% of the people surveyed said they plan to travel a lot
while they are young. And it's not just rich students who are
doing it. "Travel is an obsession for everyone," says Cheryl
Wilson, 21, a University of Pennsylvania graduate who has
visited Denmark and Hungary. "The idea of going away, being
mobile, is very romantic. It fulfills our sense of adventure."

    Unlike previous generations of upper-crust Americans who
savored a postgraduate European tour as the ultimate finishing
school, today's adventurers are picking places far more exotic.
They are seeking an escape from Western culture, rather than
further refinement to smooth their entry into society.
Katmandu, Dar es Salaam, Bangkok: these are the trendy
destinations of many young daydreamers. Susan Costello, 23, a
recent Harvard graduate, voyaged to Dharmsala, India, to spend
time at the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile,
headed by the Dalai Lama. Costello decided to explore Tibetan
culture "to see if they really had something in their way of
life that we seem to be missing in the West."


    ACTIVISM: ART OF THE POSSIBLE

    People in their 20s want to give something back to society,
but they don't know how to begin. The really important
problems, ranging from the national debt to homelessness, are
too large and complex to comprehend. And always the great,
intimidating shadow of 1960s-style activism hovers in the
background. Twentysomething youths suspect that today's
attempts at political and social action pale in comparison with
the excitement of draft dodging or freedom riding.

    The new generation pines for a romanticized past when the
issues were clear and the troops were committed. "The kids of
the 1960s had it easy," claims Gavin Orzame, 18, of Berrien
Springs, Mich. "Back then they had a war and the civil rights
movement. Now there are so many issues that it's hard to get
one big rallying point." But because the '60s utopia never
came, today's young adults view the era with a combination of
reverie and revulsion. "What was so great about growing up then
anyway?" says future physician Bruno. "The generation that had
Vietnam and Watergate is going to be known for leaving us all
their problems. They came out of Camelot and blew it."

    Such views are revisionist, since the '60s were not easy,
and the revolution did not end in utter failure. The twenty
something generation takes for granted many of the real goals
of the '60s: civil rights, the antiwar movement, feminism and
gay liberation. But those movements never coalesced into a
unified crusade, which is something the twentysomethings hope
will come along, break their lethargy and goad them into action.
One major cause is the planet; 43% of the young adults in the
TIME/CNN poll said they are "environmentally conscious." At the
same time, some young people are joining the ranks of
radical-action groups, including ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to
Unleash Power, and Trans-Species Unlimited, the animal-rights
group. These organizations have appeal because they focus their
message, choose specific targets and use high-stakes pressure
tactics like civil disobedience to get things accomplished
quickly.

    For a generation that has witnessed so much failure in the
political system, such results-oriented activism seems much
more valid and practical. Says Sean McNally, 20, who headed the
Earth Day activities at Northwestern University: "A lot of us
are afraid to take an intense stance and then leave it all
behind like our parents did. We have to protect ourselves from
burning out, from losing faith." Like McNally, the rest of the
generation is doing what it can. Its members prefer activities
that are small in scope: cleaning up a park over a weekend or
teaching literacy to underprivileged children.


    LEADERS: HEROES ARE HARD TO FIND

    Young adults need role models and leaders, but the
twentysomething generation has almost no one to look up to.
While 58% of those in the TIME/CNN survey said their group has
heroes, they failed to agree on any. Ronald Reagan was most
often named, with only 8% of the vote, followed by Mikhail
Gorbachev (7%), Jesse Jackson (6%) and George Bush (5%).
Today's young generation finds no figures in the present who
compare with such '60s-era heroes as John F. Kennedy and Martin
Luther King. "It seems there were all these great people in
the '60s," says Kasi Davidson, 18, of Cody, Wyo. "Now there is
nobody."

    Today's potential leaders seem unable to maintain their
stature. They have a way of either self-destructing or being
decimated in the press, which trumpets their faults and
foibles. "The media don't really give young people role models
anymore," says Christina Chinn, 21, of Denver. "Now you get
role models like Donald Trump and all of the moneymakers -- no
one with real ideals."


    SHOPPING: LESS PASSION FOR PRESTIGE

    Marketers are confounded as they try to reach a generation
so rootless and noncommittal. But ad agencies that have
explored the values of the twentysomething generation have
found that status symbols, from Cuisinarts to BMWs, actually
carry a social stigma among many young adults. Their emphasis,
according to Dan Fox, marketing planner at Foote, Cone &
Belding, will be on affordable quality. Unlike baby boomers,
who buy 50% of their cars from Japanese makers, the twentysome
thing generation is too young to remember Detroit's clunkers
of the 1970s. Today's young adult is likely to aspire to a Jeep
Cherokee or Chevy Lumina with lots of cup holders. "Don't knock
the cup holders," warns Fox. "There's something about them that
says, `It's all right in my world.' That's not a small notion.
And Mercedes doesn't have them."

    The twentysomething attitude toward consumption in general:
get more for less. While yuppies spent money to acquire the
best and the rarest toys, young adults believe they can live
just as well, and maybe even better, without breaking the bank.
They disdain designer anything. "Just point me to the generic
aisle," says Jill Mackie, 21, a journalism major at the
University of Illinois. Such a no-nonsense outlook has made hay
for stores like the Gap, which thrives on young people's desire
for casual clothing at a casual price. Similarly, a
twentysomething adult picks a Hershey's bar over Godiva
chocolates, and Bass Weejuns (price: $75) instead of Lucchese
cowboy boots ($500).


    CULTURE: FEW FLAVORS OF THEIR OWN

    Down deep, what frustrates today's young people -- and those
who observe them -- is their failure to create an original
youth culture. The 1920s had jazz and the Lost Generation, the
1950s created the Beats, the 1960s brought everything embodied
in the Summer of Love. But the twentysomething generation has
yet to make a substantial cultural statement. People in their
20s have been handed down everyone else's music, clothes and
styles, leaving little room for their own imaginations.
Mini-revivals in platform shoes, ripped jeans and urban-cowboy
chic all coincide with J. Crew prep, Gumby haircuts and
teased-out suburban perms. What young adults have managed to
come up with is either nuevo hipster or ultra-nerd, but almost
always a bland imitation of the past. "They don't even seem to
know how to dress," says sociologist Hirsch, "and they're
almost unschooled in how to look in different settings."

    Many critics dismiss the new generation as culture vultures.
But there is another way of looking at them: as open-minded
samplers of an increasingly diverse cultural buffet. Rap music
has fueled a fresh array of clothing styles and political
attitudes, not to mention musical innovations. A new, hot radio
format has evolved to provide exposure for such urban
dance-music acts as Soul II Soul and Lisa Stansfield. On
television, MTV has grown from an exclusively rock-'n'-roll
outlet to one that encompasses pop, soul, reggae and even
disco. Like Madonna in her hit song Vogue, this generation knows
how to "strike a pose." Eclecticism is supreme, as long as the
show is authentic -- as camp, art or theater.

    The music of the '60s and '70s is still viewed, sometimes
resentfully, as classic. So today's artists are busy trying to
gain acceptance by reworking the past. Edie Brickell and the
New Bohemians redo Dylan; 10,000 Maniacs covers Cat Stevens.
Why hasn't the twentysomething generation picked up the
creative gauntlet? One reason is that the generation believes
the artistic climate that existed when the Beatles and the Who
were writing is no longer viable. Art, they feel, is not
created for the sake of a statement these days. It's written
for money.

    Even many of the fiction writers who emerged in the late
1980s -- Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz, Jay McInerney, to
name the usual suspects -- seemed to be in it for the money and
fame. That makes today's young adults pessimistic that
originals like Tom Robbins or Timothy Leary or the Rolling
Stones will come along in their time. But then even the Stones
are not really the Stones these days. "Kids aren't stupid,"
says Mike O'Connell, 23, of Chicago, lead singer of his own
band, Rights of the Accused. "The Stones aren't playing rock
'n' roll anymore. They're playing for Budweiser."


    Maybe the twentysomething generation does have trouble
making a decision or a statement. Maybe they are just a little
too cynical when it comes to the world. But their realism may
help them keep shuffling along with their good intentions, no
matter what life throws at them. That resignation leaves them
no illusions to shatter, no false expectations to deflate. In
the long run, even with their fits and starts, they may
accomplish more of their goals than past generations did. "No
one is going to say we are anything but slow and steady, but
how else are we going to go?" asks Ann Evangelista, 21, of West
Chester, Pa. "I could walk this slow and steady way, and maybe
I'll end up winning the race." For this crowd, Camelot may be
a place in the future, not just a nostalgia trip to the past.