“Peter Pans Who Shave” — The Generation That Won’t Grow Up

Alex and Brett Harris of The Rebelution have written a fine article for Boundless.org on the extension of adolescence into what should be adulthood.

They explain:

Adultescents (we’ll refer to them as “kidults”) often live with their parents, even after college, while hopping from job to job and relationship to relationship. They generally lack direction, commitment, financial independence, and personal responsibility, while somehow managing to spend more time and money than the average American on clothes, movies, music, computers, video games and eating out.

For kidults marriage and family fall in the zone of “maybe, someday, but that’s years away.” The typical kidult isn’t committed to any particular local church. They’re doing all sorts of things, but getting nowhere, just living from day to day in their own Never-Never Lands. They’re Peter Pans who shave.

Their answer:

So how do we fight against the kidult mentality and for God’s plan in our own lives? To start, we have to be willing to surrender every aspect of our lives to Christ (not just Sunday morning, not just 20 minutes a day) and embrace the God-given responsibilities and calling that accompany adulthood.

Paul instructed Timothy, “Let no one despise you for your youth.” But he didn’t stop there. He went on, “but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” It’s not just that we aren’t to let people look down on us, we’re actually supposed to set an example for our fellow Christians by how we live and interact with others. Interestingly enough, the Greek word Paul uses for “youth” denotes the Hebrew military age, which covered ages 20-40. It’s like this verse was tailor-made for kidults! This quite a mission, but it’s the only way to truly live life to the fullest.

Between these two selections is a lot of good material, and the article is timely and much needed.

Alex and Brett Harris are 17-year-old twin bloggers who deserve a bookmark on your browser. See The Rebelution.

Here is one of my commentaries on the same issue, The Generation That Won’t Grow Up, April 19, 2005.