From Empty Nest to Crowded Nest: The Dynamics of Incompletely-Launched Young Adults

Abstract

This paper concerns problems in the successful transition to adulthood for young people in middle-class American families. We call the most obvious symptom of this problem the returning young adult syndrome. We argue that this symptom points to broader questions of young adults' (YA) deviance from parental expectations of the YAs' autonomy, parental anomie, erratic performance by YAs in adult roles, and substantial intrafamilial conflict. We argue that the issue has emerged from separation-individuation tensions and the YAs' ambivalence about their capacity to play adult roles, coupled with more volatile causes, including postwar nurturance of children's rights, more recent legitimation of parents' rights to develop themselves, and the still more recent contraction in the opportunity structure for young adults. Two likely outcomes are increased YA capacity to play modified adult roles and decreases in parents' expectations about YAs' performance.