I'm not sure that article on adulthood is as much problematic in the get married have kids way as saying that older definitions of adulthood no longer apply (because most of the women they're talking about were working women and they weren't going on about how that was a bad thing), and also -- via the 'lesbian spinster' bit -- that older generations also don't know how to define 'adulthood' for their children. I mean, if the recession means that more people are living with their parents (ie: multigenerational households, which are common place in other countries), or in school because a higher education means better life prospects, and not having kids/getting married because it's no longer a huge financial safety net for women. I wonder what definitons of 'adulthood' are in stable northern european countries where this sort of thing has been happening for awhile.

The thing I found most interesting were things they almost didn't talk about at all -- that many of the systems we've set up in the past for transitioning to 'adulthood' (however its defined) aren't being used today; college dorms, the communtiy corps stuff, etc. I find that interesting because things like the WPA and Americorps and so on could be used, during this recession for *so many* good things and they're being mostly ignored. I guess it's too socialist. :(