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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OUR DEADLINE MATH PROBLEM

It’s risky, but also unavoidable: A full one-third of the dollars that we need to pay for the journalism you rely on has to get raised in December. A good December means our newsroom is fully staffed, well-resourced, and on the beat. A bad one portends budget trouble and hard choices.

The December 31 deadline is drawing nearer, and if we’re going to have any chance of making our goal, we need those of you who’ve never pitched in before to join the ranks of MoJo donors.

We simply can’t afford to come up short. There is no cushion in our razor-thin budget—no backup, no alternative sources of revenue to balance our books. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the fierce journalism we do. That’s why we need you to show up for us right now.

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