In the movie We’re The Millers, Jason Sudekis plays an irresponsible, late-30’s drug dealer. He sells quality weed to the people around him. One day, in an attempt to save a kid in his apartment complex from some lowlifes who are trying to hurt him and a girl, he loses all of his weed and all of the money he collected from his transactions. So, when his drug lord boss contacts him about collecting the money, they make a deal where he would smuggle several thousand pounds of weed over the Mexican border.
Jason Sudekis’ plan to do this is to hire people he knows and have them pretend to be his fake family on a vacation. They would use an RV to smuggle the drugs and give the appearance that they were just traveling through Mexico back into the U.S. In his preparation for the trip, he gives makeovers to everyone in his “family.” When his hairstylist asks him what he wants, he says, “Give me something that says, ‘I get up every morning at 5:30 and commute an hour and a half to some ***** job and my ***** boss expects me ****** all day, so that I can keep my own ungrateful and screaming kids decked out in Dora the Explorer ***** and my wife up to her ******** in self-help videos until the day I gather up the courage to put a shotgun in my mouth.”
While this line could be a slight exaggeration to how many adults feel, there is a great deal of honesty and truth to it. When kids hit the end of high school, they have a line of thought that is similar to this: “I am going to go to college. So I can get a degree. So I can get a job. So I can afford a house. So I can marry a woman. So I can have some kids. And, I’ll buy a car. And, eventually I’ll realize that all of this costs too much money. So, I’ll take out loans and credit cards. And, I’ll be a slave to a financial and economic system from which I will never be released.”
So why do we think that Millennials are crazy for participating in extended adolescence? Adults are rarely ever happy. And the reason that they aren’t happy is because they are not kids. When you are a kid, people have more kindness towards you; your parents buy you cool stuff; you don’t have bills to pay; your biggest worry is about whether or not you are going to win your little league game, or how to get rid of this pimple on my forehead. We idealize kids because kids don’t have to worry about the foreclosure of their house or the possibility of losing their jobs and feeling ashamed of themselves if they aren’t capable of providing for their families. So why are we getting mad at Millennials for not wanting to “grow up?”
I think that in a culture that idealizes children, human beings will never grow up. And they lose the ability to look forward to things because once you become an adult the best things are behind you. But when we idealize kids, we fail to remember the good things that exist for adults that kids do not have available to them. Adults, to a much greater extent, can do things about their lives and in the world. Kids are powerless to these things. Adults can change some things. Kids can change very little. Adults have been through enough life where they know how to interact, engage, and act upon life’s situations. Kids are frustrated and confused about what to do. If we want people to grow up, we have to give them enticements for growing up.
For instance, we all know that teenage girls are just nasty and horrible towards one another. What if teenage girls knew something about steady, reciprocating, and life-giving friendships? Something that is much more available in adulthood.
Or what if instead of being such an insecure, self-obsessed, no self-awareness teenager, you would understand that these things tend to slowly dissolve over time. That pimple that bothers you at 15 isn’t going to bother you when it periodically shows up at 35.
And we have capacities to satisfy certain curiosities that aren’t available to kids because they can’t afford it. Like being able to travel to Europe and see other cultures.
There are many things that adults can do and enjoy, that kids cannot. There are many reasons to grow up and change. Maybe if we saw adults enjoying their own lives, kids would aspire to be one.
