Lee Suckling: Are we coming of age too late?

American Pie, one of the classic 'coming of age' flicks.

Often, in fiction, the period that defines "coming of age" is traditionally our teenage years, when we blossom intellectually, emotionally, and sexually. Jason Biggs went through it in American Pie. J.D. Salinger tackled it with The Catcher in the Rye. It's the transition from youth to adulthood, where self-discovery brings on independence and new ways of thinking about the world.

But with a financial recession that crippled our dreams and parental relationships we can't let go of, is our awakening period being delayed? If what might've happened at seventeen 50 years ago is now happening in our mid-twenties, are we a generation of late bloomers, or even non-bloomers? Several contributing factors push the modern coming of age out of our teenage years, and into our twenties.

We move out of home later
In case you haven't noticed, life in modern New Zealand is becoming drastically unaffordable. Rent and food prices go up and up; far quicker than inflation on wages can. There's little incentive to move out of home when you finish high school anymore: at minimum you need a good $500 per week to cover housing and living costs, and that's almost impossible to obtain if you're a tertiary student of any kind.

Without being forced out into the world and left to our own devices, the modern generation doesn't experience the coming of age essentials of loneliness, isolation, and resulting resourcefulness until we reach our mid-twenties - and are finally free from all filial and institutional shackles.

We delay getting a real job
Before university education was status quo, we came of age with apprentice jobs and hands-on training in the workforce. The theoretical and detached rigmarole of academia only lets us grow as spectators, not as participants in real life.

Not starting our first real job until our twenties (and a difficult economic environment in which one can seek any kind of useful student job) seriously delays the early lessons of working life. Detrimentally, it also delays the accompanying interpersonal development. When you're at uni you're surrounded by people just like you. When you're out in the real world, you realise how little you know, and how much you have to learn from those of all ages and backgrounds.

We have too much information, too early on
The innovations of the internet have forced our eyes open earlier than any previous generation's. Why wait for "the talk" with your parents when you have Google? Unbridled and uncensored access to too much information, too early in our lives, leaves nothing to discover in our later teenage years.

If we can get a feel for sex, drugs and rock n' roll vicariously through the internet at 12-years-old, the teenage rebellion that often heralds a coming of age isn't quite so necessary. It's not until our twenties, when we have open and easy access to all things adult, that we dive into this world - and come out, sometimes years later, as completely different people with influential life lessons under our belts.

We're attached to technology
Another fallout from the internet era that affects our ability to come of age is our psychological attachment to technology. It's near impossible to let yourself experience something in full - whether it be a bullying experience from hell or a life-changing summer in a foreign country - when you're thinking about Facebook statuses and Skyping home for comfort and advice.

Feelings of estrangement and alienation are important to everybody's coming of age; in order for you to figure out who you are, you also need to figure out who you're not. Attachment to technology lets you hold on to what you know, and hinders your ability to let yourself grow.

We've stopped reading books
When was the last time you saw a young person reading a book on a bus, their eyes lighting up with intrigue as their mind was blown with new perspectives? It's a pretty rare sight because culturally, we've stopped reading books.

The flow-on affect of a lack of literary perceptivity is that we're seldom exposed to the philosophical experiences that come from reading great novels like A Clockwork Orange, The Virgin Suicides, The Line of Beauty, and Revolutionary Road. Yes, these great books all have film versions. But you can't come of age in two hours, and nothing beats daily immersion over a series of weeks in a world that changes your position on everything you know.

Some of us start reading these greats in our twenties, and experience a much-delayed philosophic transformation. Many members of the modern generation, however, still don't have the attention span to get through an entire book. Unfortunately, these poor souls might be left out of the coming of age experience altogether.