(Santa Monica, CA)<\/p>\n
Raised to study to the test, to volunteer with one eye on college applications and to play the sport with the most scholarship opportunities, Millennials carry that competitive mind-set into the workforce, said Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University in Boston.<\/p>\n
“‘They feel like they need to take advantage of every opportunity they have for advancement,” Levine said. “You’re not going to get tied down to someone you just sort of happen to know at this point in your life. It feels like a risk, and there’s a cost for that.”<\/p>\n
— Megan Finnerty, “Experts: Young people prioritizing careers over romance,”<\/em>USA Today<\/a> (and the<\/em>Arizona<\/em> Republic), Feb. 14<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I don’t deserve to be cited as an “expert” on the general topic of this Valentine’s Day article (careers taking precedence over romance). In fact, Finnerty had called me to investigate whether young adults are more socially disconnected than their predecessors used to be. Her good reporting on that question was cut at the editorial stage.<\/p>\n
But I do think her article covers an important issue. It’s not so much about being too busy or rushed, but rather about delaying activities of intrinsic value until real life begins, which is only after one’s education is complete. Everything one does during adolescence and young adulthood then feels like “preparation.” Thus Lew Friedland and Shauna Morimoto find<\/a> that many high school students volunteer\u00a0 for\u00a0 career purposes. The entire thrust of education reform is ensuring that everyone reaches some kind of finish-line, as measured by test scores, college admission, or a job. No one talks seriously about whether people are having intrinsically valuable experiences for their first third of their lives. And the “hookup culture,<\/a>” to the extent that it exists<\/a>, may also be a matter of delaying the\u00a0encumbrances of a romantic relationship until one is fully prepared for life. I trace all those trends not<\/em> to changes in people’s characters or priorities but to the new economic reality of individual risk\/individual reward, in which one is alone to make one’s way in the market.<\/p>\n
After a visit to Duke some years ago one which everyone wanted my views of the hookup culture, I thought<\/a>:<\/p>\n
Oh, come with me and be my love,
\nFor Saturday night\u2013that\u2019s enough.
\nNext week, I\u2019ve got a paper due,
\nA service gig, an interview too.
\n\u201cCome with me\u201d: remember, from our course?
\n(Also a pun, which I\u2019d better not force.)
\nYes, I deleted \u201clive\u201d\u2013but you can stay
\n\u2018Til ten. Then I\u2019ll work on my r\u00e9sum\u00e9.
\nSlippers and buckles of the finest gold:
\nOne day you\u2019ll have those, and someone to hold.
\nBut I\u2019m by myself now; the market\u2019s tight;
\nFor now, I\u2019ve got to focus, network, fight.
\nWait \u2019til we\u2019re forty, and then maybe
\nYou can be my love and live with me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n[For ease of reference, here’s the Marlowe original<\/a> and previous replies by Walter Ralegh<\/a>, C. Day Lewis,<\/a> William Carlos Williams<\/a>, and Odgen Nash.<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Santa Monica, CA) Raised to study to the test, to volunteer with one eye on college applications and to play the sport with the most scholarship opportunities, Millennials carry that competitive mind-set into the workforce, said Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10876"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10894,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10876\/revisions\/10894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}