ABSTRACT
After a period of semi-dependency in the youth period, a good part of which includes segregation in schools that many students report to be stressful, there are expectations of reaching a plateau of development generally understood as adulthood, or maturity, involving a state of relative independence. At this juncture, the cross-purposes of the youth period meet the cross-purposes of adulthood. Thus, following a vague, though idealized, period of prolonged youth, many people feel they face a vague state called adulthood that is much feared and loathed in certain circles, especially those circumscribed by popular culture, one of the biggest influences shaping contemporary youth. At the same time, the very idea of adulthood has lost much of its meaning because the institutional supports for it have diminished in a society that is youth-obsessed, materialistic, and narcissistic. Following these threads, this chapter explores how people might successfully navigate the passage into and through a secure and beneficial adulthood when they treat it as a moral project with which to direct their agentic and generative energies.
