Features
Odyssey Generation
Love changing jobs, addresses, boyfriends? Always in search of the Next Big Thing? Turns out you're not alone.
In the past five years, Zoe Gillett has crammed as much into her life as someone of her parents' generation might manage in a lifetime. She's switched jobs four times, changed postcodes even more frequently and taken up everything from surfing to salsa. Last year, the 30-year-old sales rep even spent eight months travelling around Latin America – a trip that so far has failed to cure her wanderlust. "I've been talking about opening a backpackers' [hostel] with my brother on a beach somewhere for years," she muses.
If this sounds all too familiar – rather than flighty – then chances are that you, too, are a member of the Odyssey Generation.
A term coined by US social commentator David Brooks, it encompasses anyone aged 24–35ish, across Generations X and Y, who is too busy exploring and experimenting to consider settling down. Most haven't found The One, The Career or The House, let alone had children of their own.
"There used to be four common life phases," Brooks wrote recently in The New York Times. "Childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. But now there are at least six: childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age."
Brooks argues that society is on the brink of embracing a new generation who are too old to be called adolescents but can't quite be classed as adults – not that they want to be.
This is a generation that struggles to fulfil the year-long leases they never wanted to sign in the first place; thinks spending two years in one job is a perfectly reasonable effort; places a premium on entrepreneurship and creativity; and lives by the mantra of "keeping their options open". It's a generation that's been hothoused throughout their teenage years by their parents, who convinced their aspirational offspring they could be and do anything they wanted, and told them never to settle.
A decade later, these same parents, having witnessed countless job changes, relocations and relationships, are beginning to wish they hadn't been taken quite so literally.
"This is a phase that's just emerged over the past 10 years," says KPMG social demographer Bernard Salt, pointing to the ever-widening gap between the increasingly young age that today's teenagers reach maturity, and the age when they finally settle down and have families of their own.
"Odyssey means journey, and the primary purpose [of this phase] is to trial and sample before making lifelong commitments," he explains. "It's really a huge smorgasbord all jammed into a decade."
Just as the terms "adolescent" and "teenager" were introduced halfway through last century, Salt believes society may need a label to describe this burgeoning phase. Of course, it's a tag that will never suit everyone, but as time goes on he believes more and more 20- and 30-somethings will relate.
Find out about the Odyssey Generation – and whether you're a member – in the April issue of marie claire.
In the past five years, Zoe Gillett has crammed as much into her life as someone of her parents' generation might manage in a lifetime. She's switched jobs four times, changed postcodes even more frequently and taken up everything from surfing to salsa. Last year, the 30-year-old sales rep even spent eight months travelling around Latin America – a trip that so far has failed to cure her wanderlust. "I've been talking about opening a backpackers' [hostel] with my brother on a beach somewhere for years," she muses.
If this sounds all too familiar – rather than flighty – then chances are that you, too, are a member of the Odyssey Generation.
A term coined by US social commentator David Brooks, it encompasses anyone aged 24–35ish, across Generations X and Y, who is too busy exploring and experimenting to consider settling down. Most haven't found The One, The Career or The House, let alone had children of their own.
"There used to be four common life phases," Brooks wrote recently in The New York Times. "Childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. But now there are at least six: childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age."
Brooks argues that society is on the brink of embracing a new generation who are too old to be called adolescents but can't quite be classed as adults – not that they want to be.
This is a generation that struggles to fulfil the year-long leases they never wanted to sign in the first place; thinks spending two years in one job is a perfectly reasonable effort; places a premium on entrepreneurship and creativity; and lives by the mantra of "keeping their options open". It's a generation that's been hothoused throughout their teenage years by their parents, who convinced their aspirational offspring they could be and do anything they wanted, and told them never to settle.
A decade later, these same parents, having witnessed countless job changes, relocations and relationships, are beginning to wish they hadn't been taken quite so literally.
"This is a phase that's just emerged over the past 10 years," says KPMG social demographer Bernard Salt, pointing to the ever-widening gap between the increasingly young age that today's teenagers reach maturity, and the age when they finally settle down and have families of their own.
"Odyssey means journey, and the primary purpose [of this phase] is to trial and sample before making lifelong commitments," he explains. "It's really a huge smorgasbord all jammed into a decade."
Just as the terms "adolescent" and "teenager" were introduced halfway through last century, Salt believes society may need a label to describe this burgeoning phase. Of course, it's a tag that will never suit everyone, but as time goes on he believes more and more 20- and 30-somethings will relate.
Find out about the Odyssey Generation – and whether you're a member – in the April issue of marie claire.
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2 Comments
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1.
liliakaz
- Mar 13 09:53pm
very true!!! oh my goodness me in a nutshell
2.
calmlife67
- Mar 14 12:47am
Me too, though I am 39 and I have been married twice, had one child now 18, traveled the world and lived my life as if it has been a dozen lifetimes. Now I am at the stage where I am going to uni, living alone and loving it, and know I have a lot more adventures to come.
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