The measurements have changed, but has the quality of life? Is anyone in our generation actually prohibited from doing the things that our parents did at the same age? So we have kids later, rent rather than own, change jobs frequently, and accumulate debt. The actual living of life has not really changed that much. Perhaps this is the problem: we tend to be listening to all these depressing stats and using them as a way of quantifying our own lives.
If you absolutely must quantify your success, it's far better to do it against your peers than against your parents. Maybe you don't have nearly the financial freedom that your parents did, but it's probably pretty close to the average situation of people your age.
It's also puzzling to me that almost all of the supposed experts interviewed in this piece are women. I think that the tendency is for men to carry on pretty much as we always have; facing the same crossroads and conflicts as our fathers. The roles, expectations, and self-images of women have changed drastically over the last couple generations, and I think they're more likely to feel a sense of panic over what they imagine as undeveloped personal lives.
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