This is How Things Have Changed Since Your Parents Got Married

It’s almost like there are certain rites of passage in our lives. In fact, there are certain rites of passage most people expect to experience sooner or later. For one example most of us go through, graduating school and choosing your career path is one rite of passage. There are exceptions to any and every rule naturally, which is to say that not everyone graduates school or chooses to return for a higher education. There are different career paths available to different individuals based on their experiences, but the concept is still the same. Certain life experiences become rites of passage based on how normal they are to each passing generation.

Marriage, homeownership, and choosing when (or if) to have children are all other examples of rites of passage. With each passing generation and every new decade, rites of passage begin to evolve and look different. Maybe that’s because everyone has a different perspective based on how they grew up or what their experiences in life have led to. Maybe it’s because the things themselves are changing.

Over the years, so many other life experiences have begun to look differently than the ones our parents or grandparents went through. The stories they tell us about walking both ways uphill in the snow to school in the morning morphs into the way our parents moved away to college (unlike their parents, possibly), and it evolves yet again when other life events happen. The marriages of our grandparents -- for the sake of it, the Silent Generation -- look incredibly different from the marriages of our Baby Boomer parents.

What this means is that our life experiences are defined by the norm of our generation. That leads to the idea that marriage, childbirth, and homeownership are all effectively new rites of passage for Millennials (and even those coming up after us -- Gen Z). So, what to these experiences look like now?

On Buying a Home

It’s absolutely no secret, and therefore no surprise, that the American dream includes a white picket fence, a small yard, maybe a dog if you’re into that, and owning a home.

Baby Boomers are one of the largest generations which is one of the factors that led to the bottleneck within the housing market. Boomers live longer than other generations and own almost 80% of the housing market. This makes an issue for future generations who are coming of age to buy property -- because the inventory of homes isn’t necessarily large enough to supply all of the demand. That being said though, Millennials aren’t deciding not to buy a house because of their parents.

The leading cause cited by millennials for delaying homeownership is that they’re drowning in student debt. It’s a story most of us have heard before, and likely won’t leave the news cycle anytime soon considering there is no solution in sight.

On Getting Married

One thing becomes abundantly clear if you’re looking at the differences between generations. Some of the major differences between Millennials and their parents (Boomers) are because of said parents. Children see the marriages of their parents and choose to act differently. The divorce rate of Baby Boomers is, and was, incredibly high -- in fact, it’s the highest rate of any generation.

With that in mind, it’s really not surprising to see Millennials acting differently. Men and women are getting married later in life, delaying other “rites of passage” like having children or buying a home. Of course, those things aren’t hinged on someone getting married, but society encourages a certain order of things.

However, Millennials are the first generation to change the divorce rate in over a century. Maybe this is the first thing they can thank Boomers for.

It’s important to take a look at how these tropes have changed since our parents got married because with Gen Z rising, getting ready to leave school and enter the workforce, it’s likely things will shift all over again.