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How Adulthood Diverges
I wrote this a few years back, but honestly, it does still feel relevant.
Back on October 1, 2014 I wrote a post called “Can you make friends after 30?” If I’m doing some basic math correctly, I would have been 33 when I wrote that. I’m now 37. Here’s what happened in the intervening time:
- Most of my friends changed
- I got divorced
- Getting divorced teaches you a ton about who’s really there for you vs. who’s not, so my friends shifted again
- Now — and this took a hot minute — I feel more comfortable in my own skin
People that I probably would have texted or called regularly on 10/1/14? They are still in my phone, yes. I still see some of their stuff on social media. But are we friends? No, not really.
Now, this part of the story is extremely specific to me in the early-to-mid-30s period. Only about 28% of highly-educated people (which I somewhat am) get divorced, so 7 in 10 wouldn’t have this kind of story. I get that.
But there’s an universality to the 30-to-35 period that data can underscore a bit.
The data!
I’d say the two big “life-changers” of your late 20s/early 30s for most would be (a) marriage and then (b) children. You could say “mortgage,” sure, but many educated white people end up with a mortgage, and not all end up married or with kids, so I’m going to ride or die with those two life events.
The average age of first marriage for a woman right now is 27; it’s 29 for men. If you go up to “college-educated women,” that’s 28. “College-educated white women” is almost 29.
Now, age of first birth for a college-educated woman (same article link) is 30. And, in fact, according to 2016 CDC data, more women are having their first child between 30 and 34 than essentially ever before. That’s probably tied to a shift in the whole “You have to have a baby by X-Date” narrative.
So obviously these are aggregate numbers averaged out. Everyone is different. I also haven’t even touched the racial/education component here (and I’m not going to).
