"Grups"

I checked out a recent article in New York Magazine about “Grups” (the word is a contraction of the term "grown-up"). The generation gap has been closed, declares the author Adam Sternbergh. These grups are a new form of adulthood.

What makes you a grup? You own more pairs of sneakers than suits. You go about the neighbourhood listening to the latest alternative band on your iPod, wearing trendy jeans and a shaggy haircut, maybe drinking a latte. Your kids wear miniature versions of your fashionable digs. Rather than playing bridge or going bowling, you stay out late at concerts, or hang out with other grups listening to jazz, while the kids play in your modernist living room.

In other words, grups are people in their 30s, 40s or (gasp) early 50s with homes, children and jobs, yet who tend to look and act like they’re a twentysomething university student.

I have been thinking for the past little while about where this Grup thing is coming from. It's open to debate if this is such a new phenomenon. Personally, I think we saw the beginnings, at the very least, of this trend with Baby Boomers and their kids. Timing aside though, what the author is really trying to grasp is how the disappearance of that formal passage into adulthood which used to be more noticible in our society. He comments that his own father took on a unfulfilling kind of job that paid well, and wore suits to work. He didn’t read his kid's comic books or listen to their Sex Pistols albums willingly. Or wear jeans (much).

Why are more adults today choosing to extend their 20-something behavior, their tastes, and their hobbies well into midlife?

Here's what I'm considering: maybe there isn’t supposed to be such a pronounced gap between the generations. It's considered a normal thing in our culture. Yet, in more traditional cultures, kids are expected to shadow their parents as they go about their day, so that by the time they are teenagers, they are actually doing adult stuff: managing a household, farming or raising the famiy’s livestock, taking care of younger siblings. They may even marry and start having a family of their own, at an age before most Western teens can even vote. The transition from child to adult is much more quick and seamless.

The generation gap that we’ve come to know and expect may instead be a sign that something is out of whack. When the way that adults and children spend their time is so different, creating a disconnect, then something in the culture has changed too drastically. Appearance of this Grup phenomenon may be a sign then that things are (trying) to reach an equilibrium again.

It struck me that the alterna-dads and yupster moms that Sternbergh describes are just busy doing what ought to come naturally: teaching their kids about the big world and how to get along in it.

Most of the people Sternbergh interviewed for the article work in the cultural sector: fashion design, music, or television and film production. This makes up a significant part of New York city’s community and its economy. Keeping current with shifts in popular culture can be vital to New Yorkers making a living in their city. Teaching their kids about the Ramones, iPods, cool clothes -- or helping them develop an “aesthetic” as one father put it -- is what will give those kids an edge when it comes time for them to start exploring NY's cultural buffet on their own. Showing little Dylan where to shop for the natty jeans and how to play a guitar riff is really no different than showing Juan the best way to grow the corn, beans 'n' squash. They are both learning forms of subsistence. The latter example is more direct, i.e. growing one’s own food; the other is how to be successful in a predominantly artisitc and materialistic environment. So you can make money, and thus buy your food, the roof over your head, etc.

Many of these parents in the Grup article also spoke of having passion for their work and enjoying life, as oppossed to supressing interests that began in their youth in order to fit into a more conservative corporate work culture. Why adopt more “grown-up” things they ask, like playing golf, wearing wool suits, and watching Matlock, if you don’t have a genuine like for that stuff?

What I found sorta touching is that these parents seemed to quite enjoy being parents, and regard parenting itself as a major creative endeavor. They strive to be more in synch with the younger people around them, and I think this is a very good thing to see. My reaction has not been one of, “oh pul-eese! Grow up already”; rather, it strikes me as healthy, even well-adapted, response.

And it remained unsaid, but -- isn’t it satisfying to have all the trappings of a cool youth combined with the greater sense of personal security in who you’ve become (not to mention a salary) that tends to emerge within adulthood? That’s having it all, New York style, I suppose.

Check out the article for yourself by clicking the link under "Specific Articles" in the sidebar on the right.