young professionals

The NY Observer last week came up with a piece about what they are coining as the New Victorian’s – twentysomethings who are opting to settle down, marry, and have families right after collage.

No these youngsters are not the product of snake handling religionists who talk in tongues, marry at 12, and have babies to repopulate their cult – these are – in the case of this article – ivy league graduates with a good head on their shoulders and beaming with potential for progress in the big city. The traditional stereo type – possibly a byproduct of the 60’s – was to label co-ed graduate women with the anti-men, femi-nazi, lesbians, and a slew of others that amount to the fact that they will never marry, focus only on their careers, don’t even think of having children, and have as many lovers as they desire.

Ah but times, they are a changin’.

“While their forbears flitted away their 20’s in a haze of booze, Bolivian marching powder, and bed-hopping, New Vics throw dinner parties, tend to pedigreed pets, practice earnest monogamy, and affect an air of complacent careerism. Indeed, at the tender age of 28, 26, even 24, the New Vics have developed such fierce commitments, be they romantic or professional, that angst-ridden cultural productions like the 1994 movie Reality Bites, or Benjamin Kunkel’s 2005 novel Indecision, simply wouldn’t make sense to them.

As one soon-to-be-married, female 26-year-old online editor who lives in Williamsburg put it: “It’s no longer cool to be a slacker and be living in your basement.”

This is something my friends and I talk about all the time and there are a lot of reasons behind the kind of mindset here.