European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 3, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Found another lost generation what is youth coming to / a of what you Weij / daughter pop Smyk Tow wether to get married or Uvea Lomer just move to Uttah some amp Ody 0r7tt it Uit smog Mug except Faff. Law Juana or to become Wal amp drug free. Or to Cut Prim King aatd6ethjea off. 70 a a Chuo or. To adopt or to it to a adore sex or Fco of cel Gate a to take More sedate is off. By Felicity Barringer new York times for years americans have been bludgeoned by one report after another documenting what a mess the new generation is supposed to be. Their Grade Point averages and . Scores Are falling while High school dropout rates Are rising. They done to know when the civil War was or what Lithuania is. But even the most jaded observers Soemod to take notice this Spring when a report by a panel including or. C. Everett Koop the former surgeon general and Albert Shanker president of the american federation of teachers came to the disturbing conclusion that teenagers Are less healthy today than their parents were when they were the same age. Because of drinking drugs unplanned Egnan cies violence suicide venereal disease and emotional problems Many of today s american teen agers Quot Are unlikely to attain the High Levels of education achievement required for Success in the 21 St Century Quot according to the commission. The body was formed by the National association of state boards of education and the american medical association. The implication it almost seemed was that America was raising a lost generation an army of aging Bart Simpsons possibly armed and dangerous. Their Holden Caulfield was Clay the withdrawn California freshman wandering through a suburban wasteland of drugs and Anomie in Bret Easton Ellis s 1985 novel less than Zero. Instead of Woodstock they had mtg. Is there anything to these fears beyond the ritual anxiety each generation feels about its successors have a significant number of Post Boom babies ready inherited serious handicaps perhaps from the social revolutions of the 1960s and Early 70s? Given All the choices they have Why do these Young people seem so confused these questions Are being asked by social scientists who Are doggedly tracking the lives and times of nearly 37 million people Between the Ages of 15 and 25. The answers As far As they exist Are inconsistent enough to make demographers wonder if there s a Quot they Quot out there after All. A few things Are Clear. The people born in the late 1960s and Early 70s have sex earlier than their parents did and marry later they buy More condoms than their older Brothers and Sisters did but the youngest of them the 15 to 19-year-Olds, have More babies. In surveys they say they care about poverty and the environment but they vote less often than their predecessors did and pay less attention to the news. Yuey spend More time in school but they learn less Overall they take fewer drugs than their older Brothers and Sisters did. But More of them kill themselves and each other than was True for the generations Quot iat went before. Many linger longer on the threshold of adulthood hanging around College and their parents Homes the Way they used to hang around the mall. Gingerly threading their Way through a landscape littered with choices they have an acute sense of what each Choice May Cost. Some psychologists and sociologists contend that the divorces of the 60s and �?T70s have had Long term pernicious effects on children s emotional health and on their ability to make commitments but others argue that parental love and involvement Are the deciding factors a not marital arrangements. It is important to keep in mind that some ills afflicting Young adults afflict the rest of society As Well. Suicide for instance is near a record High a but so Are Overall suicide rates in the United states. A for anyone to say it s a lost generation is pretty extreme Quot said Andrew Kohut director of surveys for the times Mirror company of los Angeles whose june study of Young people s tendency to stay away from the ballot Box and tune out the news was called Quot the age of  Quot this is a generation that Hasni to been touched by any larger thing Quot he said. Quot it Hasni to been challenged. It May be now coming head to head with its Challenge Quot he added in a rueful reference to the crisis in the persian Gulf. Reynolds Farley a demographer at the University of Michigan said Quot since the end of the Vietnam War we have had nothing cataclysmic that would be threatening to Young people in the sense that world War i world War ii or the depression were threatening to people. To some degree that widens your choices a you re not threatened with military service not threatened with very High rates of unemployment. There a a wider array of choices and that May be disconcerting or troubling a a but the Range of options depends on the parents economic situation. According to economists two decades of factory closings have left Little Semi skilled or unskilled work to go around unless Young people want to contemplate a lifetime of flipping hamburgers. The uniting theme for this generation May be life in an age of limits. But while people near the top of the economic scale Are plagued by too Many choices the people near the Bottom have too few. Quot maybe you can to make a general statement about this generation because the prospects for the haves Are so much different than the prospects for the have not Quot said Cherlin. At the lower end of the economic scale the problem is Lack of skills and growing Competition from immigrants As Well As native born americans. Leonard Gordon an Arizona state University sociologist says one consequence is a Sharp increase in hostility among the races in the United states. Quot when we ask students what their aspirations Are there is no difference Between Black and White students Quot Gordon said. Quot but there san enormous difference on their expectation of achieving their aspirations a smaller percentage of Black and hispanic students think they  if a sense of shrinking horizons afflicts one end of the economic ladder the people on the other end seem to suffer a kind of vertigo at the huge expanse of choices Laid out before them particularly if they have had an emotional buffeting in their Home life. They Are taking their time about reaching the traditional demarcations of american adulthood. They marry later. The average age was 23 for women and 25 for men in 1987 their counterparts in 1970 tended to marry three years earlier. Increasingly they take five years to Complete College. And More of them live on and off with their parents when College is Over. Some of the explanation is economic in the late 1980s, about a Quarter of All College students had student Loans which build up at about $2,500 annually according to the department of education. Housing inflation has pushed All but group rentals beyond the reach of Many. Quot in the 1950s a High school education bought you a reasonable Job Quot said Frank f. Furstenberg jr., a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Quot today that s not the  also he said in an Era when women expect to go to work a and May have to a Quot there a no question there a been a change in the centrality of marriage As a defining life  but the reasons for hovering on the threshold of maturity seem More than simply economic. For Many Young people not their parents Homes seem emotional As Well As economic havens. Quot a lot of the choices they Are making now they Are unmaking Quot said Martha Farnsworth Riche an economist for american demographics Magazine. Quot there a much More stopping out of College. When they unmake a choices a schooling jobs relationships a Quot they go Home Quot she said. A when they choose again they  but the sense of aimlessness a whether caused by too Many options or too few a is not always translated into cynicism. Surveys of High school seniors and College freshmen by the University of Michigan and the University of California at los Angeles show More interest in changing society than at any time since the Early 1970s. Sociology departments Are reporting increased enrolments. And some choices Are being made. Marijuana use which peaked in the late 1970s, has been going Down slowly but steadily. Cocaine use began to drop in 1985. But there is still far More drug use among adolescents and Young adults than 20 years ago. And there is far More sexual activity at younger Ages. In 1988, 27 percent of 15-year-old and half of 17-year-old girls had had sex according to the Federal governments National Survey of family growth. One result is Quot the decision to marry has clearly become Independent of the Onset of sexual experience for the great majority of women Quot said or. William Pratt of the National Survey. Quot there Are just fewer societal norms about what ought to be done Quot said Farley. Quot those stabilizing forces that society once defined As important have  Quot they Are making choices. They will make choices Quot said Riche. Quot but Given the changes in the world around them they can to make definite choices at the same age people did  Sopky Tofa i Cam t make >t?oul6ht wit a u. Toe Ghokas an off Toms i to a a life these Days out Aljo pc Tdeo to Tus stay Home a Job staf fat the Waus. To not Page 16 a a a the stars and stripes monday september 3,1990