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The 2006 comedy Failure to Launch, starring Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker, chronicles the life of a 35-year-old man still living with his parents and enjoying that lifestyle just a little too much.
The U.S. has a real ‘failure to launch’ problem. Some causes can be traced back to what does (or doesn’t) happen during adolescence. For psychologist Erik Erikson, adolescence is the critical developmental stage when a teenager undergoes a psychosocial crisis he referred to as ‘Identity v. Confusion’: a time when adolescents must address existential questions such as ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Who can I be?’
A shortage of adolescent rites of passage has contributed to this problem. In his early 20th century publication The Rites of Passage, French anthropologist Arnold van Gennep likely coined the term. In it, he examined the significance of transition rituals and ceremonies that take place between adolescence and adulthood. Van Gennep posited that this transition included three stages – 1) separation, 2) liminality (initiation – an in between time with challenges), and 3) incorporation (adulthood).
Parents of teenagers often struggle with van Gennep’s stages one and two because they involve ‘letting go’ – which allows a teen to begin to separate from his or her parents and move across the developmental continuum from adolescence to adulthood.
There are some rituals and ceremonies that mark American teenager rites of passage: graduation ceremonies, a driver’s permit or license, or an 18th birthday, but they are not enough. Within some religious and cultural communities, there are better rites of passage such as bar or bat mitzvahs (13-years-old) or quinceanera (15-years-old).
Rites of passage are necessary for teenagers to develop the confidence needed to transition to adulthood and develop their physical, mental, spiritual, and social-emotional selves. To leave childhood (and adolescence) behind, teenagers need more independence, freedom, and responsibility. Teenagers need to tackle adult responsibilities – new challenges. Without them, there is not the necessary ‘stress testing’ of mind, body, and spirit for them to develop the confidence needed to transition to adulthood.
Creating rites of passage is not difficult. My wife and I developed thirteen challenges that each of our children accomplished the year before a 13th birthday. The challenges were co-created with each child and customized to areas in which each needed to stretch and grow. The challenges ranged from easy to very difficult.
For our youngest, some of his challenges included entering a piano contest, designing and managing a small backyard vegetable garden, sailing solo to an island and back, volunteering at a local non-profit, interviewing older relatives by phone, and ironing a shirt and pair of pants with perfect creases. Each of these challenges was designed to take him out of his comfort zone. When he turned thirteen, we not only celebrated his birthday but rewarded him for the thirteen completed challenges (ritual) with a five-course meal at his favorite restaurant (ceremony).
We don’t have to accept the ‘failure to launch’ narrative. New rites of passage can be created to support the development of teenagers and to help them better transition from adolescence to adulthood.
Steve O'Neil
Head of School
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