My Misspent Youth
February 1, 2021 1:40 PM Subscribe
How the author's Manhattan dream turned into a credit-card nightmare. "There are days when my debt seems to be at the center of my being, a cancer that must be treated with the morphine of excuses and rationales and promises to myself that I'm going to come up with the big score—book advance, screenplay deal, Publisher's Clearing House prize—and save myself. There are other days when the debt feels like someone else's cancer, a tragedy outside of myself, a condemned building next door that I try to avoid walking past. I suppose that's why I'm even able to publicly disclose this information."
Brains don’t full develop until 25. In particular the prefrontal cortex “that affects how we regulate emotions, control impulsive behavior, assess risk and make long-term plans.”
Allowing credit card debt (or worse educational loans that are not dischargeable in bankruptcy) before that age is morally repugnant.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:52 PM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
Allowing credit card debt (or worse educational loans that are not dischargeable in bankruptcy) before that age is morally repugnant.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:52 PM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
I dunno, I was quite clear that an 'earthier, more "intellectual" lifestyle' in NYC was well beyond my financial means long before I reached age 25. I'm not sure this particular author's grand delusions can be pinned solely on a not-yet-mature cortex.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:06 PM on February 1, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:06 PM on February 1, 2021 [7 favorites]
Brains change with age, sure - neural response speed starts to degrade well before you're 25, for example. There's no one point at which all the faculties of your brain are at their peak at the same time. A 24 year old can make responsible financial decisions, and many do!
Now if you want to talk about the way unsustainable personal debt has been marketed for decades, or the cultural presence of New York as a lifestyle and personal identity rather than a luxury good, I'm here for that.
posted by echo target at 2:27 PM on February 1, 2021 [9 favorites]
Now if you want to talk about the way unsustainable personal debt has been marketed for decades, or the cultural presence of New York as a lifestyle and personal identity rather than a luxury good, I'm here for that.
posted by echo target at 2:27 PM on February 1, 2021 [9 favorites]
A 24 year old can make responsible financial decisions, and many do!
Technically I made responsible financial decisions at 24 but I do not delude myself that they came as logical responses from my own fully mature brain, and not from a combination of personal timidity and a family history that left me terrified of all credit vehicles.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:30 PM on February 1, 2021 [11 favorites]
Technically I made responsible financial decisions at 24 but I do not delude myself that they came as logical responses from my own fully mature brain, and not from a combination of personal timidity and a family history that left me terrified of all credit vehicles.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:30 PM on February 1, 2021 [11 favorites]
I ended up in debt in my early-mid 20's thanks to a stint at university where banks offered me overdrafts they knew I could never pay off and credit card lenders snapped up my eagerness to spend money for the first time as an adult. It wasn't a huge amount, but it was huge to me, because by the time it became insurmountable I had literally no way to pay it off, being unemployed and coming from a family already struggling with debt themselves.
I became pretty depressed over the debt, it felt hugely embarrassing to admit I'd gotten into that position and couldn't get myself out again, to the point where I would start crying from sheer mortification and shame if I had to talk about it.
But eventually I got up the courage to call a debt consolidation charity (StepChange, for other UK mefites -- highly recommended). The friendly woman on the other end of the phone took me through a budget plan, listened to me cry, and gave me life changing advice: the debt was not more important than being able to live my life. The idea that I should prioritise things like feeding myself and paying for my phone and internet seemed (at the time) like indulgences I couldn't afford until I paid down the debt. It felt like a punishment that the world was giving me for being irresponsible, and I had to accept it.
In the end I had to default on two of the debts and took a big hit to my credit score, but a couple of years ago I made my final payment on the final consolidated amount and now I'm debt (and credit card) free. But I learned a big lesson: debt shouldn't be something we hide shamefully from each other. These days it's something nearly everyone is dealing with in some way and it can completely ruin lives. We shouldn't be ashamed to admit that and to find ways to help each other out of that hole.
posted by fight or flight at 2:30 PM on February 1, 2021 [31 favorites]
I became pretty depressed over the debt, it felt hugely embarrassing to admit I'd gotten into that position and couldn't get myself out again, to the point where I would start crying from sheer mortification and shame if I had to talk about it.
But eventually I got up the courage to call a debt consolidation charity (StepChange, for other UK mefites -- highly recommended). The friendly woman on the other end of the phone took me through a budget plan, listened to me cry, and gave me life changing advice: the debt was not more important than being able to live my life. The idea that I should prioritise things like feeding myself and paying for my phone and internet seemed (at the time) like indulgences I couldn't afford until I paid down the debt. It felt like a punishment that the world was giving me for being irresponsible, and I had to accept it.
In the end I had to default on two of the debts and took a big hit to my credit score, but a couple of years ago I made my final payment on the final consolidated amount and now I'm debt (and credit card) free. But I learned a big lesson: debt shouldn't be something we hide shamefully from each other. These days it's something nearly everyone is dealing with in some way and it can completely ruin lives. We shouldn't be ashamed to admit that and to find ways to help each other out of that hole.
posted by fight or flight at 2:30 PM on February 1, 2021 [31 favorites]
The author apparently now lives in NY again.
https://www.bookforum.com/print/2605/meghan-daum-s-turn-from-personal-essays-to-political-polemic-23854
posted by lewedswiver at 2:55 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
https://www.bookforum.com/print/2605/meghan-daum-s-turn-from-personal-essays-to-political-polemic-23854
posted by lewedswiver at 2:55 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
the way unsustainable personal debt has been marketed for decades
as she says, entering this MFA program was a rich person's decision:
Even as I stayed at Columbia for three years and borrowed more than $60,000 to get my degree, I was told repeatedly, by fellow students, faculty, administrators, and professional writers whose careers I wished to emulate, not to think about the loans. Student loans, after all, were low interest, long term, and far more benign than credit-card debt. Not thinking about them was a skill I quickly developed..
posted by thelonius at 2:58 PM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
as she says, entering this MFA program was a rich person's decision:
Even as I stayed at Columbia for three years and borrowed more than $60,000 to get my degree, I was told repeatedly, by fellow students, faculty, administrators, and professional writers whose careers I wished to emulate, not to think about the loans. Student loans, after all, were low interest, long term, and far more benign than credit-card debt. Not thinking about them was a skill I quickly developed..
posted by thelonius at 2:58 PM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
A couple that I used to know were fairly sanguine about debt. They walked away from about 220K of credit card debt without even declaring bankruptcy. Just told the callers they weren't getting paid. I always wondered about the mechanics of that. I did read one article by a person who negotiated their credit card debt way way down, like to a quarter or a half. One of the things was the timing, something to do with when it is written off and sold and not resetting a clock.
Not what the article was about I realize so I would like to add that it is unfortunate that we can't live our lives more than once and that we worry so much about the present without knowing that someday we will look back and go "pfff!"
posted by Pembquist at 3:02 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
Not what the article was about I realize so I would like to add that it is unfortunate that we can't live our lives more than once and that we worry so much about the present without knowing that someday we will look back and go "pfff!"
posted by Pembquist at 3:02 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
Damn, I was gonna complement you on the thread title -- nice deep cut, linking to this month's "I'm too poor to live in New York" article and reffing Daum's decades-old classic of the form!
The whole book this is from is really good, but the real standout isn't this one, it's "Music Is My Bag," the definitive document of what it felt like to be a nerd in a certain part of America in the late 70s/early 80s.
posted by escabeche at 3:11 PM on February 1, 2021
The whole book this is from is really good, but the real standout isn't this one, it's "Music Is My Bag," the definitive document of what it felt like to be a nerd in a certain part of America in the late 70s/early 80s.
posted by escabeche at 3:11 PM on February 1, 2021
Anyway, Daum does move to Lincoln, Nebraska, and writes a novel, The Quality of Life Report, about a young woman who's too poor to live in New York anymore and moves to Lincoln, Nebraska.
posted by escabeche at 3:13 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by escabeche at 3:13 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
I am about six years younger than Megan Daum, I think, and felt this very hard. I spent most of my 20s a broke freelancer in a lot of debt from clueless, Carpe Diemish spending I could ill afford. I am older now (still in debt and still sometimes buying fresh flowers instead of putting money into savings) but I know what things cost now and understand how fragile my small amount security is.
The main reason I never felt poor was that my parents, who had experienced their own kind of lifestyle epiphany when they were first exposed to academic settings, had an aesthetic value system that was less a reflection of having or not having money than with, in our opinion anyway, good taste
Ladies and Gentlemen, my childhood.
posted by thivaia at 3:24 PM on February 1, 2021 [12 favorites]
The main reason I never felt poor was that my parents, who had experienced their own kind of lifestyle epiphany when they were first exposed to academic settings, had an aesthetic value system that was less a reflection of having or not having money than with, in our opinion anyway, good taste
Ladies and Gentlemen, my childhood.
posted by thivaia at 3:24 PM on February 1, 2021 [12 favorites]
from misspent youth to yelling at the young 'uns--this is how boomers (not Boomers the generation; boomers the category of personality) are born.
posted by what does it eat, light? at 6:06 PM on February 1, 2021
posted by what does it eat, light? at 6:06 PM on February 1, 2021
The main reason I never felt poor was that my parents, who had experienced their own kind of lifestyle epiphany when they were first exposed to academic settings, had an aesthetic value system that was less a reflection of having or not having money than with, in our opinion anyway, good taste
Ladies and Gentlemen, my childhood.
Hahaha same, except we DID feel poor; we were just taught to feel kind of virtuous about it because having money meant being a SELLOUT lol imagine telling your six year old that my god.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:09 PM on February 1, 2021 [6 favorites]
Ladies and Gentlemen, my childhood.
Hahaha same, except we DID feel poor; we were just taught to feel kind of virtuous about it because having money meant being a SELLOUT lol imagine telling your six year old that my god.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:09 PM on February 1, 2021 [6 favorites]
Just told the callers they weren't getting paid. I always wondered about the mechanics of that.
You can do this until if & when you get served with papers on the defaulted debt by the debt owner (generally acquired by some litigator doing this full-time) looking to seize your liquid assets and/or get the Sheriff to serve writs of execution on bank accounts plus wage garnishment, etc. to enforce after receiving the judgment of default from the state court.
If you can get through the statute of limitation on the debt without getting taken to court, congrats, you've won.
Otherwise the debtor can short-circuit the above default process by getting the debt dismissed via Chapter 7, or partially repaid via a chapter 13 plan.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:29 PM on February 1, 2021
You can do this until if & when you get served with papers on the defaulted debt by the debt owner (generally acquired by some litigator doing this full-time) looking to seize your liquid assets and/or get the Sheriff to serve writs of execution on bank accounts plus wage garnishment, etc. to enforce after receiving the judgment of default from the state court.
If you can get through the statute of limitation on the debt without getting taken to court, congrats, you've won.
Otherwise the debtor can short-circuit the above default process by getting the debt dismissed via Chapter 7, or partially repaid via a chapter 13 plan.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:29 PM on February 1, 2021
It’s funny how she beats herself up over being too pretentious... and then talks about how that same pretentiousness is more affordable in Nebraska, so she’s going to move there. I wonder how Nebraska changed her, because the tone of this is so entirely 90s New York
posted by rue72 at 8:10 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by rue72 at 8:10 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
I didn't notice the date on this at first and hoo boy was that disorienting. For a minute, I got all excited about the prospect of decent health insurance for $300/month. On the flip side of things, that means the $40k salary described is the equivalent of about $100k today, and the $1,055 rent equates to a little less than $1,650 a month.
On the one hand, this article is perfectly relatable. Few people live here without at some point having to choose between bills, or get harrassed by debt collectors, or have their housing situation change and find themselves thrown into the wood chipper that is NYC's real estate market. On the other hand, this is an article by a white woman from probably Montclair whose dad was in the arts, who had a very particular idea of what NYC is, and who would rather move to Nebraska than Queens.
It's always alienating to read articles by people who have fetishized NYC in a way that runs contrary to the way that, I guess, I fetishized it while growing up here. It reminds me a little of the time a friend who didn't grow up here once referred to herself as "such a city girl" for being into wine and theater and I realized my definition of city girl is something more like "can hold their own in a fight" (I can't). I, too, have found myself enamored with the hardwood floor high-rises of the Upper West Side, but I also have a lot of teenaged memories of the ways in which that neighborhood felt like an elitist, moneyed, walled fortress designed to keep people out. I felt that hard, and sometimes still do, even though I'm a white woman who grew up in a middle-class, blue-collar family elsewhere in Manhattan. It's weird to imagine someone living out that dream while failing to see all of everything else that is this city.
Then again, I now live in my own bubble. I was still living in my mom's apartment few months before this was written, where I was busying myself with having a mental breakdown and dropping out of high school. I remember repeatedly sitting in my bedroom and paging through the Village Voice classifieds and feeling a complete sense of despair because no matter how hard I tried the math woouldn't work. I added and multiplied and stretched the limits of magical thinking but it would. not. work. The way I saw it going into the workforce without a high school degree and with mental health issues meant working minimum wage, which was $4.50 an hour, which is $780 a month before taxes if you manage to get full-time hours, which means having $260/month to spend on housing, so you flip a few pages and look at rentals and there's nothing even close to that. And that isn't to mention utility bills, or medical costs, or food. I did that math over and over and became increasingly convinced that I had ruined any shot I would ever have at stability and would spend most of my life street homeless, and even today I'm pretty sure that the main reason I haven't, and that I have stable housing in a rich neighborhood and living-wage employment during a pandemic, is that white privilege is a hell of a drug.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:24 PM on February 1, 2021 [12 favorites]
On the one hand, this article is perfectly relatable. Few people live here without at some point having to choose between bills, or get harrassed by debt collectors, or have their housing situation change and find themselves thrown into the wood chipper that is NYC's real estate market. On the other hand, this is an article by a white woman from probably Montclair whose dad was in the arts, who had a very particular idea of what NYC is, and who would rather move to Nebraska than Queens.
It's always alienating to read articles by people who have fetishized NYC in a way that runs contrary to the way that, I guess, I fetishized it while growing up here. It reminds me a little of the time a friend who didn't grow up here once referred to herself as "such a city girl" for being into wine and theater and I realized my definition of city girl is something more like "can hold their own in a fight" (I can't). I, too, have found myself enamored with the hardwood floor high-rises of the Upper West Side, but I also have a lot of teenaged memories of the ways in which that neighborhood felt like an elitist, moneyed, walled fortress designed to keep people out. I felt that hard, and sometimes still do, even though I'm a white woman who grew up in a middle-class, blue-collar family elsewhere in Manhattan. It's weird to imagine someone living out that dream while failing to see all of everything else that is this city.
Then again, I now live in my own bubble. I was still living in my mom's apartment few months before this was written, where I was busying myself with having a mental breakdown and dropping out of high school. I remember repeatedly sitting in my bedroom and paging through the Village Voice classifieds and feeling a complete sense of despair because no matter how hard I tried the math woouldn't work. I added and multiplied and stretched the limits of magical thinking but it would. not. work. The way I saw it going into the workforce without a high school degree and with mental health issues meant working minimum wage, which was $4.50 an hour, which is $780 a month before taxes if you manage to get full-time hours, which means having $260/month to spend on housing, so you flip a few pages and look at rentals and there's nothing even close to that. And that isn't to mention utility bills, or medical costs, or food. I did that math over and over and became increasingly convinced that I had ruined any shot I would ever have at stability and would spend most of my life street homeless, and even today I'm pretty sure that the main reason I haven't, and that I have stable housing in a rich neighborhood and living-wage employment during a pandemic, is that white privilege is a hell of a drug.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:24 PM on February 1, 2021 [12 favorites]
from misspent youth to yelling at the young 'uns--this is how boomers (not Boomers the generation; boomers the category of personality) are born.
"In the midst of Daum’s ennui, in 2015, she discovered a number of online cultural pundits who quickened her pulse and made her feel alive: they included the economist Glenn Loury and the linguist John McWhorter, who discussed American race relations on BloggingHeads.tv; the YouTube talk-show host Dave Rubin; the neuroscientist and podcaster Sam Harris; the “factual feminist” philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers; and the notorious Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson."
Okay, any chance she can move back to Nebraska?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:53 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
"In the midst of Daum’s ennui, in 2015, she discovered a number of online cultural pundits who quickened her pulse and made her feel alive: they included the economist Glenn Loury and the linguist John McWhorter, who discussed American race relations on BloggingHeads.tv; the YouTube talk-show host Dave Rubin; the neuroscientist and podcaster Sam Harris; the “factual feminist” philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers; and the notorious Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson."
Okay, any chance she can move back to Nebraska?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:53 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
who would rather move to Nebraska than Queens.
Or even to Chicago, where my 650 square foot apartment with oak floors STILL doesn't cost $1,055/month, even in the year of our lord 2021. It is, as we say here in this backwater village, kind of a shithole. Definitely a smidge under (pre-pandemic) market. But a charming shithole, not unlike the UWS NYC apartment that prompted me to move there a couple decades ago. With the roaches to match.
For real though it is weird to see someone live through an experience so close to mine and come away with so thoroughly the opposite set of conclusions. Attending a prestigious school full of real wealth, not the pseudo-wealth of my childhood suburban friends, only made me more acutely aware that the bohemian arts life and intellectual career were never for me, no matter how good I might be at the actual work, or how much my tastes might be aligned. Even my extremely unformed and very badly assembled 21 year old brain knew it would be best if I fucked right the fuck off and listened to NPR in a series of the aforementioned Chicago shitholes.
I don't exactly have circumstances to be smug about but there is some satisfaction in knowing that once upon a time I made the correct assessment. Every now and then I realize that I am fully debt-free and just having the thought is like having vertigo a little and tempting the fates A LOT.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:14 PM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
Or even to Chicago, where my 650 square foot apartment with oak floors STILL doesn't cost $1,055/month, even in the year of our lord 2021. It is, as we say here in this backwater village, kind of a shithole. Definitely a smidge under (pre-pandemic) market. But a charming shithole, not unlike the UWS NYC apartment that prompted me to move there a couple decades ago. With the roaches to match.
For real though it is weird to see someone live through an experience so close to mine and come away with so thoroughly the opposite set of conclusions. Attending a prestigious school full of real wealth, not the pseudo-wealth of my childhood suburban friends, only made me more acutely aware that the bohemian arts life and intellectual career were never for me, no matter how good I might be at the actual work, or how much my tastes might be aligned. Even my extremely unformed and very badly assembled 21 year old brain knew it would be best if I fucked right the fuck off and listened to NPR in a series of the aforementioned Chicago shitholes.
I don't exactly have circumstances to be smug about but there is some satisfaction in knowing that once upon a time I made the correct assessment. Every now and then I realize that I am fully debt-free and just having the thought is like having vertigo a little and tempting the fates A LOT.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:14 PM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
Ha, I now realize I actually ended up living within five minutes' walk of her ground zero for a while myself. I like that part of the UWS. Wealthy people used to be scared to cross 96th St., and so it is shabbier and more demographically-mixed than much of the rest of the neighborhood. In fact, I found an old-school landlord who charged below market and kept increases low in return for basically not having renovated the place since approx. 1983. I only moved because I got into a rent-stabilized place, and aesthetically I still miss it.
But you can tell people who are more in love with the cachet than the reality. Her intellectual state as of 2015 doesn't surprise me one bit. The born suburbanites who don't quite make enough money, they never last. I know I've enjoyed various bits of luck in my career, but there's something about having come from the hard reality of an economically-struggling family that helps put guardrails on at least this kind of folly. At the same time, being more or less the same vintage as her...the sort of intellectual life around the margins you used to be able to get away with was becoming impossible just about then. I look back now and can't believe anyone thought anyone could live on the stipend I got for grad school--and indeed I later realized I was just about the only one in my cohort who was doing it without family support. But I believe there was a time not long before when it was difficult but manageable, and the advice hadn't changed from that era.
posted by praemunire at 10:04 PM on February 1, 2021 [7 favorites]
But you can tell people who are more in love with the cachet than the reality. Her intellectual state as of 2015 doesn't surprise me one bit. The born suburbanites who don't quite make enough money, they never last. I know I've enjoyed various bits of luck in my career, but there's something about having come from the hard reality of an economically-struggling family that helps put guardrails on at least this kind of folly. At the same time, being more or less the same vintage as her...the sort of intellectual life around the margins you used to be able to get away with was becoming impossible just about then. I look back now and can't believe anyone thought anyone could live on the stipend I got for grad school--and indeed I later realized I was just about the only one in my cohort who was doing it without family support. But I believe there was a time not long before when it was difficult but manageable, and the advice hadn't changed from that era.
posted by praemunire at 10:04 PM on February 1, 2021 [7 favorites]
This essay is 22 years old
Thanks for the reminder. The fax machine really threw me.
posted by pompomtom at 12:23 AM on February 2, 2021
Thanks for the reminder. The fax machine really threw me.
posted by pompomtom at 12:23 AM on February 2, 2021
I am sort of fascinated by New York City real estate stories, having grown up in the Midwest. The closest I ever came to NYC was two years in grad school at Rutgers in the late 80s. I did spend time in the city and learn my way around some. I remember visiting a prof's Greenwich Village apartment, shared with her husband, which is where I learned that an apartment could be both very small and on the swanky side, something I'd never experienced before. Until the Tiny House movement came along, houses out here could be big and swanky or tiny and rundown.
I made a friend last year who was visiting her 100-year-old grandma (great-grandma?) in NYC when the pandemic hit, and she has ended up staying with her to care for her and ride it out. The grandma has lived in the same Greenwich Village apartment since she was a little girl in the late 1920s. I think this is a fascinating story and I want to hear more, at the same time that I am kind of pruriently interested in the rent/cost of living equation. Just how much less is the grandma paying for this place than the very well-known celebrity who just moved in upstairs? (Does she own or rent?) What happens when she dies?
I do know from following my friend's Facebook that taking the pandemic as an opportunity to start cleaning out 90 years' worth of stuff from a place is very, very daunting. Also, her grandma is awesome and I hope she lives another 100 years.
posted by Orlop at 7:03 AM on February 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
I made a friend last year who was visiting her 100-year-old grandma (great-grandma?) in NYC when the pandemic hit, and she has ended up staying with her to care for her and ride it out. The grandma has lived in the same Greenwich Village apartment since she was a little girl in the late 1920s. I think this is a fascinating story and I want to hear more, at the same time that I am kind of pruriently interested in the rent/cost of living equation. Just how much less is the grandma paying for this place than the very well-known celebrity who just moved in upstairs? (Does she own or rent?) What happens when she dies?
I do know from following my friend's Facebook that taking the pandemic as an opportunity to start cleaning out 90 years' worth of stuff from a place is very, very daunting. Also, her grandma is awesome and I hope she lives another 100 years.
posted by Orlop at 7:03 AM on February 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
What happens when she dies?
If the grandmother is living in a rent-controlled apartment, which certainly seems very likely if it's a rental at all, and your friend sticks it out living with her for at least two years and until her death (may it be far off) or leaving the apartment for long-term care, your friend has landed a jackpot in the form of succession rights. If the grandmother is amenable, almost worth changing life plans over.
posted by praemunire at 8:26 AM on February 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
If the grandmother is living in a rent-controlled apartment, which certainly seems very likely if it's a rental at all, and your friend sticks it out living with her for at least two years and until her death (may it be far off) or leaving the apartment for long-term care, your friend has landed a jackpot in the form of succession rights. If the grandmother is amenable, almost worth changing life plans over.
posted by praemunire at 8:26 AM on February 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
Brains don’t full develop until 25. In particular the prefrontal cortex “that affects how we regulate emotions, control impulsive behavior, assess risk and make long-term plans.”
I am pretty sure this factoid is derived from a study that didn’t actually look past the age of 25. Other studies have found that the brain (including the PFC) continues to mature and develop into the 30s and 40s; there isn’t one clear cutoff and there’s also definitely a lot of heterogeneity.
posted by en forme de poire at 5:15 PM on February 2, 2021
I am pretty sure this factoid is derived from a study that didn’t actually look past the age of 25. Other studies have found that the brain (including the PFC) continues to mature and develop into the 30s and 40s; there isn’t one clear cutoff and there’s also definitely a lot of heterogeneity.
posted by en forme de poire at 5:15 PM on February 2, 2021
I’ve always been suspicious of that 25 cutoff as "WEIRD data", meaning, something true of the Western college students we mostly study. Because 25 is a reasonable time to responsibility for someone who was protected from most consequences of their actions until 21-ish.
There’s no safe way to let everyone screw up enough to learn caution and responsibility, no matter what age we pick between 7 and affluenza.
posted by clew at 6:47 PM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
There’s no safe way to let everyone screw up enough to learn caution and responsibility, no matter what age we pick between 7 and affluenza.
posted by clew at 6:47 PM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
Given that 25 is sometimes used a cutoff for car rental: any chance it's related to actuarial data about car accidents?
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:32 AM on February 3, 2021
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:32 AM on February 3, 2021
I've seen articles where people cite the rental car cutoff as additional support for that factoid, but those companies are also balancing crash data with profits so they wouldn't necessarily pick the lowest level of crashes. I checked these data from AAA and indeed, drivers between 25 and 30 still have elevated crashes compared to 30-69 year olds. While I doubt it's significant, the lowest crash rates are actually for 60-69 year olds (it's corrected for miles driven so fewer miles isn't the reason). The biggest increase in risk is, by a landslide, ages 16-17, with 20-29 being a little elevated but not nearly as much. 18-19 is actually closer to 20-29 than I would have thought.
I also wonder if even that effect is confounded with years of experience driving, though. You'd need to do a comparison across different countries, and/or compare before/after natural experiments where the age was changed vs. not changed, to really figure out the effect of age vs. experience. (You could also gather data about years of experience but it might be confounded with other things -- people who are less confident drivers might get licensed later, or worse drivers might fail their tests more and therefore have fewer licensed years, for instance.)
posted by en forme de poire at 11:22 AM on February 6, 2021
I also wonder if even that effect is confounded with years of experience driving, though. You'd need to do a comparison across different countries, and/or compare before/after natural experiments where the age was changed vs. not changed, to really figure out the effect of age vs. experience. (You could also gather data about years of experience but it might be confounded with other things -- people who are less confident drivers might get licensed later, or worse drivers might fail their tests more and therefore have fewer licensed years, for instance.)
posted by en forme de poire at 11:22 AM on February 6, 2021
Adding to that a little, aren’t car renters fairly affluent as a sub pop to start with? I think it required a credit card in my youth when not even every college student had one.
posted by clew at 6:06 PM on February 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by clew at 6:06 PM on February 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by keep_evolving at 1:51 PM on February 1, 2021 [16 favorites]