Oh hey everybody, before we get started on this week's Ask Cristen I got a quick question
for you which is who as a cure for spring fever? Seriously just looks like the sky is
covered in cobwebs and my skin needs vitamin D. You know what I'm going to be saying though
in a few months? Oh it's so hot outside.
On last week's Ask Cristen I talked about guys who date older women and mentioned how
the term cougar for older women who pursue younger men kind of annoys me because there
is no equivalent term for older men. At one point I said you know we don't call them anything
like zebras or cockatoos, there was so much support in the comments for cockatoo, it really
just warmed my heart. Fake Geek Girl said, 'Can we actually start calling older men who
want to date younger women cockatoos?' Yes but uh be warned that I have copyrighted the
term cockatoo so you will have to pay me $5 every time you say it. Martiansrule shared
this little anecdote. 'My Grandma is about 13 years older than my grandpa'-dang grandma-'if
my grandma didn't date younger men my mom would've never met my dad because my grandpa
and my dad used to be old friends.' That plot line totally happened in friends when Monica
started dating Tom Selleck. Martiansrule. This week's Ask Cristen question is coming
from raponyt. I think I'm saying that correctly because I'm down with the clever YouTube uh
username wordplay. I'm hip. For a little bit of context the guy who asked last week's Ask
Cristen question was 22 years old and I mentioned in the video response that 22 was a little
bit young for looking for a serious relationship. Raponyt was a little hurt by this. 'Basically
everyone in my family was married by 22 and have happy, successful marriages. There seems
to be an attitude within the twenty-something-graduate-generation right now of commitment-o-phobia. My question
to you Cristen do you think our generation is scared of commitment? This is quite personal
to me as I have been in a four year relationship, I'm 22, with my now fiancee (27) and I find
it frustrating when people tell me I am too young or immature to be engaged.' I completely
agree that someone's readiness for a long-term relationship is going to depend on that person.
How you were raised, past relationship experiences, you career choices and aspirations. When I
was 22 years old, I was also in a long term relationship that I soon thereafter got out
of. I realized that I was in no way shape or form ready to settle down. As to your question
of whether or not millennials are commitment-phobic, I don't think it's so much that we are scared
of commitment as we are hesitant toward marriage. The average age for marriage for guys these
days is 29, average for women is 27. If you look at census data, starting in the 1950s,
you have that number steadily rising and there are plenty of reasons outside of just being
terrified of commitment on a personal level for millennials to maybe not be as jazzed
to jump down the aisle. Our parents' generation which often panics about our perceived commitment
phobia didn't necessarily set the best happily ever after example. Even though they uphold
marriage as this bedrock institution of what must proceed living together and having kids
and really being considered a legitimate adult, not a lot of them were really able to make
it work for the long haul. Only 60% of millennial kids are growing up in two-parent households.
There's a lot of buyer beware in the back of our millennial brains. In a lot of ways
too I think we should acknowledge that the millennial generation is sort of whether we
realize it or not rewriting the rules of relationships. It's kind of the wild west. We are more sexually
permissive than ever before. Women don't fall neatly into this bucket of wife and mother
whereas men fall into this bucket of being the breadwinner. We also have to acknowledge
economic factors. We're coming out of a recession, going to college doesn't necessarily guarantee
that you are going to get some fantastic job. We are also referred to as the boomerang generation.
I think it's something like 40% of millennial adults return back home to mom and dad to
live with them for a while to figure things out and get on their feet. I think it's just
a product of a lot of different social forces in flux right now. In a nutshell, perhaps
millennials quest for stability and fulfillment which does not look at all like our parents'
generation perceptions of stability and fulfillment is misinterpreted as commitment phobia. Our
value systems are simply different and I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing.
Our generation needs to embrace choice, whether you are 22 and want to get married or 42 and
want to get married or just never want to get married at all. But I want to hear from
you though because I have a feeling that perhaps more older viewers, there is so much strong
disagreement with a lot that I had to say. Maybe for younger viewers too. Leave your
comments below and as always ask me questions so I can answer them.