题目内容
It’s often hard to see your mistakes as you’re making them. When it comes to living arrangements, a humdinger is being made in this country right now and few have noticed it yet."Yikes!The kids are moving back in!" Thus goes the mantra of the baby boom generation, circa 2007. Analysts estimate that some 18 million adults between the ages of 20 and 34 live with their parents. That’s roughly a third of that age group.But letting the kids move back in is not the societal error we’re talking about. Instead, the big mistake is the loudly voiced chagrin of the boomers. Most mistakenly decry the notion of the boomerang generation. In order to fully appreciate the depth of the error being made here, we all need to step back a bit and look at the bigger picture. This epidemic of kids moving back home is first, not "unprecedented," and second, it’s not a bad thing. The precedent for this trend can be found among the other 6.2 billion non-Americans on the planet, many of whom happily live with their adult children, often in three-generation households.Then there’s the growing number of non-Anglo Americans, including many recent immigrants, who see no problem in having adult kids contribute to the household. Finally, the agrarian history of this country before World War II allowed kids to live and work around the farm weI1 into adulthood.Adult kids moving back home is merely the most noticeable symptom of a larger, fundamental transformation of American society. We are nationally beginning to recognize the costs of the independence the so-called greatest generation foisted on us. We can’t blame them. They did have to grow up fast. Kids in their generation went off to World War II and grew up on the bloody beaches of distant lands.After the war, the survivors had factories to build and the wealth to buy their white-picket-fence dream out West. They designed a social and fiscal system that has served their retirement years very well. But their historically unique retirement system mistakenly celebrated independence and ignored the natural state of human beings--that is, interdependence.Moreover, their system breaks down with the onslaught of their kids’ retirement. We can already see the pension systems, both private and public, beginning to disintegrate under the weight of the baby boomers.We are now just starting to understand the substantial fiscal and psychological costs of separating the generations into so-called single-family homes with the ideal of a mother, father and two kids. But times change and so do cultures.Regarding boomerang kids, most demographers focus on the immediate explanations for the changes, such as the growing immigrant population, housing shortages and high prices, and out-of-wedlock childbearing.Many psychologists have noted that baby-boomer parents enjoy closer relationships with their fewer children that allow extended cohabitation. A recent survey conducted for Del Webb (a division of Pulte Homes Inc.)reports that only about one-quarter of baby boomers are happier once the kids move out.However, all these explanations are simply symptoms of the larger, more fundamental reuniting of Americans into households that include extended families--adult, kids, grandparents, grandchildren and other relatives -- rather than just nuclear families.The rate at which our American culture is adapting will accelerate as baby boomers begin retiring in waves. Creative housing arrangements are necessitating and allowing three generations to live together again- under one roof or in close proximity. Now some 6 million American grandparents are living under one roof with their grandchildren.Whether grandparents live in accessory apartments on the property or houses next door, these flexible housing options provide privacy and companionship at the same time. Grandparents can interact with their grandchildren while the parents work, and all benefit from the new togetherness. These 21st century housing arrangements are a creative way to handle the financial needs of the generation that is retiring and, yes, the adult children who are coming home.Such multigenerational households don’t make sense for everyone. Personality conflicts or family characteristics preclude such arrangements for some. Legal constraints such as building and zoning codes are formidable obstacles in most communities across the country.Often more room is mandated for parking your car than parking your grandmother. Home builders have been more interested in selling houses that satisfy immediate needs rather than anticipating the needs of the growing numbers of aging Americans.The culture itself frequently gets in the way, reinforcing the perception of a stigma attaching to lack of independence- the adult child who just won’t move out (and grow up) or the aging grandparent who eschews "being a burden".Despite these problems, once you begin talking with your friends about three-generation households, you will begin hearing stories about how such obstacles are being overcome. You also will begin hearing stories about the wonderful benefits of thinking about housing and family arrangements in creative ways. And you’ll hear stories about the fundamental satisfaction of living together again. Which of the statements is NOT true about the greatest generation().
查看答案
搜索结果不匹配？点我反馈
更多问题
Since its inception, Pakistan has strived desperately to () India, cultivating ties with any state willing to help it.
I personally am offended by what they have tried to do in a very misleading way with, what I’ve said about two of my personal (), President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Before starting my own business, I had to () my boss’s peculiar working plan.
Most of us tell one or two lies a day, according to scientists who study these things. And we rarely get caught, because the lies we tell are usually little ones: "I got stuck in traffic." "That color looks good on you." "I was just about to call." But even the smallest fib may soon be systematically exposed, at least in the virtual world. Researchers at several universities are developing software that can detect lies in online communications such as instant messages e-mails and chatrooms. The ability to spot "digital deception", as researchers call it, has never been more crucial. Today, much of our business and social life is conducted online, making us increasingly vulnerable. White collar criminals, sexual predators, scammers, identity thieves and even terrorists surf the same Web as the rest of us. Conventional lie detectors look for physiological signs of anxiety- a bead of sweat or a racing pulse--but online systems examine only the liar’s words. "When we’re looking at language, we’re looking at the tool of the lie," says Jeff Hancock, an assistant professor of communication and a member of the faculty of computing and information science at Cornell University. Hancock, who recently received a $680,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study digital deception, says there is a growing body of evidence that the language of dishonest messages is different than that of honest ones. For example, one study led by Hancock and due to be published this spring in Discourse Processes found that deceptive e-mail messages contained 28 percent more words on average and used a higher percentage of words associated with negative emotions than did truthful messages. Liars also tend to use fewer first-person references (such as the pronoun ’T’) and more third-person references (such as "he" and "they"). This may be the liar’s subconscious way of distancing himself from his lie. More surprising, Hancock and his colleagues have observed that the targets of liars also exhibit distinctive language patterns. For instance, people who are being deceived often use shorter sentences and ask more questions. Even though they may not be aware that they are being lied to, people seem to exhibit subconscious suspicions. To identify the patterns of deceit, Hancock has developed an instant-messaging system at Cornell that asks users to rate the deceptiveness of each message they send. The system has already collected 10,000 messages, of which about 6 percent qualify as patently deceptive. Eventually the results will be incorporated into software that analyzes incoming messages. For now, the Cornell researchers are working only with the kinds of lies told by students and faculty. It remains to be seen whether such a system can be scaled up to handle "big" lies, such as messages sent by con artists and terrorists. Fortunately, the research so far suggests that people lie less often in e-mail than face-to-face or on the phone. Perhaps this is because people are reluctant to put their lies in writing, Hancock speculates. "An e-mail generates multiple copies," he says. "It will last longer than something carved in rock." So choose your words carefully. The Intemet may soon be rid not only deceit but also of lame excuses. The language patterns of those harboring suspicious perspectives would be characteristics of______
微信支付 
支付宝支付