Great post, Bronwyn. On the (archetypal) masculine side, the hero’s journey is also well and truly baked into the most popular stories. I too have wondered when we’ll start telling ourselves stories that reflect the Mother/Queen or Father/King archetype - I struggle to find examples in our culture. I think your assessment (and concern) is dead on.
Another thought: I suspect there’s a similar story going on for young men, which may explain the rise of Jordan Peterson who, through a call to responsibility, invites them to grow from Child or Hero into the Father life story arc.
Definitely - “arrested development” seems generational - however social “permission” to age is still gendered (whether one wants the permission or accepts growing up is a different but parallel issue)
Maybe they all took a page out of Gretchen Rubin’s ‘the happiness project’ in which she advocates for re-reading children’s books😂. Also I know I turn to young adult when my brain wants easy reading🤔
It's like the antithesis of Ayn Rand's bold economic theory that personal expenditure reflects individual morality, therefore to spend concertedly on only those things that benefit the estate causes and relationships that yourself feel most at home in doing, and certainly not to waste your pennies on that which could pose detriment.
So that this theory in America is shovelled down the minds of women, to be a Parada Gucci girl, to spend money in the allegience of an alien persona, servile to the line featured catalogue, and this will give someone the status craved.
It isn't the only theory she had exploited. She said that altruism is a lie, a weakness and a fallacy, and that only in the objective self interest should one pursue wealth, riches of the mind, and stability of the home. But now it is the corporation rather than any human individual who receives her accolade, and humans are trained to 'altruistically' serve corporation for the very same reasons they should have acted in her theory of objective self-interest, that THEY(it) are the ones who know how to prosper and THEY(it) are the only ones qualified to retain the profits.
And so yeah, people say that America's greatness may have peaked sometime around the moon landing, and it is worthwhile to make an inventory of how it may have affected life in our parents' heyday in order to see how this perpetual maidenhood had been foisted (foisted?) upon the circumstances of our upbringing. Loose money, for instance, discretionary wealth that you COULD spend in objective self-interest or you COULD use for christmas gifts, and yeah part of the narrative was probably that you SHOULD waste a little coin on frivolty and you're probably immoral for not doing so. After all it could affect the status of your child in the lunchhalls and playgrounds. So for me, that was like He-Man's Rod of Aaron, every boy my age hadtahave one.
In the asexual Lego & Transformers narative historically you can see a few novel attempts to describe the psychological mutations. There is the person you are, and the reputation you can earn, and so the novelty of toys was to mechanically be transformed between humanoid and machine form. If only someone had explained to me that reputation is something that goes beyond temporal existence while I was 8 or 9!
So now, and I think especialy for Gen Z, there is this desire to speedrun, the desire to push 'reset' and start over again and again until you make a flawless victory. But building a following and garnering the trust of other individuals cannot happen that way. And it becomes harder and harder to admit defeat. The 'value judgment' that an AI system places on event:RageQuit or event:FlippedMonopolyBoard is a new type.of secret that will affect people's careers.
And people experience such phenomena without knowing why, why the record of their actions has shut doors on the progress towards adulthood.
So lately, the MMO scene substitutes this metaphor of 'metamorphosis of character' for the 3-in-1 motif of men as combined replicas of the Holy Father Holy Son and Holy Spirit. But the avatar doesn't ever actually gain greater responsibilities, it only acquires strength to do more damage inside an arena.
As for women? Have you seen the baby accessory to go with her? Have you seen many grandma action figures? I have one, it is a Muppets Barbara Streisand McDonald's Happy Meal Figure. But see every company has its own product line reflective of the ethos they had hoped to sell them on. And Clark Kent always tried to keep his personal life his professional life and his heroic deeds separate from the public knowledge. There was, briefly, only ONE lovechild between Clark and Lois, and Stan Lee's series have all abandoned the concept of contuity of narrative events in fiction whenever the audiemce demanded.
So yeah, that is the difficulty of reinstating the trope of maidenmothercrone. College was an escape from having to live with one's parents. But as per the developmental understanding of children who do NOT grow up with both parents and grandparents, there is no real explicit injunction to teach children they(he,she) will grow up and yeah become grandparents. And without that, maybe there has to be explicit injunctions from the speech of parents, while they are not totally distracted, in order to encourage the cycle of life to continue. Tell them I love you, tell them you are a good person because if you don't someone or something else will.
Not to mention Gen Xers and Millennials still in the comic book "phase." Or on the non-literary side in what the effect of the series "Sex and the City" had on the psyche of American women in staying "maidens". But your "Peter Pan-like limbo," that was apropos.
Great post, Bronwyn. On the (archetypal) masculine side, the hero’s journey is also well and truly baked into the most popular stories. I too have wondered when we’ll start telling ourselves stories that reflect the Mother/Queen or Father/King archetype - I struggle to find examples in our culture. I think your assessment (and concern) is dead on.
Another thought: I suspect there’s a similar story going on for young men, which may explain the rise of Jordan Peterson who, through a call to responsibility, invites them to grow from Child or Hero into the Father life story arc.
Definitely - “arrested development” seems generational - however social “permission” to age is still gendered (whether one wants the permission or accepts growing up is a different but parallel issue)
Maybe they all took a page out of Gretchen Rubin’s ‘the happiness project’ in which she advocates for re-reading children’s books😂. Also I know I turn to young adult when my brain wants easy reading🤔
It's like the antithesis of Ayn Rand's bold economic theory that personal expenditure reflects individual morality, therefore to spend concertedly on only those things that benefit the estate causes and relationships that yourself feel most at home in doing, and certainly not to waste your pennies on that which could pose detriment.
So that this theory in America is shovelled down the minds of women, to be a Parada Gucci girl, to spend money in the allegience of an alien persona, servile to the line featured catalogue, and this will give someone the status craved.
It isn't the only theory she had exploited. She said that altruism is a lie, a weakness and a fallacy, and that only in the objective self interest should one pursue wealth, riches of the mind, and stability of the home. But now it is the corporation rather than any human individual who receives her accolade, and humans are trained to 'altruistically' serve corporation for the very same reasons they should have acted in her theory of objective self-interest, that THEY(it) are the ones who know how to prosper and THEY(it) are the only ones qualified to retain the profits.
And so yeah, people say that America's greatness may have peaked sometime around the moon landing, and it is worthwhile to make an inventory of how it may have affected life in our parents' heyday in order to see how this perpetual maidenhood had been foisted (foisted?) upon the circumstances of our upbringing. Loose money, for instance, discretionary wealth that you COULD spend in objective self-interest or you COULD use for christmas gifts, and yeah part of the narrative was probably that you SHOULD waste a little coin on frivolty and you're probably immoral for not doing so. After all it could affect the status of your child in the lunchhalls and playgrounds. So for me, that was like He-Man's Rod of Aaron, every boy my age hadtahave one.
In the asexual Lego & Transformers narative historically you can see a few novel attempts to describe the psychological mutations. There is the person you are, and the reputation you can earn, and so the novelty of toys was to mechanically be transformed between humanoid and machine form. If only someone had explained to me that reputation is something that goes beyond temporal existence while I was 8 or 9!
So now, and I think especialy for Gen Z, there is this desire to speedrun, the desire to push 'reset' and start over again and again until you make a flawless victory. But building a following and garnering the trust of other individuals cannot happen that way. And it becomes harder and harder to admit defeat. The 'value judgment' that an AI system places on event:RageQuit or event:FlippedMonopolyBoard is a new type.of secret that will affect people's careers.
And people experience such phenomena without knowing why, why the record of their actions has shut doors on the progress towards adulthood.
So lately, the MMO scene substitutes this metaphor of 'metamorphosis of character' for the 3-in-1 motif of men as combined replicas of the Holy Father Holy Son and Holy Spirit. But the avatar doesn't ever actually gain greater responsibilities, it only acquires strength to do more damage inside an arena.
As for women? Have you seen the baby accessory to go with her? Have you seen many grandma action figures? I have one, it is a Muppets Barbara Streisand McDonald's Happy Meal Figure. But see every company has its own product line reflective of the ethos they had hoped to sell them on. And Clark Kent always tried to keep his personal life his professional life and his heroic deeds separate from the public knowledge. There was, briefly, only ONE lovechild between Clark and Lois, and Stan Lee's series have all abandoned the concept of contuity of narrative events in fiction whenever the audiemce demanded.
So yeah, that is the difficulty of reinstating the trope of maidenmothercrone. College was an escape from having to live with one's parents. But as per the developmental understanding of children who do NOT grow up with both parents and grandparents, there is no real explicit injunction to teach children they(he,she) will grow up and yeah become grandparents. And without that, maybe there has to be explicit injunctions from the speech of parents, while they are not totally distracted, in order to encourage the cycle of life to continue. Tell them I love you, tell them you are a good person because if you don't someone or something else will.
Damn. That's a whole essay, and I love it. Freedom to or freedom from? We choose our collective poison....
Not to mention Gen Xers and Millennials still in the comic book "phase." Or on the non-literary side in what the effect of the series "Sex and the City" had on the psyche of American women in staying "maidens". But your "Peter Pan-like limbo," that was apropos.