Tomorrow's date is 11/11/11. Some people believe that extraordinary things might happen on the day. Like, for instance, some adult children might actually move out of their parents' basements and get a life.
Kids today. Sheesh. And, anyway, is a 24-year-old living at home with mom and dad "a kid?" Perhaps it is more accurate to refer to such a person as "an emerging adult." Honestly. That's going around, the "emerging adult" thing. Try that one at work, or in court, if you've got into a scrape. "But Your Honour, I'm only 24. I'm only an emerging adult. I can't take responsibility."
Boomerang Generation (CBC, 9 p.m. on Doc Zone) is a sizzler of a doc. You don't have to be codger to find your blood pressure going up, way up, while watching it.
First we are told, in an overview, that everybody should become accustomed to young adults living in their childhood homes with their parents. We're told that people in their twenties or thirties living with mom and dad is the "new normal." Stats are thrown at us. In Italy 70 per cent of young adults live "casa mama" and are called bamboccioni, or "big babies." In the United Kingdom they are called "yuckies" – Young, Unwitting, Costly Kids. Here and in the United States they're called "boomerangs," because they keep on returning home.
Then we meet some of those young people living with mom and pop. A good deal is made of the difference between the situation now and that of the "boomer" generation. Too much is made of it, frankly. It is too easy to encapsulate decades of recent history and neatly package it as a "boomer" thing. It is true, as pointed out in the doc, that some current conditions, especially the cost of third-level education and ensuing student debt, plus higher unemployment, put some young people in a vise of no job, no prospects and no end to financial liability.
However, once we meet some of the "big babies," sympathy shrinks. Some are slackers, mooching off mom and dad and taking an inordinately long time to figure out what to do with their lives. We meet a woman in England who has decamped to her mom's house for the umpteenth time and declares that she "can't stand" doing things like laundry, cooking and cleaning the house. Cry me a river.
You can make up your own mind about some of the Canadian twentysomethings seen here, justifying their decisions to live with mom or both parents well into adulthood. Some evoke compassion and others emphatically evoke skepticism. With all of them, really, it's the parents you feel for. Call me a codger – one who lived away from home at age 17 and emigrated to Canada, alone at age 22 – but there is just something unnerving about seeing a twentysomething guy still living in mom and dad's basement, watching hockey and showing little interest in moving out.
Inevitably, experts pop up in Boomerang Generation (made by Sharon Bartlett, Maria LeRose and Sue Ridout), and one brings up the idea of "emerging adults." Apparently there's research which suggests that a person's brain hasn't fully evolved to a truly adult stage until he or she reaches the mid-twenties. Some viewers will respond to that with, "Yeah, right." Thankfully, another expert makes the rather obvious observation that the brain needs challenges and change to evolve. So, you know, get out of the basement!
Boomerang generation, my bum. Some of them are scammers and slackers. Yuckies indeed.
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The excellent Boomer Generation is preceded tonight by The Jungle Prescription on The Nature of Things (CBC, 8 p.m.), a doc that will also induce equal amounts of skepticism and sympathy.
The subject has already received considerable coverage and provoked controversy. It is mainly about Dr. Gabor Maté's use of ayahuasca, a traditional Amazonian concoction, to help drug addicts cease addictive behaviour. The concoction essentially brings on a trance, uncorks painful memories held in the brain and allows the addict to deal with the causes of addiction. In the days since CBC News featured Maté's work with addicts in Vancouver, using ayahuasca as part of the treatment, last weekend, Health Canada has threatened him with criminal prosecution if he continues use of the concoction.
The program, which is beautifully made, is largely supportive of the idea that ayahuasca might offer promise as a long-term treatment for severe addiction. There is some evidence of potential, but that evidence is being accumulated in Spain, not here. Where skepticism might arise is in that place, illuminated here, where a combination of psychiatry and an ancient Amazonian medicine seem to trump science. Or "western medicine," as it is often called in the doc. An intriguing story is told here, truly a challenging one.
Check local listings.